organizing in an essay

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9.3 Organizing Your Writing

Learning objectives.

• Understand how and why organizational techniques help writers and readers stay focused.
• Assess how and when to use chronological order to organize an essay.
• Recognize how and when to use order of importance to organize an essay.
• Determine how and when to use spatial order to organize an essay.

The method of organization you choose for your essay is just as important as its content. Without a clear organizational pattern, your reader could become confused and lose interest. The way you structure your essay helps your readers draw connections between the body and the thesis, and the structure also keeps you focused as you plan and write the essay. Choosing your organizational pattern before you outline ensures that each body paragraph works to support and develop your thesis.

This section covers three ways to organize body paragraphs:

• Chronological order
• Order of importance
• Spatial order

When you begin to draft your essay, your ideas may seem to flow from your mind in a seemingly random manner. Your readers, who bring to the table different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas, need you to clearly organize these ideas in order to help process and accept them.

A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft. Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

Chronological Order

In Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , you learned that chronological arrangement has the following purposes:

• To explain the history of an event or a topic
• To tell a story or relate an experience
• To explain how to do or to make something
• To explain the steps in a process

Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing , which is a form of writing that narrates, describes, informs, or explains a process. When using chronological order, arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions. This method requires you to use words such as first , second , then , after that , later , and finally . These transition words guide you and your reader through the paper as you expand your thesis.

For example, if you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day. You would follow the chain of events using words such as first , then , next , and so on.

Writing at Work

At some point in your career you may have to file a complaint with your human resources department. Using chronological order is a useful tool in describing the events that led up to your filing the grievance. You would logically lay out the events in the order that they occurred using the key transition words. The more logical your complaint, the more likely you will be well received and helped.

Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.

Keep in mind that chronological order is most appropriate for the following purposes:

• Writing essays containing heavy research
• Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
• Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

When using chronological order, your introduction should indicate the information you will cover and in what order, and the introduction should also establish the relevance of the information. Your body paragraphs should then provide clear divisions or steps in chronology. You can divide your paragraphs by time (such as decades, wars, or other historical events) or by the same structure of the work you are examining (such as a line-by-line explication of a poem).

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that describes a process you are familiar with and can do well. Assume that your reader is unfamiliar with the procedure. Remember to use the chronological key words, such as first , second , then , and finally .

Order of Importance

Recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that order of importance is best used for the following purposes:

• Persuading and convincing
• Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
• Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution

Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to begin with your most important supporting point, such as in an essay that contains a thesis that is highly debatable. When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.

For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are most importantly , almost as importantly , just as importantly , and finally .

During your career, you may be required to work on a team that devises a strategy for a specific goal of your company, such as increasing profits. When planning your strategy you should organize your steps in order of importance. This demonstrates the ability to prioritize and plan. Using the order of importance technique also shows that you can create a resolution with logical steps for accomplishing a common goal.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on. Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.

Spatial Order

As stated in Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , spatial order is best used for the following purposes:

• Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
• Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
• Writing a descriptive essay

Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space, for example in a bedroom. As the writer, you create a picture for your reader, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.

The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place. The key to using this method is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.

Pay attention to the following student’s description of her bedroom and how she guides the reader through the viewing process, foot by foot.

Attached to my bedroom wall is a small wooden rack dangling with red and turquoise necklaces that shimmer as you enter. Just to the right of the rack is my window, framed by billowy white curtains. The peace of such an image is a stark contrast to my desk, which sits to the right of the window, layered in textbooks, crumpled papers, coffee cups, and an overflowing ashtray. Turning my head to the right, I see a set of two bare windows that frame the trees outside the glass like a 3D painting. Below the windows is an oak chest from which blankets and scarves are protruding. Against the wall opposite the billowy curtains is an antique dresser, on top of which sits a jewelry box and a few picture frames. A tall mirror attached to the dresser takes up most of the wall, which is the color of lavender.

The paragraph incorporates two objectives you have learned in this chapter: using an implied topic sentence and applying spatial order. Often in a descriptive essay, the two work together.

