Read the excerpt from a farewell to arms.

"the major asked me to have a drink with him and two other officers. we drank rum and it was very friendly. outside it was getting dark. i asked what time the attack was to be and they said as soon as it was dark. i went back to the drivers. they were sitting in the dugout talking and when i came in they stopped. i gave them each a package of cigarettes, macedonias, loosely packed cigarettes that spilled tobacco and needed to have the ends twisted before you smoked them. manera lit his lighter and passed it around. the lighter was shaped like a fiat radiator. i told them what i had heard."

in the passage, hemingway’s characterization of the narrator and his peers:

provides important details about their backgrounds.
allows the reader to fill in the details without being given all of the information.
slows down the narrative to allow the reader to reflect on the meaning.
develops only one character at a time to not overwhelm the reader.

slows down the narrative to allow the reader to reflect on the meaning.

In the passage, Hemingway slows down the narration when he describes the cigarettes and how the narrator and his peers light the cigarettes. These details are not important to the overall plot of the story. These details are rather insignificant. However, by spending a little time on the characterization of the narrator and his peers, Hemingway slows the events of the novel and allows the reader to reflect on the meaning. It's important to notice that the narrator's peers stopped talking when he returned from being outside.

author – information on the internet with a listed author is one indication of a credible site. the fact that the author is willing to stand behind the information presented (and in some cases, include his or her contact information) is a good indication that the information is reliable.

date – the date of any research information is important, including information found on the internet. by including a date, the website allows readers to make decisions about whether that information is recent enough for their purposes.

sources – credible websites, like books and scholarly articles, should cite the source of the information presented.

domain – some domains such as .com, .org, and .net can be purchased and used by any individual. however, the domain .edu is reserved for colleges and universities, while .gov denotes a government website. these two are usually credible sources for information (though occasionally a university will assign a .edu address to each of its students for personal use, in which case use caution when citing). be careful with the domain .org, because .org is usually used by non-profit organizations which may have an agenda of persuasion rather than education.

site design – this can be very subjective, but a well-designed site can be an indication of more reliable information. good design make information more easily accessible.

writing style – poor spelling and grammar are an indication that the site may not be credible. in an effort to make the information presented easy to understand, credible sites watch writing style closely.