6.2 Create a Plan That Meets Your Readers’ Needs
6.2.1 Converting a Storyboard into an Outline
6.2.2 Sketch a Working Introduction
6.2.3 Identify Key Terms Expressing Concepts That Unite the Report and Distinguish Its Parts
6.2.4 Use Key Terms to Create Subheads That Uniquely Identify Each Section
6.2.6 Make Your Order Clear with Transitional Words
6.2.7 Sketch a Brief Introduction to Each Section and Subsection
6.2.8 For Each Section, Sketch in Evidence, Acknowledgments, Warrants, and Summaries
Once you assemble your argument, you might be ready to draft it. But experienced writers know that the time they invest in planning a draft more than pays off when they write it. To draft effectively, though, you need more than just the elements of a sound argument; you need a plan to assemble them into a coherent one. Some plans, however, are better than others.
Avoid certain approaches.
1. Do not organize your report as a narrative of your project, especially not as a mystery story with your claim revealed at the end. Few readers care what you found first, then problems you overcame, then leads you pursued, on and on to the end. You see signs of that in language like The first issue was … Then I compared … Finally I conclude.
2. Do not patch together a series of quotations, summaries of sources, or downloads from the Internet. Teachers want to see your thinking, not that of others. They especially dislike reports that read like a collage of web pages. Do that and you’ll seem not only an amateur but worse, possibly a plagiarist (see 7.9).
3. Do not mechanically organize your report around the terms of your assignment or topic. If your assignment lists issues to cover, don’t think you must address them in the order given. If you were asked or you decide to compare and contrast Freud’s and Jung’s analyses of the imagination, you would not have to organize your report in two parts, the first on Freud, the second on Jung. It would be more productive to break those two big topics into their parts, then organize your report around them (for more on this, see 6.2.5–6.2.6).
Some fields stipulate the plan of a report. Readers in the experimental sciences, for example, expect reports to follow some version of this:
Introduction—Methods and Materials—Results—Discussion—Conclusion
If you must follow a preset plan, ask your instructor or find a secondary source for a model. But if you must create your own, it must make sense not just to you but visibly to your readers. To create that visible form, go back to your storyboard or outline.
If you prefer to work from an outline, you can turn your storyboard into one:
■ Start with a sentence numbered I that states your claim.
■ Add complete sentences under it numbered II, III, … , each of which states a reason supporting your claim.
■ Under each reason, use capital letters to list sentences summarizing your evidence; then list by numbers the evidence itself. For example (the data are invented for the illustration):
I. Introduction: Value of classroom computers is uncertain.
II. Different uses have different effects.
A. All uses increase number of words produced.
1. Study 1: 950 vs. 780
2. Study 2:1,103 vs. 922
B. Labs allow students to interact.
III. Studies show limited benefit on revision.
A. Study A: writers on computers are more wordy.
1. Average of 2.3 more words per sentence
2. Average of 20% more words per essay
B. Study B: writers need hard copy to revise effectively.
1. 22% fewer typos when done on hard copy vs. computer screen
2. 2.26% fewer spelling errors
IV. Conclusion: Too soon to tell how much computers improve learning.
A. Few reliable empirical studies.
B. Little history because many programs are in transition.
A sparer outline is just phrases, with no formal layers of I, A, 1, and so on.
Introduction: benefits uncertain
Different uses/different effects
More words
More interaction
Revision studies
Study A longer sentences
Study B longer essays
Conclusion: Too soon to judge effects
When you start a project, a spare outline may be the best you can do, and for a short project it may be all you need, so long as you know the point of each item. But an outline of complete sentences is usually more useful. More useful yet is a storyboard, especially for a long project.
Be ready to write your introduction twice, first a sketch for yourself, then a final one for your readers after you’ve revised your draft and know what you have written. That final introduction will usually have four parts, so you might as well build your working introduction to anticipate them (see chapter 9).
1. Briefly sketch the research you’ve read that is specifically relevant to your topic. In 5.4.1, we suggested that you write your claim at the bottom of a new first page of your storyboard. Now, at the top, sketch the prior research that you intend to extend, modify, or correct. Do not list all the research remotely relevant to your topic. Many semi-experienced researchers list scores of reports, thinking they’ll impress readers with their diligence. But an endless list of irrelevant references is less impressive than it is annoying. If you were working on Alamo stories, for example, you wouldn’t cite every historical analysis of the battle, but only the specific research that you intend to extend, modify, or correct.
List your sources in an order useful to your readers. If their historical sequence is important, list them chronologically. If not, group them by some other principle: their quality, significance, point of view. Then order those groups in whatever way best helps your readers understand them (see 6.2.5 for principles of order). Under no circumstances should you list your sources in the order you happened to read them or now remember them.
2. Rephrase your question as a lack of knowledge or gap in understanding. After you sketch that research, tell readers what part of it you will extend, modify, or correct. Do that by restating your question as something that the research has gotten wrong, explained poorly, or failed to consider.
Why is the Alamo story so important in our national mythology?