The following are possible transition words to include when using spatial order:

• Just to the left or just to the right
• On the left or on the right
• Across from
• A little further down
• To the south, to the east, and so on
• A few yards away
• Turning left or turning right

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph using spatial order that describes your commute to work, school, or another location you visit often.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

Key Takeaways

• The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to, your thesis statement.
• A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
• Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
• Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
• Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
• Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Many types of writing follow some version of the basic shape described above. This shape is most obvious in the form of the traditional five-paragraph essay: a model for college writing in which the writer argues his or her viewpoint (thesis) on a topic and uses three reasons or subtopics to support that position. In the five-paragraph model, as illustrated below, the introductory paragraph mentions the three main points or subtopics, and each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence dealing with one of those main points.

SAMPLE ESSAY USING THE FIVE-PARAGRAPH MODEL

Remember, this is a very simplistic model. It presents a basic idea of essay organization and may certainly be helpful in learning to structure an argument, but it should not be followed religiously as an ideal form.

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How to Organize an Essay

Last Updated: March 27, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Jake Adams . Jake Adams is an academic tutor and the owner of Simplifi EDU, a Santa Monica, California based online tutoring business offering learning resources and online tutors for academic subjects K-College, SAT & ACT prep, and college admissions applications. With over 14 years of professional tutoring experience, Jake is dedicated to providing his clients the very best online tutoring experience and access to a network of excellent undergraduate and graduate-level tutors from top colleges all over the nation. Jake holds a BS in International Business and Marketing from Pepperdine University. There are 17 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 283,978 times.

Essay Template and Sample Essay

Laying the Groundwork

• For example, a high-school AP essay should have a very clear structure, with your introduction and thesis statement first, 3-4 body paragraphs that further your argument, and a conclusion that ties everything together.
• On the other hand, a creative nonfiction essay might wait to present the thesis till the very end of the essay and build up to it.
• A compare-and-contrast essay can be organized so that you compare two things in a single paragraph and then have a contrasting paragraph, or you can organize it so that you compare and contrast a single thing in the same paragraph.
• You can also choose to organize your essay chronologically, starting at the beginning of the work or historical period you're discussing and going through to the end. This can be helpful for essays where chronology is important to your argument (like a history paper or lab report), or if you're telling a story in your essay.
• The “support” structure begins with your thesis laid out clearly in the beginning and supports it through the rest of the essay.
• The “discovery” structure builds to the thesis by moving through points of discussion until the thesis seems the inevitable, correct view.
• The “exploratory” structure looks at the pros and cons of your chosen topic. It presents the various sides and usually concludes with your thesis.

• If you haven't been given an assignment, you can always run ideas by your instructor or advisor to see if they're on track.
• Ask questions about anything you don't understand. It's much better to ask questions before you put hours of work into your essay than it is to have to start over because you didn't clarify something. As long as you're polite, almost all instructors will be happy to answer your questions.

• For example, are you writing an opinion essay for your school newspaper? Your fellow students are probably your audience in this case. However, if you're writing an opinion essay for the local newspaper, your audience could be people who live in your town, people who agree with you, people who don't agree with you, people who are affected by your topic, or any other group you want to focus on.

Getting the Basics Down

• A thesis statement acts as the “road map” for your paper. It tells your audience what to expect from the rest of your essay.
• Include the most salient points within your thesis statement. For example, your thesis may be about the similarity between two literary works. Describe the similarities in general terms within your thesis statement.
• Consider the “So what?” question. A good thesis will explain why your idea or argument is important. Ask yourself: if a friend asked you “So what?” about your thesis, would you have an answer?
• The “3-prong thesis” is common in high school essays, but is often frowned upon in college and advanced writing. Don't feel like you have to restrict yourself to this limited form.
• Revise your thesis statement. If in the course of writing your essay you discover important points that were not touched upon in your thesis, edit your thesis.

• If you have a librarian available, don't be afraid to consult with him or her! Librarians are trained in helping you identify credible sources for research and can get you started in the right direction.

