division or classification

We spend a good deal of time organizing our environment in order to make sense of it and deal with it more efficiently. "Edibility" and " storage location " would be the principles of classification and division in the preceding examples. In writing, we classify and divide a subject in order to explain it to readers. A division/classification paragraph or essay either divides something into parts or groups related things into categories. Division and classification are ways of presenting a body of information in an organized and easily accessible way. In division we list the component parts of a single thing. For example, every essay we write could be divided into the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. In turn, the body could probably be further subdivided. Instead of starting with a single thing, classification occurs when we have many things and we try to organize or file them. Division is the process of breaking a whole into parts; classification is the act of sorting individual items into categories.Through classification and division, we can make sense of seemingly random ideas by putting scattered bits of information into useful, coherent order. By breaking a large group into smaller categories and bringing separate items together into particular categories, we are able to identify relationships between the whole and its parts and to recognize similarities and differences among the parts themselves. (Remember, though, that simply enumerating representative examples does not constitute classification; when you classify, you always sort individual examples into categories according to some grouping principle.) Division is the opposite of classification. When you divide, you start with a whole (an entire class) that you break into its individual parts-smaller, more specific classes, called subclasses. For example, you might start with the large general class television shows and divide it into smaller subclasses: comedy, drama, action/adventure, and so forth. You could divide each of these subclasses still further-- action/adventure programs, for example, might include westerns, police shows, and so on--and each of these subclasses could be further divided as well. Eventually you would need to determine a particular principle to help you assign specific programs to one category or another--that is, to classify them.