What is the difference between general detail and specific detail in academic reading?

Answer 1

Specific Detail always addresses the Who, What, Where When and Why of a subject. General detail often only addresses one or a few of these. However, it is a bit more complicated than that. The best way to explain this concept is through an example.

Excerpt from “The Kitten” (Wright, 1967):

It was in this tenement that the personality of my father first came fully into the orbit of my concern. . . . I learned that I could not make noise when he was asleep in the daytime. He was the lawgiver in our family and I never laughed in his presence. I used to lurk timidly in the kitchen doorway and watch his huge body sitting slumped at the table. I stared at him with awe as he gulped his beer from a tin bucket, as he ate long and heavily, sighed, belched, closed his eyes to nod on a stuffed belly. He was quite fat and his bloated stomach always lapped over his belt. He was always a stranger to me, always somehow alien and remote. (p. 141)

General Detail: The kid watches his father

Yes, this does happen and it is a detail in the text, but it doesn't help us to visualize or understand what is happening in the text, it doesn't reveal mood, tone or even thematic elements of the text. It also does not show comprehension of what matters in this text.

Who: the kid and the father

What: watching

Where: ???

When: ???

Why: ???

Specific detail: The son spied on his father while he was eating and described him as a fat and sleepy stranger.

This is a longer sentence because more explanation was given about the event, more detail about what happened. This does show understanding of the tone (how the son felt about his father) and possibly thematic elements (feeling like his father was a stranger)

We have also addressed the Who: Son and father

What: Watching father eat

Where: In the kitchen

When: in the day time

Why: Because the son feels like his father is a stranger and wants to observe and understand him.

As an English teacher, when I ask my students to give specific details, what I am really asking is for them to show me just how deeply they understand what is happening in the text. Did they notice the ugly language used to describe the father (fat, belched, slumped) did they notice that the son was 'lurking' (spying on his father) did they notice that all of this shows that the son feels like he doesn't really know his own father and kind of sees him in a negative way?

I hope that helps