• Try freewriting. With freewriting, you don't edit or stop yourself. You just write (say, for 15 minutes at a time) about anything that comes into your head about your topic.
• Try a mind map. Start by writing down your central topic or idea, and then draw a box around it. Write down other ideas and connect them to see how they relate. [14] X Research source
• Try cubing. With cubing, you consider your chosen topic from 6 different perspectives: 1) Describe it, 2) Compare it, 3) Associate it, 4) Analyze it, 5) Apply it, 6) Argue for and against it.

• If your original thesis was very broad, you can also use this chance to narrow it down. For example, a thesis about “slavery and the Civil War” is way too big to manage, even for a doctoral dissertation. Focus on more specific terms, which will help you when you start you organize your outline. [16] X Trustworthy Source University of North Carolina Writing Center UNC's on-campus and online instructional service that provides assistance to students, faculty, and others during the writing process Go to source

Organizing the Essay

• Determine the order in which you will discuss the points. If you're planning to discuss 3 challenges of a particular management strategy, you might capture your reader's attention by discussing them in the order of most problematic to least. Or you might choose to build the intensity of your essay by starting with the smallest problem first.

• For example, a solid paragraph about Hamlet's insanity could draw from several different scenes in which he appears to act insane. Even though these scenes don't all cluster together in the original play, discussing them together will make a lot more sense than trying to discuss the whole play from start to finish.

• Ensure that your topic sentence is directly related to your main argument. Avoid statements that may be on the general topic, but not directly relevant to your thesis.
• Make sure that your topic sentence offers a “preview” of your paragraph's argument or discussion. Many beginning writers forget to use the first sentence this way, and end up with sentences that don't give a clear direction for the paragraph.
• For example, compare these two first sentences: “Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743” and “Thomas Jefferson, who was born in 1743, became one of the most important people in America by the end of the 18th century.”
• The first sentence doesn't give a good direction for the paragraph. It states a fact but leaves the reader clueless about the fact's relevance. The second sentence contextualizes the fact and lets the reader know what the rest of the paragraph will discuss.

• Transitions help underline your essay's overall organizational logic. For example, beginning a paragraph with something like “Despite the many points in its favor, Mystic Pizza also has several elements that keep it from being the best pizza in town” allows your reader to understand how this paragraph connects to what has come before.
• Transitions can also be used inside paragraphs. They can help connect the ideas within a paragraph smoothly so your reader can follow them.
• If you're having a lot of trouble connecting your paragraphs, your organization may be off. Try the revision strategies elsewhere in this article to determine whether your paragraphs are in the best order.
• The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin - Madison has a handy list of transitional words and phrases, along with the type of transition they indicate. [22] X Research source

• You can try returning to your original idea or theme and adding another layer of sophistication to it. Your conclusion can show how necessary your essay is to understanding something about the topic that readers would not have been prepared to understand before.
• For some types of essays, a call to action or appeal to emotions can be quite helpful in a conclusion. Persuasive essays often use this technique.
• Avoid hackneyed phrases like “In sum” or “In conclusion.” They come across as stiff and cliched on paper.

Revising the Plan

• You can reverse-outline on the computer or on a printed draft, whichever you find easier.
• As you read through your essay, summarize the main idea (or ideas) of each paragraph in a few key words. You can write these on a separate sheet, on your printed draft, or as a comment in a word processing document.
• Look at your key words. Do the ideas progress in a logical fashion? Or does your argument jump around?
• If you're having trouble summarizing the main idea of each paragraph, it's a good sign that your paragraphs have too much going on. Try splitting your paragraphs up.

• You may also find with this technique that your topic sentences and transitions aren't as strong as they could be. Ideally, your paragraphs should have only one way they could be organized for maximum effectiveness. If you can put your paragraphs in any order and the essay still kind of makes sense, you may not be building your argument effectively.

