Explanation Text and Review Text

 
Explanation text is a text genre which tries to explain how a thing happens or why the thing is made. Explanation text actually is similar to procedure text, however, explanation text tends to explain. While the procedure text is intended to instruct how to form or make something.

Bellow are some examples of explanation text which are grouped into several topics. This list of links relating to explanation text hopefully helps students to get more understanding about text genres, especially an explanation text.

Generic structure of Explanation

1.  General statement; stating the phenomenon issues which are to be explained.

2.  Sequenced explanation; stating a series of steps which explain the phenomena.

Language Features

            a. Using specific participant

                e.g.  sun, water, rain, etc

            b.  Using chronological connection; to begin with, next, etc

c.  Using Simple Present Tense

d.  Using action verbs

e.  Using passive voice

f.  Using noun phrase

g.  Using adverbial phrase

h.  Using general and abstract noun

i.  Using conjunction of time and cause-effect.

Contoh Explanation Text :

1.

How Cell Phone Work

A cell phone is a great gadget in this modern world. What is a cell phone? A cell phone is actually a radio in certain way. Like a radio, by a cell phone we can communicate to other people in real time. Million people use cell phone for their communication. Even nowadays, people use cell phones to communicate in voice, written and data. Alexander Graham Bell is the person who make great change in the way people communicate to each other. He invented a telephone in 1876. While wireless radio was formally known in 18994 presented by Guglielmo Marconi. By these two technologies, then a cell phone was born. However do you know how actually cell phones work?

This short explanation on how a cell phone work is really wonderful. A cell phone or in long term "cellular telephone' works by transmitting signals of radio to towers of cellular. The towers are networked to a central switching station. The connection usually uses wire, fiber optic-cables, or microwave.

Then the central switching station which handles calls in certain given area is directed connected to the wire-based telephone system. Cellulars are pick up by the towers and relayed to another cellular telephone user or the user of wire-based telephone network.

the towers vary in the capacity and capability to receive signals. Some can receive the signal from short distance and the others can receive more distance. However, there are usually more than one tower in certain given area so that the system can handle the increasing telephone traffic. 

2. 

How is a Kite Flying?

A kite is an object which is made from a light material stretched over a frame. Due to its light material a kite will lift off the ground and fly when it is tilted into the wind.

A kite is uses wind to make it fly because it is heavier than air. When wind travels over the surface of the kite, it is split into two streams of air. One stream of the air goes over the kite while the second stream goes under the kite.

The upper stream creates an area of low pressure above the kite. The lower stream hits the kite at a shallow angle and creates an area of high pressure.

The high pressure area has a pushing effect while the low pressure area has a pulling effect. The combination of push and pull can creates enough force to lift the kite into the air.

Kites have been known for thousand of years. They are used for military or scientific purposes. Todays kites are much used for leisure and competition. 

3. 

Why Eiffel Tower was Built

If we talk about the Wonders of the World buildings, then we will see Eiffel Tower as one of them. However many of us do not know the tower’s past history on why it was build. Everything has the reasonable background, especially for the tower which is to be one of the most recognized buildings in the world.

Primarily, the Eiffel Tower was built for the World Exhibition. It was called Paris Exposition in 1889. The exhibition was organized to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution. The purpose of building Eiffel Tower in such structure was to show to the world France’s advancement of technology and beauty. The Eiffel Tower was designed by Gustave Eiffel. It seemed that then the name of the tower was derived from the designer’s last name, “Eiffel”

Another reason on why the tower was built was for scientific progress. Although few realized it, the Eiffel Tower would become the prominent structure in terms of science and technology. Many experiment with temperature, pressure and pendulums were performed atop the unique famous building. Additionally the Eiffel Tower was used for radio transmission tower. Many experiments were conducted atop the Eiffel Tower for radio transmission advancement. Once the Eiffel Tower was proposed to be demolished but it was spared because the tower had the promising future as a radio tower.

4. 

How Chocolate is Made

Have we wondered how we get chocolate from? Well this time we will enter the amazing world of chocolate so we can understand exactly we are eating.

Chocolate starts a tree called cacao tree. This tree grows in equatorial regions, especially in place such as South America, Africa, and Indonesia. The cacao tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pine apple. In side the fruits are the tree's seeds. They are also known as coco beans.

Next, the beans are fermented for about a week, dried in the sun. After that they are shipped to the chocolate maker. The chocolate maker starts by roasting the beans to bring out the flavour. Different beans from different places have different qualities and flavour. So they are often shorted and blended to produce a distinctive mix.

The next process is winnowing. The roasted beans are winnowed to remove the meat nib of the cacao bean from its shell. Then the nibs are blended. The blended nibs are ground to make it a liquid. The liquid is called chocolate liquor. It tastes bitter.

All seeds contain some amount of fat and cacao beans are not different. However, cacao beans are half fat, which is why the ground nibs from liquid. It is pure bitter chocolate.

5. 

