Notice that the first sentence gives the topic statement, flood plains are productive.  The second and third sentences tell why this is so, and the rest of the paragraph is given up to illustrations.

In preparing this paragraph for recitation the pupil should have in mind an outline about as follows:—­

Topic statement:  Flood plains are the most productive lands in the world.

1.  Reasons.
2.  Examples:  (a) Bottom lands.
             (b) Nile.
             (c) Tigris and Euphrates.
             (d) Ganges.
             (e) Hoang.
             (f) Mississippi.

In order to make such an outline, the relative importance of the ideas in the paragraph must be mastered.  A recitation that omitted the topic statement or the reasons would be defective, while one that omitted one or more of the examples might be perfect, especially if the pupil could furnish other examples from his own knowledge.  The illustration about bottom lands is a general one, and should suggest specific cases that could be included in the recitation.  The details in regard to the Nile might be included if they happened to be recalled at the time of the recitation, but even the omission of all mention of the Nile might not materially detract from the value of the recitation.  The effort to remember minor details hinders real thought-getting power.

It is better not to write this outline.  The use of notes or written outlines at the time of the recitation soon establishes a habit of dependence that renders real scholarship an impossibility.  With such an analysis of the thought clearly in mind, the pupil need not attempt to remember the language of the writer.

EXERCISES

A. Complete the partial outline given for the paragraph below.  Which of the illustrations might be omitted from a recitation?  For which can you furnish different illustrations?

Mountain ranges have great influence upon climate, political geography, and commerce.  Many of them form climatic boundaries.  The Cordilleras of western America and the Scandinavian mountains arrest the warm, moist, western winds which rise along those great rock barriers to cooler altitudes, where their water vapor is condensed and falls as rain, so that the country on the windward side of the mountains is wet and that on the leeward side is dry.  Mountain chains stretching east and west across central Asia protect the southern part of the continent from frigid arctic winds.  The large winter tourist traffic of the Riviera is due to the mountains that shield this favored French-Italian coast from the north and northeast continental winds, giving it a considerably warmer winter’s temperature than that of Rome, two and a half degrees farther south.  As North America has no mountain barriers across the pathway of polar winds, they sweep southward even to the Gulf