• For example, you might find that placing your least important argument at the beginning drains your essay of vitality. Experiment with the order of the sentences and paragraphs for heightened effect.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Jake Adams. Academic Tutor & Test Prep Specialist. Expert Interview. 20 May 2020.
• ↑ http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/planning-and-organizing/organizing
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/understanding-assignments/
• ↑ https://open.lib.umn.edu/writingforsuccess/chapter/6-1-purpose-audience-tone-and-content/
• ↑ https://www.student.unsw.edu.au/writing-your-essay
• ↑ https://www.hamilton.edu/writing/writing-resources/persuasive-essays
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/thesis-statements/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/brainstorming/
• ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/engagement/2/2/53/
• ↑ https://pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca/scholarlywriting/chapter/revising-a-thesis-statement/
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/reorganizing-drafts/
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/essay-outline/
• ↑ https://wts.indiana.edu/writing-guides/paragraphs-and-topic-sentences.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/transitions/
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/Transitions.html
• ↑ http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/conclusions/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/reading-aloud/

About This Article

To organize an essay, start by writing a thesis statement that makes a unique observation about your topic. Then, write down each of the points you want to make that support your thesis statement. Once you have all of your main points, expand them into paragraphs using the information you found during your research. Finally, close your essay with a conclusion that reiterates your thesis statement and offers additional insight into why it’s important. For tips from our English reviewer on how to use transitional sentences to help your essay flow better, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Some basic guidelines

The best time to think about how to organize your paper is during the pre-writing stage, not the writing or revising stage. A well-thought-out plan can save you from having to do a lot of reorganizing when the first draft is completed. Moreover, it allows you to pay more attention to sentence-level issues when you sit down to write your paper.

When you begin planning, ask the following questions: What type of essay am I going to be writing? Does it belong to a specific genre? In university, you may be asked to write, say, a book review, a lab report, a document study, or a compare-and-contrast essay. Knowing the patterns of reasoning associated with a genre can help you to structure your essay.

For example, book reviews typically begin with a summary of the book you’re reviewing. They then often move on to a critical discussion of the book’s strengths and weaknesses. They may conclude with an overall assessment of the value of the book. These typical features of a book review lead you to consider dividing your outline into three parts: (1) summary; (2) discussion of strengths and weaknesses; (3) overall evaluation. The second and most substantial part will likely break down into two sub-parts. It is up to you to decide the order of the two subparts—whether to analyze strengths or weaknesses first. And of course it will be up to you to come up with actual strengths and weaknesses.

Be aware that genres are not fixed. Different professors will define the features of a genre differently. Read the assignment question carefully for guidance.

Understanding genre can take you only so far. Most university essays are argumentative, and there is no set pattern for the shape of an argumentative essay. The simple three-point essay taught in high school is far too restrictive for the complexities of most university assignments. You must be ready to come up with whatever essay structure helps you to convince your reader of the validity of your position. In other words, you must be flexible, and you must rely on your wits. Each essay presents a fresh problem.

Avoiding a common pitfall

Though there are no easy formulas for generating an outline, you can avoid one of the most common pitfalls in student papers by remembering this simple principle: the structure of an essay should not be determined by the structure of its source material. For example, an essay on an historical period should not necessarily follow the chronology of events from that period. Similarly, a well-constructed essay about a literary work does not usually progress in parallel with the plot. Your obligation is to advance your argument, not to reproduce the plot.

If your essay is not well structured, then its overall weaknesses will show through in the individual paragraphs. Consider the following two paragraphs from two different English essays, both arguing that despite Hamlet’s highly developed moral nature he becomes morally compromised in the course of the play:

