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.

Prop up that triangle with The Rhetorical Arch, Part 4: Logos

When dealing with Logos, you're dealing with the message in whatever is articulated. In short, you're asking whether or not an argument makes sense. But, what does it mean when something “makes sense”?

Looking for Logos requires looking at the main arguments of a piece and the information it presents to back it up: what should “make sense” is the rational connection between the premise and the conclusions. On another blog post, I used the example, if A and B, then C to explain Logos. Rewritten, it would be:

• Premise A:
• Premise B:
• Conclusion: 

And if your premises or conclusions can be challenged, then your logic fails, usually because you've made a logical fallacy. To explore this, I want to use the case of Spontaneous Generation, a now obsolete philosophy that held that organisms arose spontaneously from unrelated organisms, and not from similar organisms. The classic example is the theory maggots spawned from rotting meat. Let's break this down logically:

• Premise: After time, meat will rot.
• Premise: As meat rots, maggots will appear on it.
• Conclusion: Maggots are generated by the process of meat rotting.

To a modern reader, this will seem illogical, but this was the prevailing theory from ancient Greece until Francesco Redi tested it. In his experiment, Redi placed meat in jars, some of which were sealed with gauze. After some time, the exposed meat had maggots on it, but the sealed meat had none. From this experiment, Redi didn't disprove the first premise, but he did show the second premise is not as simple as it seems, causing him to doubt the conclusion and to theorize that something else must cause the maggots to appear.

For a biologist like Redi, “something else” isn't a good place to end, especially when challenging a premise that dates back to Aristotle. His theory then became the premise for the next phase of his experiment:

• Premise: Something must have access to and be attracted to the meat that generates the maggots.
• Premise: Flies can be observed around the rotting meat.
• Premise: Flies cannot access the meat in the sealed containers.
• Conclusion: Maggots appear after flies have access to rotting meat.

This then raises the question of what flies have to do with the meat and with the maggots. It could have been that maggots generated spontaneously from rotting meat when flies were nearby, or the flies bring the maggots, potentially disproving spontaneous generation. To test this, Redi placed some dead flies and maggots in one sealed jar with meat, and some living flies in another. After time, there were maggots on the meat in the jar with the flies, but none in the other:

• Premise: Maggots appear to generate after flies have access to rotting meat.
• Premise: The combination of dead flies and meat does not generate maggots.
• Premise: The combination of living flies and meat does generate maggots.
• Conclusion: It is not enough for flies and rotting meat, as base matter, to be in proximity to generate maggots.
• Conclusion: Maggots come from living flies.

Redi continued his experiments, catching some maggots and discovered they metamorphosed into flies, so maggots were just young flies left behind by flies eating the rotten meat, as opposed to generating from the raw meat or some other combination. This prompted Redi to conclude “omne vivum ex vivio” or, “all life comes from life.”

All of this is long example of how logic, Logos is a matter of presenting your conclusions alongside the process through which you came to them. Redi's example is one of scientific experimentation, but the same concept applies in any discourse: look for the evidence, combine it, and see what happens. The important thing to bear in mind is being logical requires critical thinking and analysis: such as not stopping with the first experiment, but modifying it as you look for an answer.

Prop up that triangle with The Rhetorical Arch, Part 2: Telos

Fair warning: this post mentions cannibalism and infanticide.

But first, I concluded the last post alluding to purpose and the topmost part the Rhetorical Arch, Telos.
Whenever we write, we fill it with purpose, whether it’s to earn a grade, to get something changed, or present information to the world: everything we do and write has a purpose and everything included in the writing should support that purpose. Anything that doesn’t help that purpose weakens it.

So back to cannibalism. Many have erroneously believed that Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay A Modest Proposal, or, A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, does advocate cannibalism, and while it does discuss it, it's actually a satire: Swift uses cannibalism to discuss something else.

It would be fair to summarize the essay's thesis as “Commodify and cannibalize young Irish and we'll be better off” but that is NOT Swift's goal or purpose. Swift, who was Irish himself, wrote it as a scathing critique of the heartless way the British Empire was treating the poor in Ireland, and the numerous other illogical proposals to remedy problems the empire faced in dealing with the poor. He was tired of seeing people so callously dealt with and put it into drastic terms to shock people into a better understanding of just what they were doing: treating the Irish as subhuman; an issue to resolve, not people to help.

