other
portions require different handling. Therefore good speakers usually
combine two or more of these plans.

Partition could hardly be used throughout an entire speech without
ruining its interest. It occurs usually early to map out the general
field or scope. Definition also is likely to be necessary at the
beginning of an explanation to start the audience with clear ideas. It
may be resorted to at various times later whenever a new term is
introduced with a meaning the audience may not entirely understand.
Both partition and definition are short, so they are combined with
other forms. Examples, likewise, may be introduced anywhere.

The two most frequently closely combined are comparison and contrast.
Each seems to require the other. Having shown how two things or ideas
are alike, the speaker naturally passes on to secure more definiteness
by showing that with all their likenesses they are not exactly the
same, and that the differences are as essential to a clear
comprehension of them as the similarities. So usual are they that many
people accept the two words as meaning almost the same thing, though
in essence they are opposites.

The other orders cannot be used in such close combinations but they
may be found in varying degrees in many extended speeches of
explanation as the nature of the material lends itself to one
treatment or another. A twelve-hundred word discussion of _The Future
of Food_ uses examples, contrasted examples, effect to cause, cause to
effect (the phrase beginning a paragraph is "there is already evidence
that this has resulted in a general lowering "), while the succeeding
parts grow in significance until the last is the most important. A
great English statesman in a speech lasting some three hours on a
policy of government employed the following different methods at
various places where he introduced expository material--partition (he
claimed it was classification, but he listed for consideration only
three of the essential five choices), contrast, comparison, time,
example, place, cause to effect. Some of these methods of arranging
explanatory matter were used several times.

EXERCISES

1. Explain a topic by giving three examples. The class should comment
upon their value.

2. Explain to the class some mechanical operation or device. The class
after listening should decide which method the speaker used.

3. Explain some principle of government or society following the time
orde