→ Few historians have tried to explain why the Alamo story has become so important in our national mythology.
Writers do this almost always and in many ways, so as you read, note how your sources do it.
3. If you can, sketch an answer to So what if we don’t find out? What larger issue will your readers not understand if you don’t answer your research question?
If we understood how such stories became national legends, we would better understand our national values, perhaps even what makes us distinct.
At this point, you may find any larger significance hard to imagine. Add it if you can, but don’t spend a lot of time on it; we’ll return to it (see 10.1.3).
4. Revise and position your claim. You wrote your claim on the first page of your storyboard. Now decide if that’s where you want to leave it. You have two choices for where to state it in your report:
■ at the end of your introduction and again close to the beginning of your conclusion
■ only in your conclusion, as a kind of climax to your reasoning
If you’ve done few advanced projects, we urge you to state your claim at the end of your introduction and again near the beginning of your conclusion. When readers see a claim early, at the end of your introduction, they know where you’re taking them and so can read what follows faster, understand it better, and remember it longer. When you put your claim first, it also helps keep you on track.
Some new researchers fear that if they reveal their claim in their introduction, readers will be bored and stop reading. Others worry about repeating themselves. Both fears are baseless. If you ask an interesting question, readers will want to see how well you can support its answer.
If you leave your claim at the bottom of your introduction page, restate a version of it at the top of a new conclusion page at the end of your storyboard. If you can, make this concluding claim more specific than the one in the introduction.
In some fields, writers conventionally state their claim only in a final section headed Discussion or Conclusion. In those cases, many readers just skim the introduction, then jump to the conclusion. So for that kind of reader, write your introduction in a way that introduces not only the body of your paper but your conclusion as well.
If you decide to announce your claim only in your conclusion, move it to the top of a new conclusion page. But if you do, you’ll need another sentence to replace it at the end of your introduction, one that launches your reader into the body of your report. That sentence should include the key terms that you use throughout your report (see 6.2.3).
We suggest that you write that launching sentence when you draft your final introduction (see 10.1.4). So for now, make a place for it at the bottom of the introduction page of your storyboard, either by sketching a rough version of it or by making a note to add it later.
Some writers add a “road map” at the end of their introduction, laying out the organization of their report:
In part 1, I discuss … Part 2 addresses the issue of … Part 3 examines …
Readers differ on this. Road maps are common in the social sciences, but many in the humanities find them clumsy. Even if your readers might object, you can add a road map to your storyboard to guide your drafting, then cut it from your final draft. If you keep it, make it short.
To perceive your report as coherent, readers must see a few central concepts running through all of its parts. But readers won’t recognize those repeated concepts if you refer to them in many different words. Readers need to see specific terms that repeatedly refer to those concepts, not every time you mention one but often enough that readers can’t miss them. Those terms running through the whole might include the words you used to categorize your notes, but they definitely must include important words from your question and claim. Readers must also see more specific concepts in each part that distinguish that part from all other parts.
Before you start drafting, therefore, identify the key concepts that you intend to run through your whole report and select the term that you will use most often to refer to each one. Then do the same for the concepts that distinguish each section from other sections. As you draft, you may find new ones and drop some old ones, but you’ll write more coherently if you keep your most important terms and concepts in the front of your mind.
Here is a specific method to identify the global concepts that unite the whole report:
1. On the introduction and conclusion pages of your storyboard, circle four or five words that express your most important concepts. You should find those words in the most explicit statement of your claim.
■ Ignore words obviously connected to your topic: Alamo, battle, defeat.
■ Focus on concepts that you bring to the argument and intend to develop: aftermath of defeat, triumph in loss, heroic ideals, sacrifice, national spirit, and so on.
2. For each concept, select a key term that you can repeat through the body of your paper. It can be one of your circled words or a new one. List those key terms on a separate page. If you find few words that can serve as key terms, your claim may be too general (review 5.4.1).
You can follow the same procedure to find the key terms that unify each section. Look at the reason you stated at the top of each reason page, and circle its important words. Some of those words should be related to the words circled in the introduction and conclusion. The rest should identify concepts that distinguish that section from others. Select a key term for each key concept.
Now, as you draft, keep in front of you both the general terms that should run through your whole report and the specific terms that distinguish each section from other sections. They will help you keep yourself—and thus your readers—on track. If later you find yourself writing something that lacks those terms, don’t just wrench yourself back to them. In the act of drafting, you might be discovering something new.
Even if reports in your field don’t use subheads (see A.2.2.4 in the appendix), we recommend that you use them in your drafts. Create them out of the key terms you identified in 6.2.3. If you cannot find key terms to distinguish a section, look closely at how you think it contributes to the whole. Readers may think it repetitive or irrelevant.
If your field avoids subheads, use them to keep yourself on track, then delete them from your last draft.
Finding a good order for the sections of a report can be the hardest part of planning. When you assembled your argument, you may not have put your reasons in any particular order (one benefit of a storyboard). But when you plan a draft, you must impose on them some order that best meets your readers’ needs. That is not easy, especially when you’re writing on a new topic in a new field.