Photosynthesis

What is photosynthesis? Photosynthesis is a food-making process that occurs in green plants. It is the chief function of leaves. The word photosynthesis means putting together with light. Green plants use energy from light to combine carbon dioxide and water to make sugar and other chemical compounds.

How is the light used in photosynthesis?

The light used in photosynthesis is absorbed by a green pigment called chlorophyll. Each food-making cell in a plant leaf contains chlorophyll in small bodies called chloroplasts. In chloroplast, light energy causes water drawn form the soil to split into hydrogen and oxygen.

What are the steps of photosynthesis process? Let me tell you the process of photosynthesis, in a series of complicated steps, the hydrogen combines with carbon dioxide from the air, forming a simple sugar. Oxygen from the water molecules is given off in the process. From sugar together with nitrogen, sulphur, and phosporus from the soil-green plants can make starch, fat, protein, vitamins, and other complex compounds essential for life. Photosynthesis provides the chemical energy that is needed to produced these compounds.

REVIEW TEXT

Pengertian Review Text

Secara harfiah, review bermakna "tinjauan, ringkasan, tinjauan ulang." Jika ada frasa book review berarti bermakna tinjauan buku. Karenanya, review text bisa diartikan secara harfiah sebagai teks yang difungsikan untuk meninjau. Apa saja yang ditinjau? ya apa saja lah, baik buku, produk kecantikan, mobil, hp, laptop dan lain sebagainya.

Social Function Review Text

Ternyata review text bisa berfungsi sebagai to criticise an art work, event for a public audience. (untuk memberikan kritik terhadap suatu karya seni, ataupun lainnya untuk khalayak umum).

Generic Structure Review Text

• Orientation : places the work in its general and particular context, often by comparing it with others of its kind or through an analog with a non–art object or event. (menempatkan karya yang ditinjau pada konteks umum ataupun khusus, biasanya dengan membandingkan dengan karya lain yang sejenis atau melalui analogi obyek yang bukan karya seni.)

• Interpretive Recount : summarize the plot and/or providers an account of how the reviewed rendition of the work came into being.(meringkas alur cerita "jika mereview buku" bagaimana cara penyampaian karya tersebut)

• Evaluation : provides an evaluation of the work and/or its performance or production; is usually recursive.(memberikan sebuah evaluari karya ataupun penampilan, produksi; evaluasi ini biasanya berulang-ulang)
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• Contoh Review Text (1) - A Book Review
  
  
  Rhymes of the Times By: Harold Matthew Nash 
  Publisher: Booksurge
  Reviewed by: John Lehman
     
  I particularly liked the first few pages of this book where the poet acknowledges those who have helped him and tells us something about his life. Too often writing is a lonely task and poetry so personal that it excludes others until they read the final result. But both poets and audiences are intimately involved in the process. Readers are not consumers looking for a pair of shoes, but people trying to discover something about how they feel, as well as understand the emotions of the person writing the poem. This spirit of openness and participation is right here from the start in this collection. 
  
  
  Harold is one of nine children, raised by his mother. In the Introduction he tells us about public moments that have shaped his life (Martin Luther King’s ”I Have a Dream” speech, Muhammad Ali’s “I can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”) as well as very private ones like attending the wedding of a girl he was still very much in love with. This not only gives us an insight into the person behind these poems, it helps us understand their inspiration and connection to things outside of the words. “The Bee in the Web” draws on the “butterfly”/”bee” of Ali’s boast, yet expands on it to a message of racial harmony as opposed to one of militant aggression and separatism. 
  
  There are some great titles (“The Martian and the Wino,” “W Stands for Wrong", ”Fasten Your Seatbelt”) and lines that make us think (“Sometimes I feel that life’s a curse, has front-wheel drive and no reverse” and the very poignant “I hate in order to protect yourself—you pack a gun or mace. So why don’t I say what the hell and hate the human race.”) There are also some bad lines: “Her skin is cream, her body is slim. Looking at her makes the average saint sin.”—perhaps, but what or who is “the average saint”? The book ends with a sweet poem by Charla Angeline Hultmann (and I really like the candor of her bio) called “Gift” and “giving” is the real spirit of this book of poetry. 
  
  I will be honest, I am not a fan of rhyme. There is a delight in adjacent sounds rubbing together—vowels held and savored, consonants clicking in a row—but “easy” rhymes (“head”/“dead”; “love”/”dove”; “moon”/”prune”) tend to overshadow poetic subtleties, determine word choice and the words themselves lose their meaning, becoming clichés. But this is the music of this poet’s generation, and there is no denying that poetry is more alive, more meaningful and more accessible than it has ever been at any other time during my life. PS I do love the “Osama” “mama” rhyme. In general I think it would benefit Harold Nash’s development to read more of the published contemporary Black poets. 
  
  
  But form aside, this is an honest (courageous and unflinching) look at life today—one we need to share together for the survival of us all. That is “Rhymes of the Times” message. And it is a good one.