(a) In Act 3, Scene 4, Polonius hides behind an arras in Gertrude’s chamber in order to spy on Hamlet at the bidding of the king. Detecting something stirring, Hamlet draws his sword and kills Polonius, thinking he has killed Claudius. Gertrude exclaims, “O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!” (28), and her words mark the turning point in Hamlet’s moral decline. Now Hamlet has blood on his hands, and the blood of the wrong person. But rather than engage in self-criticism, Hamlet immediately turns his mother’s words against her: “A bloody deed — almost as bad, good Mother, as kill a king, and marry with his brother” (29-30). One of Hamlet’s most serious shortcomings is his unfair treatment of women. He often accuses them of sins they could not have committed. It is doubtful that Gertrude even knows Claudius killed her previous husband. Hamlet goes on to ask Gertrude to compare the image of the two kings, old Hamlet and Claudius. In Hamlet’s words, old Hamlet has “Hyperion’s curls,” the front of Jove,” and “an eye like Mars” (57-58). Despite Hamlet’s unfair treatment of women, he is motivated by one of his better qualities: his idealism. (b) One of Hamlet’s most serious moral shortcomings is his unfair treatment of women. In Act 3, Scene 1, he denies to Ophelia ever having expressed his love for her, using his feigned madness as cover for his cruelty. Though his rantings may be an act, they cannot hide his obsessive anger at one particular woman: his mother. He counsels Ophelia to “marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them” (139-41), thus blaming her in advance for the sin of adultery. The logic is plain: if Hamlet’s mother made a cuckold out of Hamlet’s father, then all women are capable of doing the same and therefore share the blame. The fact that Gertrude’s hasty remarriage does not actually constitute adultery only underscores Hamlet’s tendency to find in women faults that do not exist. In Act 3, Scene 4, he goes as far as to suggest that Gertrude shared responsibility in the murder of Hamlet’s father (29-30). By condemning women for actions they did not commit, Hamlet is doing just what he accuses Guildenstern of doing to him: he is plucking out the “heart” of their “mystery” (3.2.372-74).

The second of these two paragraphs is much stronger, largely because it is not plot-driven. It makes a well-defined point about Hamlet’s moral nature and sticks to that point throughout the paragraph. Notice that the paragraph jumps from one scene to another as is necessary, but the logic of the argument moves along a steady path. At any given point in your essays, you will want to leave yourself free to go wherever you need to in your source material. Your only obligation is to further your argument. Paragraph (a) sticks closely to the narrative thread of Act 3, Scene 4, and as a result the paragraph makes several different points with no clear focus.

What does an essay outline look like?

Most essay outlines will never be handed in. They are meant to serve you and no one else. Occasionally, your professor will ask you to hand in an outline weeks prior to handing in your paper. Usually, the point is to ensure that you are on the right track. Nevertheless, when you produce your outline, you should follow certain basic principles. Here is an example of an outline for an essay on Hamlet :

This is an example of a sentence outline. Another kind of outline is the topic outline. It consists of fragments rather than full sentences. Topic outlines are more open-ended than sentence outlines: they leave much of the working out of the argument for the writing stage.

When should I begin putting together a plan?

The earlier you begin planning, the better. It is usually a mistake to do all of your research and note-taking before beginning to draw up an outline. Of course, you will have to do some reading and weighing of evidence before you start to plan. But as a potential argument begins to take shape in your mind, you may start to formalize your thoughts in the form of a tentative plan. You will be much more efficient in your reading and your research if you have some idea of where your argument is headed. You can then search for evidence for the points in your tentative plan while you are reading and researching. As you gather evidence, those points that still lack evidence should guide you in your research. Remember, though, that your plan may need to be modified as you critically evaluate your evidence.

How can I construct a usable plan?

Here are two methods for constructing a plan. The first works best on the computer. The second method works well for those who think visually. It is often the method of choice for those who prefer to do some of their thinking with pen and paper, though it can easily be transposed to a word processor or your graphic software of choice.

method 1: hierarchical outline

This method usually begins by taking notes. Start by collecting potential points, as well as useful quotations and paraphrases of quotations, consecutively. As you accumulate notes, identify key points and start to arrange those key points into an outline. To build your outline, take advantage of outline view in Word or numbered lists in Google Docs. Or consider one of the specialized apps designed to help organize ideas: Scrivener, Microsoft OneNote, Workflowy, among others. All these tools make it easy for you to arrange your points hierarchically and to move those points around as you refine your plan.You may, at least initially, keep your notes and your outline separate. But there is no reason for you not to integrate your notes into the plan. Your notes—minor points, quotations, and paraphrases—can all be interwoven into the plan, just below the main points they support. Some of your notes may not find a place in your outline. If so, either modify the plan or leave those points out.

