Thinking Thematically: A Method of Organization

When I addressed the different methods of organization, I defined “Thematic” as “organized by distinct topics or ideas” and I said little else on the matter.

At first, this makes it seem an easily manageable approach: an assortment of different topics and ideas, brought together in an essay. It seems easy, and this ease makes it appealing. However, it isn’t this simple. Every method of organization relies on having distinct topics or ideas because every paragraph and even groups of paragraphs should be distinct: a paragraph is a shift in topic or idea. Methods of Organization give us ways to structure and order the topics.

What, then, is Thematic organization?

Every other method organization gives you a way to distinguish each section or paragraph of an essay and a logical way to move from paragraph to paragraph. Graduated methods create hierarchies based on specificity, familiarity, or importance, while Sequential methods establish chronologies and trace ideas and concepts through time, and Comparative methods set the different topics in contrast to one another.

Thematic, however, gives a way to distinguish, but doesn’t give that logical progression.

Organizing Thematically involves using a theme appropriate for the essay as the governing mechanic to determine how everything is structured. The theme becomes the principle that logically brings the distinct topics together. This will then impact the topics themselves, with the theme running through the entire piece, impacting every decision you make. In other words, you need to find your own logic because the method itself doesn't supply it: it just reminds you that you need something to hang everything on, unlike the other methods of organization which give you the logic themselves.

It is possible for an essay to have multiple themes, just as fiction does, but to equate a theme with a paragraph is where the danger comes in. Too often disjointed, tangential essays are excused as being “thematic”, making Thematic Organization the refuge of the poorly organized: clusters of paragraphs placed together because they have to go somewhere, but without much attention given to why they are there. Most times a student proposes a Thematically organized essay or outline, they present either a disorganized mess or they haven't looked close enough to find a better way. Instead, themes should run across paragraphs, the length of broader sections and the essay as a whole, whether there’s only one theme or several. If you have a new organizational theme for every paragraph, then you don’t have an organized essay.

How then do we organize Thematically? Where are the examples? Because every use of Thematic organization will have a different theme, each will require a different approach and execution. The closest thing to such a general prescription for Thematic is to say every one will be different. Every combination of essay topic and organizational theme will yield a new situation, requiring its own organization.

Drafting Theses with the Six Journalistic Questions

In other posts, I've discussed the relationship between the 6JQ and theses. Basically, once you've identified your criteria with the 6JQ, you can use them to put together a thesis statement. Rather than go into detail about this concept here, I want to give a few examples, pulling from different posts, altered slightly. I'll be using different colors to distinguish between each criteria in the list and in its corresponding thesis.

From “Genre and Purposeful Theses”:

• Who: High school students, American authors with different cultural backgrounds
• What: Multi-cultural, American literature, The English Literary Canon
• When: High School years
• Where: American high school literature courses
• How: Studying multi-cultural literature
• Why: To gain a better understanding of other cultures

Thesis:

High school students who study literature by American authors from different cultures in their literature courses gain a better understanding and appreciation of the complexities.

Notice there can be overlap: “High school” applies to both Who and When. The same for “from different cultures,” just with the Who and How.

From the same post:

The local school district should use high school literature classes to improve young people’s understanding of different cultures by having students read books written by authors of different backgrounds, in addition to the English canon.

Here, the local school district is not colored, because, in this situation, it is not a “Who” or a “What”, but an audience.

And, another from the same post:

From my high school literature classes, I gained a greater understanding of different cultures  than I would have just by reading from the English canon.

From “Specificity and the 6 Journalistic Questions”:

• Who: The Irish
• What: Potatoes, Immigration, the Potato Blight
• When: 1840's & 50's
• Where: Ireland
• How: Potato Blight’s Spread
• Why: Monoculture

A potential thesis:

Reliance on monoculture in 1840's and 50's Ireland made it easy for the Potato Blight to wipe out crops, driving many Irish to immigrate.

A different thesis:

The Potato Blight in 1840's and 50's Ireland stemmed from monocultured crops, which made it easy for the Blight to spread.

In this situation, the ideas of the Blight spreading would be a “How” because it's dealing not just with the Blight itself, but how the Blight worked, and so would need to be added to the 6JQ criteria.