To break this issue down rhetorically would be to consider the Telos of Swift's essay, namely, his purpose or goal in writing it.

Writing for Telos requires keeping track of what you want to accomplish by producing whatever it is you're writing. For example, the writer of a love letter tries to win the recipient's affection, whereas a resume and cover letter display one's qualifications in the hope of gaining a job. When writing different forms, the writer should keep their purposes in mind; straying from them will cause awkward moments. Just imagine confusing the two: reminding your emotional crush of your career history, and including poetic displays of affection in a job application will jeopardize your chances in either situation, and therefore represents a failure in Telos.

Returning to the image of the Rhetorical Arch, Telos goes at the top of the arch: the keystone. In architecture, the keystone is a large stone designed to fit in the apex of the arch, making the arch self-supporting. Without the keystone, an arch must be propped up by other means, making the arch, well, useless. With an appropriately placed keystone in a well made arch any scaffolding needed to prop it up can be removed. 

Rhetoric works the same way: without a clear purpose or Telos, there's nothing to hold everything up and you'll have to hope everything just balances out and stays up.

Failure anywhere in the rhetoric can cause everything else to fall:

• Insufficient research and a poor display of authority on the topic? Failure in Ethos, making the entire argument and your premises questionable.
• The word choice and general style are too complicated (or too simple) for the audience? Failure in Pathos suggesting the argument itself is inappropriate for the audience, and therefore, poorly aimed.
• Logical fallacies and mistakes in reasoning? Failure in Logos, making the argument itself hard to follow and understand, regardless of your credentials or style.
• Addressing issues that aren't pertinent or resolve in a realistic time frame? Failure in Kairos, making the argument itself, no matter how well structured it is, unimportant.

Telos is your essay's purpose and therefore gives purpose to everything else in the essay. Swift’s A Modest Proposal shows us, through its use of satire and shocking subject matter, just one of many unique ways people can achieve their purpose, but no matter how you do it, remember: Telos keeps everything together just as everything else keeps it propped up.

Is It Worth Using? The Appropriateness of Sources and The Rhetorical Triangle

Not all sources are created equally. Some sources are better than others.

This post deals with research, but not how to use research. Rather, whether or not the sources are worth using. Unreliable or inappropriate sources can actually hurt your credibility because it suggests your research is insufficient, and if the information you are using to develop your argument is bad, then your argument will also be bad.

The hard part is in determining whether or not a source is reliable. Granted there are some indicators that will almost guarantee good sources – government web pages, peer reviewed journals, university publications – but these aren't the only reliable sources, and only deal with one aspect of reliability: who published it? While this can be a good start, it is important to evaluate a source from multiple angles. The angles I recommend evaluating from stem from the Rhetorical Triangle:

• Ethos: In a way, Ethos is how an author presents themselves in their writing: their ability to demonstrate their authority in the text itself. They may do this by referencing their own research or referencing their experience and work in the field, which is sometimes evident through their terminology and style. In short, whether or not the text presents itself authoritatively.
• Logos: If the source's conclusions don't make sense, or if they rely on logical fallacies to support their claims, then the source is not reliable. The source should move easily from topic to topic, without any jumps in logic, and should be in agreement with other sources on the same topic.
• Pathos: For whom was it written? This actually returns to the issue of publication; peer reviewed pieces will be written for experts. It is possible to identify the intended readership of a piece based on how detailed it is, or on the terminology used. A piece that appropriately uses specified vocabulary will be for a more educated audience than one that doesn't, and one that misuses terminology will be one to stay away from.

