ShmoopTube

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[Dino and Coop singing]

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When we break something up into smaller pieces, it becomes easier to digest. [People taking slices of a pizza]

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That’s why we bite our food instead of shoving an entire slice of pizza in our mouths. [Girl taking a bite of her slice]

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Eh…most of us, anyway. [Guy with his mouth stuffed with pizza]

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Well, the exact same thing is true when it comes to writing.

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No one wants to shove an entire piece of writing in their mouth. [Boy eating paper]

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Thankfully, pretty much any text you read comes to you already sliced up into smaller pieces. [Waiter bringing text in slices]

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Continuous, unbroken texts sorta went out of fashion with scrolls. [Girl holding a scroll]

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Nowadays, it's common for a text to be broken up by headers, sub-headers, chapters, pages, [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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and paragraphs.

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We see it a lot in non-fiction.

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Let's take a look at The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr.

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Before we even get past the table of contents, we get a glimpse of some of the various ways

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this text has been… sliced to bits. [Table of Contents is shown]

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Not only do we see that the text has been divided into six chapters, but a bunch of

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those chapters have been divided into smaller sections. [Smaller sections are highlighted]

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Let's check out the second chapter to get an even closer look.

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Even within a section within a chapter, we see still more divisions. [Broken up text is shown]

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Different ideas get parceled off into separate paragraphs, and even individual examples are

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given a bit of elbow room.

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There’s no overcrowding on this bus. [Bus full of people]

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Slicing up text isn't just something you'll see in stuff you read; it's worth doing in

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your own writing, too.

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Sometimes these breaks will be kind of obvious.

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For instance, if you're writing a report on an experiment, there’s already a standard [Scientist's experiment explodes]

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for which sections the report should be divided into: [Flames appear]

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An introduction, followed by materials and methods, then results, discussion, and conclusion. [Dino pointing at a blackboard]

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Easy peasy.

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But with a lot of your writing, the divisions won't be quite that rigid, or obvious. [Girl looking a confused at a computer]

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One helpful rule of thumb is to divide up a text in ways that will help to highlight [Coop pointing at a blackboard]

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important ideas.

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Say you're writing about the popularity of pizza in the United States.

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Since the popularity has changed over time, it might be a good idea to divide your text [Girl typing on the computer]

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into sections that cover different periods in pizza's rich history…

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…from its arrival on American shores with Italian immigrants… [People arriving on a big sailboat]

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… to its first big bump in popularity from soldiers returning from WWII… [Soldier in a restaurant all eating pizza]

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…to the present, where it more or less reigns supreme among all of food-dom. [Pile of pizza boxes]

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So whether we're reading or writing, a well-sliced text… [Someone slicing a pizza that has text written all over it]

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…always goes down easier.

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