method 2: the circle method

This method is designed to get your key ideas onto a single page, where you can see them all at once. When you have an idea, write it down, and draw a circle around it. When you have an idea that supports another idea, do the same, but connect the two circles with a line. Supporting source material can be represented concisely by a page reference inside a circle. The advantage of the circle method is that you can see at a glance how things tie together; the disadvantage is that there is a limit to how much material you can cram onto a page.

Here is part of a circle diagram

Once you are content with your diagram, you have the option of turning it into an essay outline.

What is a reverse outline?

When you have completed your first draft, and you think your paper can be better organized, consider using a reverse outline. Reverse outlines are simple to create. Just read through your essay, and every time you make a new point, summarize it in the margin. If the essay is reasonably well-organized, you should have one point in the margin for each paragraph, and your points read out in order should form a coherent argument. You might, however, discover that some of your points are repeated at various places in your essay. Other points may be out of place, and still other key points may not appear at all. Think of all these points as the ingredients of an improved outline which you now must create. Use this new outline to cut and paste the sentences into a revised version of your essay, consolidating points that appear in several parts of your essay while eliminating repetition and creating smooth transitions where necessary.

You can improve even the most carefully planned essay by creating a reverse outline after completing your first draft. The process of revision should be as much about organization as it is about style.

How much of my time should I put into planning?

It is self-evident that a well-planned paper is going to be better organized than a paper that was not planned out. Thinking carefully about how you are going to argue your paper and preparing an outline can only add to the quality of your final product. Nevertheless, some people find it more helpful than others to plan. Those who are good at coming up with ideas but find writing difficult often benefit from planning. By contrast, those who have trouble generating ideas but find writing easy may benefit from starting to write early. Putting pen to paper (or typing away at the keyboard) may be just what is needed to get the ideas to flow.

You have to find out for yourself what works best for you, though it is fair to say that at least some planning is always a good idea. Think about whether your current practices are serving you well. You know you’re planning too little if the first draft of your essays is always a disorganized mess, and you have to spend a disproportionate amount of time creating reverse outlines and cutting and pasting material. You know you’re planning too much if you always find yourself writing your paper a day before it’s due after spending weeks doing research and devising elaborate plans.

Be aware of the implications of planning too little or too much.

Planning  provides the following  advantages :

• helps you to produce a  logical  and  orderly  argument that your readers can follow
• helps you to produce an  economical  paper by allowing you to spot repetition
• helps you to produce a  thorough  paper by making it easier for you to notice whether you have left anything out
• makes drafting the paper easier by allowing you to concentrate on writing issues such as grammar, word choice, and clarity

Overplanning  poses the following  risks :

• doesn’t leave you enough time to write and revise
• leads you to produce papers that try to cover too much ground at the expense of analytic depth
• can result in a writing style that lacks spontaneity and ease
• does not provide enough opportunity to discover new ideas in the process of writing

Module 1: An Overview of the Writing Process

Organizing an essay.

There are many elements that must come together to create a good essay. The topic should be clear and interesting. The author’s voice should come through, but not be a distraction. There should be no errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, or capitalization. Organization is one of the most important elements of an essay that is often overlooked. An organized essay is clear, focused, logical and effective.

Organization makes it easier to understand the thesis. To illustrate, imagine putting together a bike. Having all of the necessary tools, parts, and directions will make the job easier to complete than if the parts are spread across the room and the tools are located all over the house. The same logic applies to writing an essay. When all the parts of an essay are in some sort of order, it is both easier for the writer to put the essay together and for the reader to understand the main ideas presented in the essay.