Evaluating sources is a matter of looking for textual evidence showing the author's appropriate use of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. For a classic example, I turn to Wikipedia. Wikipedia gets a bad rap because it is collaborative - anyone and everyone can go and make changes to it and it is frequently shot down on that basis alone. However, like I said before, that’s only looking at it from one perspective: it’s important to consider it from multiple angles:

• Ethos: Despite the collaborative, anyone-can-do-it nature of Wikipedia, most Wikipedia pages have references lists and citations, like any decent piece of research. These pages are also checked and double checked by users who make sure that the information is correct and accurately presented. Whatever few bad vandals there are, there are many more that make sure the information is good.
• Logos: The information on Wikipedia tends to make sense: it's logical, and users can keep the information straight. With this in mind though, it's a good idea to go back and double check Wikipedia pages in case there was faulty information. So, it could not be reliable on this basis, but it isn't the nail in the coffin for this resource.
• Pathos: It's an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are designed to be neutral and provide readily understandable information for people who have even a superficial understanding. This means the information on Wikipedia, while likely trustworthy, will not go into any substantial depth. The information is cursory; superficial. It's basic information that someone doing serious research should already know.

In short, Wikipedia is a reliable source – but it is not an appropriate one. It’s information is accurate, but superficial. You can do better.

Once we stop and understand that just because something is reliable does not mean it is appropriate, we can look at our research differently. It's like when I have students who count fact sheets as resources: lists of dates, figures, and sometimes fancy info-graphics without any serious analysis. The information may be perfectly reliable, but if you are committed to doing serious research, leave the sundries aside and focus on the sources that explore the concepts in detail.

The Rhetorical Triangle

Once, I invited a friend to give a brief presentation to my Freshman composition students. I had attended his presentation at a conference; I had attended for moral support. He presented on an engineering topic. It took about three minutes for me to be lost.

After my friend presented to my students, he repeated it in layman’s terms. He refrained from his complex formulas and terminology, and simplified his methodology. My friend didn't adapt his subject or findings, but rather his rhetoric.

Rhetoric refers to the forms and techniques writers and speakers use, and helps us better understand who is writing, for whom it is being written, and what is being written. This concept dates back to Aristotle, from whom we have the corresponding terms Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, which make up what is commonly called the Rhetorical Triangle. By identifying and focusing on each of these individually and in relationship to one another, it is possible to make sure our writing has a purpose and, rather than simply being an amalgamation of words, it can achieve that purpose.

Ethos – Who does the writing; authority. This refers to the author and, by extension, their authority. 

This is not as simple as the author identifying their credentials, but is done by their handling of the information and their research. It would be awkward in most pieces for an author to flaunt their training, experience, degrees, certifications, etc. Instead, a stronger use of Ethos comes from demonstrating an understanding of what is going on in the field. A surgeon who brags about how many lives they've saved, but is unfamiliar with recent advances in surgical practice isn't the best surgeon. It would be better to go to someone who stays on top of their field and deftly uses current and reasonable information.

Pathos – The writing is written for whom; audience awareness: how the piece is written for its audience.

Using Pathos involves appealing to the interests and concerns of the target audience, as well as considering their own level of expertise. This can range from the language used to the amount of detail: the more expert the audience, the more technical the language and the more detailed the information. Good Pathos will consider, and even involve researching, the intended audience so their specific concerns are addressed. Bad Pathos will either make something too complicated, too simple, or not make it relevant enough for the audience; it can alienate your audience, or worse, disrespect them.

Logos – What is written; logic. Refers to the logic of the piece of writing – the arguments and ideas being put forward in the writing. 

In its purest sense, logic is If A, then B, or If A and B, then C. Therefore, logos is how well the essay itself articulates the important aspects of its topic and draws them together into a conclusion. Logos will manifest itself primarily in the content, thesis, and organization of an essay; and in how all three interact. An essay with weak transitions (an organization issue) likely has a weak thesis as well, because the arguments presented in the essay are not clearly going from topic to topic and building towards a solid conclusion. The essay may say if A and B then C, but if the essay does not make it clear how the combination of A and B yield C, then the audience will be lost and confused.

Conclusion

Different situations and genres will call for different approaches to the rhetorical appeals, but this does not mean they are never present. Each genre and situation will require a different approach. A research essay will employ Ethos differently than a personal essay, and a piece intended for amateurs will need to present its logic differently than one for experts. Rhetoric helps writers assess their entire situation by considering knowledge, the communication itself, and the intended recipients. Different situations will require different appeals, even if Ethos, Pathos, and Logos will always be used. While it is important to consider each of these rhetorical appeals, it is more important to keep them appropriate for your context and purposes.