SECTION Two--Developing Papers: Classifying: Making Groups

Classifying is a method of developing and organizing papers that is closely related to dividing and also requires skill in comparing. In dividing you separate something into parts to see what it’s made up of. In classifying you sort a collection of individual things — cars, people, sports, foods, books, wars—into groups or classes on the basis of likenesses, so that they’ll be easier to understand and easier to think and talk about. Much of human knowledge is organized by classification, in the humanities as well as in the physical sciences and the social sciences (note this classification). So is much human prejudice, as in racial, ethnic, regional, social, and sexual stereotypes (note this classification). What we’re primarily concerned with here are the criteria you should keep in mind as you make new groupings in the course of expressing your ideas about your subject.

Consistency

Like division, classification should be consistent — that is, only one principle of classification should be applied at a time. You can classify cars by make or by size or by price, people by age or by weight or by nationality, and so on. Once you’ve classified your subject according to one principle, you can classify it by another; but don’t shift principles in mid-classification.

For your grouping to be reasonably sound, the classes must be reasonably separate and distinct. In a paper de scribing the football fans at his college, a student set up four groups: alumni, students, serious fans, and “the ones that party.” As a classification this is a mishmash. Both alumni and students may attend tailgate parties, and whether they do or not, they may be serious fans. Beginning with a single principle of classification—main purpose in attending — would have permitted a division into those who come primarily for love of the game, those who come primarily for love of the school, and those who come primarily for social reasons. Then these groups could have been subdivided. For example, those who come primarily for love of the game would probably include students, alumni, and fans who have no connection with the college.

In some situations logical consistency is neither possible nor necessary. In the passage below, a classification of the “new” students of the 1970s produces four groups that are “distinctive but overlapping.” Some of the members of the third group, for instance, also fit into the fourth group. For anyone interested in higher education in the 1970s this overlapping wouldn’t be troublesome. What’s important is that ethnic minorities, whether the members are men or women, make up one significant group of “new” students. Another significant group is made up of women who are gaining admission through “public conscience and Affirmative Action.”

The new clientele for higher education in the 1970s consists of everyone who wasn’t there in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. There are four distinctive but overlapping groups: (1) low academic achievers who are gaining entrance through open admissions; (2) adults and part-time learners who are gaining access through nontraditional alternatives; (3) ethnic minorities; and (4) women who are gaining admission through public con science and Affirmative Action. — Patricia Cross, Change

In classifying a subject with which you’re personally associated — say sorority or fraternity members — you may make the mistake of using individuals you know as the basis for establishing groups. If you do, your classification is likely to emerge as a series of character sketches. A classifier must concentrate on the type, not the individual. The main concern is not the idiosyncracies that make two people different but the characteristics that they share when they’re looked at from a particular perspective — as students, perhaps, or as voters or as consumers of junk food. What the classifier says, in effect, is that for the purpose he has in mind, some people can be grouped with some other people. Despite their many differences in respects unrelated to the point he’s making, they are alike in terms of the principle of classification he’s applying.

Completeness

The classifier’s interest in the type rather than the individual often makes necessary some relaxation of the rule that a classification must be complete—that is, that it must assign a place to every item in the collection of items being classified. Formal classifications, like those used in the sciences, seek to organize all the available data ac cording to objective criteria. But making your classification all-inclusive when its aims are modest and its criteria personal may be unwise as well as unnecessary. For most purposes the rule can be modified to something like this:

A classification should be as complete as your knowledge of the subject permits and as your purpose requires.

In classifying a large group of people, there’s no necessity for pigeonholing every last individual. A too-conscientious effort to do so may result in the major groupings getting lost among minor divisions and catchalls with labels like “borderline” and “miscellaneous” and “other.” The writer who says that there are four types of students or five types of statesmen or three types of singers is not saying that every student or statesman or singer fits comfortably into one of these groups. What he is saying is that four (or five or three) classes can be differentiated in ways that are significant for the purpose he has in mind. If the classification is relatively inclusive, if each class is substantiated by enough details to make it a real one, and if the classes are adequately differentiated from one another, the reader will be satisfied.

Many informal classifications have a highly personal flavor. In her guide The OK Boss, For example, Muriel James classifies types of bosses as the critic, the coach, the shadow, the analyst, the pacifier, the fighter, and the inventor. Another classifier of bosses might come up with a completely different set of labels. In discovering and offering a new way of looking at a subject, you may learn and reveal something about yourself as well.

• For Analysis

Examine the following groupings. Explain why you think each grouping is or is not logically sound (or as sound as the subject permits’). If you find a grouping satisfactory, tell what kind of paper It might be appropriately used in. If you think a grouping is unsatisfactory, propose a better one.

a. College students: those who want an education, those who want a job, those who want a diploma

b. Crime-and-detection TV programs: criminal-centered, police-centered, private-detective-centered

c. Cars: those that look good and those that give good service

d. Churchgoers: the devout, the insecure, the socialites

e. Political extremists: the ultraconservatives, the ultraliberals, the know-nothings

f. Approaches to social problems: know-nothing, know-it-all

Sometimes you’ll be interested not in setting up a classification of your own but in fitting your subject into an existing classification. When you want to make a judgment about a movie, you often start by placing it in a class— comedy, satire, melodrama, musical, or whatever. Then you can go on to make further distinctions by comparing it with other members of that same class. Sometimes you can draw interesting conclusions about your subject by showing that it doesn’t fit into existing categories. A fondness for branding mavericks can lead to competing labels: the music of Willie Nelson has been classified as, among other things, progressive country and redneck rock.

Observers with an eye for new trends and new variations on old themes are constantly creating classifications or making fresh applications of existing ones. In the pre writing stage, when you’re mulling over possible approaches to a subject, you can often generate good ideas by putting your subject into as many different classes as you can think of. So long as things are in the process of changing—and they always will be—there are endless opportunities for giving a fresh reading of experience and inventing new classifications.

Writing a passage or a whole paper that classifies calls on many of the skills you use in comparing. Similarities cause you to put a number of objects in a single class; differences cause you to create separate classes. So as you classify, keep your emphasis on those similarities and differences. And make them convincing through the use of descriptive details.

• For Analysis and Writing

1. Propose five different principles or bases for classifying each of the following subjects: clothes, vegetables, liberation movements, songs, humorists, notions of physical beauty. (Example: Students might be classified on the bases of their reasons for being in college, their study habits, their recreational choices, their places of origin, and their manner of dress—not necessarily in that order.) Not every principle need be serious. Use your imagination. Once you have your five principles, set up the classes that each principle yields. Then choose one of the classifications and write a paper that makes use of it.

2. A stereotype is a classification that’s applied unthinkingly and without regard for individual differences. It may reflect the user’s bias and may be in part responsible for that bias. With a few descriptive labels—”weak,” “strong”; “honest,” “dishonest”; “hard-working,” “lazy”; and so on—sketch a popular stereotype of each of the following: college students, politicians, mothers, males. Write a short paper about a college student, a politician, a mother, or a male who doesn’t fit the stereotype. Then sketch a new class—not a stereotype—that accounts for that person.

3. Analyze the people you went to high school with according to some principle of classification that interests you. Write for a specific audience—your high-school counselor, a student who attended a different high school, a student who will be attending your high school next year, your parents. Make your classification support a generalization—some point or some conviction you want to express about your high-school class mates.

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