Strategy 1. Reverse Outlining

If your paper is about Huckleberry Finn, a working thesis might be: “In Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain develops a contrast between life on the river and life on the shore.” However, you might feel uncertain if your paper really follows through on the thesis as promised.

This paper may benefit from reverse outlining. Your aim is to create an outline of what you’ve already written, as opposed to the kind of outline that you make before you begin to write. The reverse outline will help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both your organization and your argument.

Read the draft and take notes Read your draft over, and as you do so, make very brief notes in the margin about what each paragraph is trying to accomplish.

Outline the Draft After you’ve read through the entire draft, transfer the brief notes to a fresh sheet of paper, listing them in the order in which they appear. The outline might look like this:

• Paragraph 1: Intro
• Paragraph 2: Background on Huck Finn
• Paragraph 3: River for Huck and Jim
• Paragraph 4: Shore and laws for Huck and Jim
• Paragraph 5: Shore and family, school
• Paragraph 6: River and freedom, democracy
• Paragraph 7: River and shore similarities
• Paragraph 8: Conclusion

Examine the Outline Look for repetition and other organizational problems. In the reverse outline above, there’s a problem somewhere in Paragraphs 3-7, where the potential for repetition is high because you keep moving back and forth between river and shore.

Re-examine the Thesis, the Outline, and the Draft Together Look closely at the outline and see how well it supports the argument in your thesis statement. You should be able to see which paragraphs need rewriting, reordering or rejecting. You may find some paragraphs are tangential or irrelevant or that some paragraphs have more than one idea and need to be separated.

Strategy 2. Talk It Out

Find a Friend, your T.A., your Professor, a relative, a Writing Center tutor, or any sympathetic and intelligent listener. People are more accustomed to talking than writing, so it might be beneficial to explain your thinking out loud to someone before organizing the essay. Talking to someone about your ideas may also relieve pressure and anxiety about your topic.

Explain What Your Paper Is About Pay attention to how you explain your argument verbally. It is likely that the order in which you present your ideas and evidence to your listener is a logical way to arrange them in your paper. Let’s say that you begin (as you did above) with the working thesis. As you continue to explain, you realize that even though your draft doesn’t mention “private enterprise” until the last two paragraphs, you begin to talk about it right away. This fact should tell you that you probably need to discuss private enterprise near the beginning.

Take Notes You and your listener should keep track of the way you explain your paper. If you don’t, you probably won’t remember what you’ve talked about. Compare the structure of the argument in the notes to the structure of the draft you’ve written.

Get Your Listener to Ask Questions As the writer, it is in your interest to receive constructive criticism so that your draft will become stronger. You want your listener to say things like, “Would you mind explaining that point about being both conservative and liberal again? I wasn’t sure I followed” or “What kind of economic principle is government relief? Do you consider it a good or bad thing?” Questions you can’t answer may signal an unnecessary tangent or an area needing further development in the draft. Questions you need to think about will probably make you realize that you need to explain more your paper. In short, you want to know if your listener fully understands you; if not, chances are your readers won’t, either. [2]

Strategy 3. Paragraphs

Readers need paragraph breaks in order to organize their reading. Writers need paragraph breaks to organize their writing. A paragraph break indicates a change in focus, topic, specificity, point of view, or rhetorical strategy. The paragraph should have one main idea; the topic sentence expresses this idea. The paragraph should be organized either spatially, chronologically, or logically. The movement may be from general to specific, specific to general, or general to specific to general. All paragraphs must contain developed ideas: comparisons, examples, explanations, definitions, causes, effects, processes, or descriptions. There are several concluding strategies which may be combined or used singly, depending on the assignment’s length and purpose:

• a summary of the main points
• a hook and return to the introductory “attention-getter” to frame the essay
• a web conclusion which relates the topic to a larger context of a greater significance
• a proposal calling for action or further examination of the topic
• a question which provokes the reader
• a vivid image or compelling narrative [3]

Put Paragraphs into Sections You should be able to group your paragraphs so that they make a particular point or argument that supports your thesis.  If any paragraph, besides the introduction or conclusion, cannot fit into any section, you may have to ask yourself whether it belongs in the essay.