From “Quantity and Specificity: Getting a lot, and the most, out of the Six Journalistic questions”:

• Who: Bullied students
• What: Specific uniforms, business casual uniforms, bullying
• When: Last 15 years.
• Where: High schools in California
• How: Relationship of bullying to types of uniforms
• Why: Impact of uniforms on bullying

Thesis:

By looking at reports of bullying at high schools in California over the last 15 years, this essay will explore the impact different types of uniforms, such as specific uniforms traditionally worn by private and religious affiliated institutions; and more casual, open styles of uniforms, have had on bullying and bullied students.

Note some parts of this are not in the 6JQ, but rather explain how this potential essay would work. Remember how you're doing your project and the “How” in the 6JQ are different.

And, here at the end, a few pointers:

• If you need to expand your criteria based on the form the thesis takes, do so. Just keep track of both and make sure they line up so your thesis, and by extension the essay, don't get broad, vague, or tangential. In short, be flexible, but consistent.
• It is okay if one term or phrase covers multiple criteria.
• You do not need something in every criteria. If you find yourself forcing criteria into a thesis, it might be better to drop the criteria.
• Don't forget about Genre. While you can take most any set of criteria and use them for different genres, you can't force a genre to work with your criteria, only alter the criteria and thesis to fit the genre.
• The same can be said for Stasis: a Policy level Thesis will combine the criteria in a different way than a Value or Definition level thesis.

To wrap this up, I want to say that drafting theses is hard, but it doesn't have to be. All it is is summarizing your entire essay in a sentence or two, and with the Six Journalistic Questions, you can take this seemingly insurmountable task, and make it quite simple.

And there

Reasons and Processes: Identify How and Why in the Six Journalistic Questions

Four of the Six Journalistic Questions are straightforward. We identify people, places, times, concepts, objects, etc., but How and Why are more abstract. Sometimes students erroneously assume How and Why ask how they're going to research or write their essays, and why it's something worth writing about, but that gets away from the topic and into the writing of the essay. The Six Journalistic Questions are to help you focus on your topic, not the ins and outs of your process, and asking How and Why are integral to that.

At their core, How and Why ask about processes and reasons: How does something work, what goes into it to make it function, and Why does something work or happen, what's the causes of the issue, or even why is it an issue? So looking for the How and Why when drafting criteria asks about the underlying processes and reasons behind your topic. In this regard, they can be considered the most important of the six.

Here are some tips and recommendations for figuring out the How and Why.

What's the underlying issue? We tend to approach and deal with topics because there's some kind of issue with them, and asking How or Why requires digging deeper to think about it. It's what's at the core of your topic.

• Example: School bullying
• Why: Bullying causes physical and emotional trauma to children during important developmental years.
• How: Students who are bullied develop worse self esteem and trust issues, and perform worse in school and socially.

What do your criteria have to do with one another? Sometimes, answering How and Why means asking what everything else you've identified has to do with one another. This means there may be repetition, but you're not just reiterating the same thing: you're juxtaposing your criteria to figure out why it's significant to bring these criteria together.

• Example: Exercise for weight loss
• What: Weight loss; cardio vs. weight lifting
• When: Morning vs. afternoon
• How: The impacts different types of exercise have at different times of the day.
• While it doesn't explicitly state them, when the How says “different types of exercise” the What is implied, and the same for “morning vs. afternoon” and “different times of the day.

What's your perspective? The way you address the How and Why can shape your perspective on the topic and the rest of your criteria. The Who, What, When, and Where are just a collection of nouns you're bringing together, whereas the How and the Why help make them significant and related.

• Example: State Lotteries
• Why: (1) Helps fund education. (2) Winners usually end up worse off than they were before. (3) Promotes dangerous, wasteful gambling addictions.
• 1: This highlights a beneficial side of state run lotteries: their proceeds go to fund state schools.
• 2: This one takes a more negative approach to the lottery, targeting an unfortunate consequence associated with it. This doesn't condemn the lottery, but doesn't aggrandize it either.
• 3: This one takes a much more negative approach and outright condemns state lotteries.

It is possible to have more than one “Why” or “How.” In this situation, any combination of these could be used to consider different sides of the issue or try to find a reconciliation, rather than being one-sided on the issue.

Each of these examples can seem either straightforward, too simple, or obvious based on the topic. The thing is, there's nothing wrong with that. The 6JQ are supposed to help you get to the point. If you can articulate aspects of your topic in fewer words and as succinctly as possible, the better off you'll be, and just because something is obvious to you doesn't mean it'll be obvious to everyone else. The 6JQ aren't just a brainstorming and drafting tool; they can be a useful tool to help you stay on track, but if you're vague or broad, or off base entirely, then they're not going to help.