When you’re not sure how best to order your reasons, consider the following options.
■ Comparison and contrast. This is the form you’d choose if you were comparing two or more entities, concepts, or objects.
But there are two ways to compare and contrast, and one is usually better than the other. If, for example, you were comparing whether Hopi masks have more religious symbolism than Inuit masks, you might decide to devote the first half of your paper to Inuit masks and the second to Hopi masks. This organization, however, too often results in a pair of unrelated summaries. Try breaking the topics into their conceptual parts. In the case of masks, it would be their symbolic representation, design features, stages of evolution, and so on.
There are several other standard ways to order your ideas. Two focus on the subject matter:
■ Chronological. This is the simplest: earlier-to-later or cause-to-effect.
■ Part-by-part. If you can break your topic into its constituent parts, you can deal with each part in turn, but you must still order those parts in some way that helps readers understand them.
You can also organize the parts from the point of view of your readers’ ability to understand them:
■ Short to long, simple to complex. Most readers prefer to deal with less complex issues before they work through more complex ones.
■ More familiar to less familiar. Most readers prefer to read what they know about before they read what they don’t.
■ Less contestable to more contestable. Most readers move more easily from what they agree with to what they don’t.
■ Less important to more important (or vice versa). Readers prefer to read more important reasons first, but those reasons may have more impact when they come last.
■ Earlier understanding as a basis for later understanding. Readers may have to understand some events, principles, definitions, and so on before they understand another thing.
Often these principles cooperate: what readers agree with and most easily understand might also be shortest and most familiar. But they may also conflict: reasons that readers understand most easily might be the ones they reject most quickly; what you think is your most decisive reason might to readers seem least familiar. No rules here, only principles of choice.
Whatever order you choose, it should reflect your readers’ needs, not the order that the material seems to impose on itself (as in an obvious compare-contrast organization), and least of all the order in which ideas occurred to you.
Be certain that your readers can recognize the order you chose. Start each page of reasons in your storyboard with words that make the principle of order clear: First, Second, Later, Finally, More important, A more complex issue is …, As a result. Don’t worry if these words feel awkwardly obvious. At this point, they’re more for your benefit than for your readers’. You can revise or even delete the clumsy ones from your final draft.
Just as your whole report needs an introduction that frames what follows, so does each of its sections. If a section is only a page or two, you need just a short paragraph; for a section several pages long, you might need to sketch in two or more paragraphs. This opening segment should introduce the key terms that are special to its section, ideally in a sentence at its end expressing its point. That point might be a reason, a response to a different point of view, or a warrant you must explain. In a section that you think will be longer than five pages or so, you might state its point both at the end of its introduction and again in a conclusion.
In their relevant sections, sketch out the parts of your argument. Remember that many of those parts will themselves make a point that must be supported by smaller arguments.
6.2.8.1 EVIDENCE. Most sections consist primarily of evidence supporting reasons. Sketch the evidence after the reason it supports. If you have different kinds of evidence supporting the same reason, group and order them in a way that will make sense to your readers.
6.2.8.2 EXPLANATIONS OF EVIDENCE. You may have to explain your evidence—where it came from, why it’s reliable, exactly how it supports a reason. Usually these explanations follow the evidence, but you can sketch them before if that seems more logical.
6.2.8.3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND RESPONSES. Imagine what readers might object to and where, then sketch a response. Responses are typically sub-arguments with at least a claim and reasons, often including evidence and even another response to an imagined objection to your response.
6.2.8.4 WARRANTS. If you think you need a warrant to justify the relevance of a reason, develop it before you state the reason. (If you’re using a warrant only for emphasis, put it after the reason.) If you think readers will question the truth of the warrant, sketch a miniargument to support it. If readers might think that your reason or claim isn’t a valid instance of the warrant, sketch an argument that it is.
6.2.8.5 SUMMARIES. If your paper is more than twenty or so pages, you might briefly summarize the progress of your argument at the end of each major section, especially if your report is fact-heavy in dates, names, events, or numbers. One fact after another can blur the line of an argument. What have you established in this section? How does your argument shape up thus far? If in your final draft those summaries seem too obvious, cut them.
Writers in different fields may arrange these elements in slightly different ways, but the elements themselves and their principles of organization are the same in every field and profession. And what is key in every report, regardless of field, is that you must order the parts of your argument not merely to reflect your own thinking but to help your readers understand it.
You should have stated your concluding claim at the top of the conclusion page of your storyboard. If you can add to the significance of that claim (another answer to So what?), sketch it after the claim (see 10.2 for more on conclusions).
Once you have a first plan, you may discover that you have a lot of material left that doesn’t fit into it. Resist the impulse to shoehorn leftovers into your report in the belief that if you found it, your readers should read it. In fact, if you don’t have more leftovers than what you used, you may not have done enough research. File away leftovers for future use. They may contain the seeds of another project.