Why in that order? Methods of Organization

Let’s say you have bad news to pass on to someone. What approach do you take? Do you blurt out the bad news and then run? Do you give a letter and then run? Or do you scuttle up whatever good news you have in order to cushion the blow? Do you consider your timing, delivery, and what other information you have to mitigate the damage?

Welcome to Organization, the simple art of determining what information goes where.

Unfortunately, it sometimes seems like organizing an essay is little more than Paragraphs go here! In all honesty, I blame the 5 Paragraph Essay and the teaching of Transitions. The 5 paragraph essay because it can promote the idea that order doesn't matter: so long as there are three paragraphs addressing the overall topic of the essay, all is well. And Transitions because it takes organization from a significant part of essay writing and turns it into sentences that begin and end paragraphs forced to resemble one another.

Reducing organization to having transitions is kind of like saying there's no difference between a Main Coon, a Sphynx cat, and a Chartreux cat because each one was put in the same funny hat (thank you internet). Each has distinct traits and for accuracy should be recognized individually, as opposed to being just cats in funny hats.

Organization is quite complex. It can be as instrumental in conveying information than any other aspect in a piece of writing because it determines the order the information is presented. It is not enough for information to be there, but knowing where and how to present information influences how later information will be received. Once information is presented, it influences the way other information will be received: how a piece is organized sends messages.

The next step is to make sure your organization sends the right message. For this, I turn to a number of different Methods of Organization. Each method has its own purpose and in turn, conveys a specific message about the information. Not only is it helpful in using these to figure out the order of the paragraphs, but it helps make those pesky transitions easier to write and more fluid because it gives the order purpose.

The methods themselves can be divided into three groups: Sequential, Graduated, and Comparative.

The first, Sequential, deals with the relationship of topics in time:

• Chronological: Organizing events in the order they occurred without considering connections between them.
• Cause and effect: Identifies how one event or situation leads to another.
• Procedural: Identifies specific action to be taken in a specific order.
• Problem to Solution: Explores an issue in detail before exploring ways to resolve it.

The next group is Graduated and deals with information presented in scales from more important to less important, more detailed to less detailed, etc:

• General to Specific: Begins with basic ideas and then explores them in greater detail.
• Familiar to Unfamiliar: Introduces basic, acceptable information before introducing new or controversial topics.
• Climactic: Starts out with simple topics and leads to the most important or exciting detail or information.

Each form of Graduated organization can be reversed. For example, a piece can start out specific and then become more general, etc.

The last group is Comparative and deals with identifying similarities and differences across and between topics:

• Thematic: Organized by distinct topics or ideas.
• Classification: Groups related topics based on similarities.
• Spatial: Identifies the relationship between physical properties.
• Block Compare & Contrast: Explain all of the aspects of one topic before another.
• Point by Point Compare & Contrast: Alternate between specific aspects of two or more topics.

Picking a method of organization can depend on the form and genre of the essay, and its audience, usually dictates what methods are appropriate. There are even situations where an essay will need multiple forms of organization at different times. When considering what methods to use, think of the kind of information you're dealing with. From there, it becomes easier to structure an essay and move from paragraph to paragraph because the form of the essay has a purpose, and transitions become easier to write. 

I like to say that every paragraph has two purposes. The first is to prepare the reader for the next paragraph. The second is to prepare the reader for the rest of the essay. Determining and using methods of organization just helps you figure where and why each paragraph goes where it does.