| Turnabout Paragraph
As its name implies, a turnabout paragraph purports
to be heading in one direction and then goes in the opposite direction.
It usually begins by stating a shared assumption, which the writer in
short steps seeks to overturn or undo. Like the climactic paragraph, the
turnabout paragraph is structured to persuade the reader away from a prior
belief or understanding toward a new point of view.
One of the most widely held
views of the second half of the 20th century was that the abolition
or elimination of nuclear weapons was an absolute good or an eminently
desirable objective. The memories or images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were part of the collective consciousness of succeeding generations.
The literature about the destructive power of nuclear and thermonuclear
bombs was often graphic and inspired sentiments of horror and
revulsion. Nuclear weapons came to be seen as inherently evil.
No sane or moral person could possibly hold a contrary view. .
. . The power of the received idea or collective wisdom, and the
fervour with which it was propounded, were usually sufficient
to cow dissenters. . . . Except in the arcane world and journals
of what the late Prime Minister Trudeau disparagingly described
as "the nuclear accountants,” there was little genuine
debate about the merits of nuclear weapons. Few politicians, journalists
or academics were prepared to admit publicly that to this question,
as to most questions, there might be two sides. And yet there
is another side.
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This turnabout paragraph begins characteristically by expressing a generally
held truth, to which the reader most likely gives assent. But by the end
to the paragraph the writer has begun to turn away from the opening assertion.
A yet or but statement (underlined) usually signals
a turn in the argument.
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