Writing paragraphs

Exercise 8

Flow of information in paragraphs

Identify the ways of organising the information in the the following paragraphs.

The inventor of the diode valve was Fleming. He made use of the fact, first noticed by Edison, that an electric current could be made to flow across the empty space between the hot filament of an electric lamp and another metal electrode placed inside the evacuated bulb. This effect depends upon the thermionic emission of electrons from the heated metal filament.

(W. P. Jolly, (1972). Electronics, p. 61)

Hemp's environmental credentials are indisputable. It grows better in organic systems than in conventional ones. It smothers weeds and controls pests, clearing the land for other crops. It improves the structure of the soil, with strong roots to prevent erosion. If processed in the field, it returns nutrients to the land and purports to 'clean up' soil contaminated with heavy metals. It is one of a minority of textile-fibre crops that can be grown in temperate climates. So why, given its potential, is so little hemp used today?

(New Internationalist, June 1998, p. 14)

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