Classification Essay
Putting Items into Catagories

Check Your Categories

topic--categories--items

Did you choose the categories? Are they original and interesting?
Are the categories inclusive? Can "new" items be placed?
Do categories overlap? unique assignments?
Are there any miscellaneous categories?
Are there any empty categories? categories with one item?
What principle did you use?
What is the relationship between categories and items?
What is the same within each category?
What is different between categories?
Is the relationship objective, subjective, or arbitrary?
What are you going to write about?

Why

Why divide things into classes? To think deeply about borders, boundaries, and the way things are connected, the connections that give structure and complexity to our world. Take food as an example: most people only think about how food tastes and how much it costs. But if we think about food more deeply, we might think about the biological role of food--the way all living things get energy from the sun via the food chain, how that energy is stored in chemicals made from carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, how it is transferred up the food chain from plants to insects and small animals on to larger more ferocious animals. We could think more deeply about the color of foods--why bananas, apples, and oranges all start out green and then change color as they ripen. We could think about taste and nutritional value of carbohydrates, fats, and protein. What are the sources of sugar, starches, and fat? How are they connected? What about meat, cheese, milk, and honey? What is meat before it becomes food? Muscle, right? What part of the plant do vegetables, fruits, and grains come from? We might think about the history and evolution of human food culture from vegetarians swinging in trees to carnivores roaming the plains to agriculture and domesticated animals. Then we could think about processing and distribution. How is food processed before it reaches the retail stores? How is it processed after it leaves them. What is the role of water, fats, and oils in cooking and in the body?

Comments

Foods are (?) classified into four groups. For example, ... It is good to use examples in your explanations, but the categories themselves are not examples. They are groups of food. And you are the one who is deciding the groups. Category is staple foods: rice in Japan, bread in America. Does the category depend on who you are? where you live? Is the category objective, subjective, or arbitrary?

Category is side-dishes. The name has been used, but the category hasn't been described or explained. So, what is a side-dish?

Category is snack. Defined as food that comes between full meals. Sometimes potato chips come with a meal. Is it then a side-dish, rather than a snack?

Category is desert. Why is it not a side-dish? or a snack? Because it comes right after a meal?

Categories cannot be defined by personal taste. Likes and dislikes are unexplainable and thus irrelevant. Nor should they be based on rumor or reputation. If health foods are a category, the items should actually be healthy.

Examples should only be used to help define the categories. Do not simply list items in a category. You must explain them.

Any overlap should be kept to a minimum. Boiled and fried foods don't overlap, but sweet and raw foods do. A lot of sweet foods are eaten raw--apples, bananas, cherries.

Bitter and sour foods may not overlap much, but they certainly overlap with baked foods and liquids.

Flavors, like salt and sugar, can be added to any food, so taste doesn't really reflect the reality of the food itself. It's not a reasonable way to divide processed foods.

Medicine tastes bitter. Is it food?

All foods should be included. Is one category fish? Then what about meat? You can't just ignore it. Put it with the fish? Make it a separate category? Is there an important distinction between fish and meat? And what about eggs? and cheese?

Sushi is not the only raw food. How about corn flakes?

And what about baked and broiled food? You can't just leave those foods out.

Anything interesting about food color? Well, red food is often green before it ripens. Why? Yellow=lemon? Brown=chocolate?

months (days)

by the four seasons

soccer players

by positions: forward, mid field, defense, and goalie

flowers

by the four seasons
lily?, sasanqua?

food

meat, vegetable, fruit, other (carbohydrates)
cheese, ice cream, peanuts, chocolate, mushroom, cornflake
chopsticks, fork, spoon, hand
meat, strawberry, donut, spaghetti, carrot
fish?, pizza?, jelly?, rice?, salad?

countries

by four religions: Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jewish
Russia, Japan, Vietnam, Congo
India?, China?
by four sports: baseball, soccer, volleyball, and horse racing
Canada, Egypt, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Sudan
Japan?, Britain?

land animals

by mammal, "reptile", amphibian, and birds
spider, penguin, mosquito, platypus, cockroach, worm
salamander?, eft?, ant?, butterfly?

The first two steps in writing a Classification Essay are to figure out (1) the topic--what kind of items to divide up and (2) how to divide the items.

2a. brainstorm many items
2b. group items that are very similar (no interesting differences)
2c. brainstorm many objective differences between dissimilar items
2d. decide which differences are interesting enough to write about

Let's take English words as an example topic. What kinds of words are there?

R1, R2--

nouns--names (pleurals)
bear, soccer, pen, season, tomato, circle, wood, crime, asthma, flu, arm, joy, color, size

verbs--actions (past tense)
eat, sleep, learn, see, shine, be, hate, meet, experience, encounter, enjoy

auxiliary verbs--
can, will,

adjectives--description of person or thing
big, hot, red, circular, wooden, many, right, happy, my, great, angry, sad,

adverbs--
also, moreover,

R3--

no meaning alone
a, for, is

prepositions--relations and locations in time and space
before, after, at, on, in, above, below, left, during,

many words--new and old

few words--unchanging

M2--

feelings--
wow, oh

subjective feelings--
big, beautiful,

objective meaning--
I, you, cat, school

alive, conscious, moving things--
people, animals

inert, unconscious things--
table, fork, computer

Topics and items that students thought of:
What Classes could you divide the items into?

t o p i c s Musical instruments Alcohol Clothes Guitarists Wars Women Emotions Learning Heroes

i t e m s violin, trumpet, saxophone, snare drum, cymbals . . . . beer, wine, wiskey, bourbon, gin, vodka, scotch . . . jeans, gakuran, suit, necktie, T-shirt, kimono, . . . Hendrix, Benson, Fuse, Clapton, Beck, Page . . . Iraq War, World War II, Boshin War, Vietnam War . . . Yukorin, Ayu, Oyuki, Miki Ando, Crystal, Kyon-chan . . . love, hate, happy, sad, anger, fear, embarrassment . . . memorization, practice, reflection . . . Lincoln, Prince Shotoku, Nobel, Eistein, Brad Pitt . . .

When deciding the topic and how to divide the items, you should keep in mind the last step--figuring out (3) what to write in your essay. It is best if you have based the division of items on a single principle (based on objective differences), one which is

(a) original, (b) useful, and/or (c) intellectually interesting.

Let's take countries as an example topic. There are about 200 countries. How could we divide them? by their first letters from A to Z. But ... such a division would be completely arbitrary. The classes would tell us nothing about the countries--nothing original, useful, or interesting--so there is nothing to write about.

We could divide them by location in the northern or southern hemispheres. That's a little more interesting, but still too obvious, almost trivial. Although we could point out that their seasons are reversed and try to explain how the classification would work for countries that are in both hemispheres, that would not be enough to make an essay interesting.

How about dividing countries by their political systems. That's much more complex. We have to think more deeply about each country. It's a little bit troublesome, perhaps, but much, much more interesting . And we'll have a much better essay when we're finished.