TITLE: The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution.

LAYOUT: "The chief features of the Industrial Revolution" is an argumentative text; in fact it is dividend in 10 paragraphs.

SETTING: This text is written by Arnold Toynbee in 1884.

STRUCTURE: In the first paragraph the writer introduces the topic he wants to deal with, a detailed account of the Industrial Revolution. Just after, the writer exposes his thesis by defining the essence of the Industrial Revolution and by identifying two different system of thought: the Economic Science and the Socialism. Moreover, the writer uses both informative arguments and quotations ("the great object of Political Economy of every country is to increase the riches and power of that country") of the four most important economists of that time to support his thesis.
Then, in the second and third paragraph he exposes the main facts of the Industrial Revolution: the decline of agricultural population and the growth of population. Besides, he uses quantitative information (between 1781 and 1791 it was 9 per cent; between 1791 and 1801, 11 per cent....) to support his thesis.
Instead, in the fourth paragraph, the writer explains the three most effective causes of the rural population's decline: the destruction of the common - field system of cultivation, the enclosure and the consolidation of small farms into large. He uses both cause-effect arguments and quotations.
Also, in the fifth paragraph the writer uses quotations ("It has been found, by long experience, that common or open fields are great hindrances to the public good, and to the honest improvement which everyone might make of his own") to explain the agricultural advance, such as rotation of crops, agricultural societies and breed of cattle.
In the sixth and seventh paragraph, the writer exposes the causes of the industry's growth, always using both quantitative information and quotations ("old barns, cart-houses, out-buildings of all descriptions were repaired, windows broke through the old blank walls, and all fitted up for loom-shops;") to support his thesis.
The same operation is also completed in the last paragraphs, which deal respectively with the distribution of wealth and the social changes in manufacturing world. He informative arguments.
In the last paragraph, the writer draws conclusion about the effects of the Industrial Revolution.

LANGUAGE: In this argumentative text, the writer uses a formal and concrete language. The paragraphs follow both a chronological and cause-effect order that make the text clear and comprehensive. Also the connectors and linkers follow both a chronological and cause-effect order (a second stage, a third stage, coming to the facts, however, passing to...).