Re-examine each Section Assuming you have more than one paragraph under each section, try to distinguish between them. Perhaps you have two arguments in favor of that can be distinguished from each other by author, logic, ethical principles invoked, etc. Write down the distinctions — they will help you formulate clear topic sentences.

Re-examine the Entire Argument Which section do you want to appear first? Why? Which Second? Why? In what order should the paragraphs appear in each section? Look for an order that makes the strongest possible argument. [4]

• Organizing an Essay ↵
• Reorganizing Your Draft ↵
• Parts of an Essay ↵
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Organizing Your Writing

Writing for Success

Learning Objectives

• Understand how and why organizational techniques help writers and readers stay focused.
• Assess how and when to use chronological order to organize an essay.
• Recognize how and when to use order of importance to organize an essay.
• Determine how and when to use spatial order to organize an essay.

The method of organization you choose for your essay is just as important as its content. Without a clear organizational pattern, your reader could become confused and lose interest. The way you structure your essay helps your readers draw connections between the body and the thesis, and the structure also keeps you focused as you plan and write the essay. Choosing your organizational pattern before you outline ensures that each body paragraph works to support and develop your thesis.

This section covers three ways to organize body paragraphs:

• Chronological order
• Order of importance
• Spatial order

When you begin to draft your essay, your ideas may seem to flow from your mind in a seemingly random manner. Your readers, who bring to the table different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas, need you to clearly organize these ideas in order to help process and accept them.

A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft. Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

Chronological arrangement (also called “time order,”) has the following purposes:

• To explain the history of an event or a topic
• To tell a story or relate an experience
• To explain how to do or to make something
• To explain the steps in a process

Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing, which is a form of writing that narrates, describes, informs, or explains a process. When using chronological order, arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions. This method requires you to use words such as first, second, then, after that, later, and finally. These transition words guide you and your reader through the paper as you expand your thesis.

For example, if you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day. You would follow the chain of events using words such as first, then, next, and so on.

WRITING AT WORK

At some point in your career you may have to file a complaint with your human resources department. Using chronological order is a useful tool in describing the events that led up to your filing the grievance. You would logically lay out the events in the order that they occurred using the key transition words. The more logical your complaint, the more likely you will be well received and helped.

Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.

Keep in mind that chronological order is most appropriate for the following purposes:

• Writing essays containing heavy research
• Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
• Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

When using chronological order, your introduction should indicate the information you will cover and in what order, and the introduction should also establish the relevance of the information. Your body paragraphs should then provide clear divisions or steps in chronology. You can divide your paragraphs by time (such as decades, wars, or other historical events) or by the same structure of the work you are examining (such as a line-by-line explication of a poem).

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that describes a process you are familiar with and can do well. Assume that your reader is unfamiliar with the procedure. Remember to use the chronological key words, such as first, second, then, and finally.

ORDER OF IMPORTANCE

Order of importance is best used for the following purposes:

• Persuading and convincing
• Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
• Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution

Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to begin with your most important supporting point, such as in an essay that contains a thesis that is highly debatable. When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.

For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are most importantly, almost as importantly, just as importantly, and finally.

During your career, you may be required to work on a team that devises a strategy for a specific goal of your company, such as increasing profits. When planning your strategy you should organize your steps in order of importance. This demonstrates the ability to prioritize and plan. Using the order of importance technique also shows that you can create a resolution with logical steps for accomplishing a common goal.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on. Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.

SPATIAL ORDER

Spatial order is best used for the following purposes:

• Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
• Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
• Writing a descriptive essay

Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space, for example in a bedroom. As the writer, you create a picture for your reader, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.

The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place. The key to using this method is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.

Pay attention to the following student’s description of her bedroom and how she guides the reader through the viewing process, foot by foot.

The paragraph incorporates two objectives you have learned in this chapter: using an implied topic sentence and applying spatial order. Often in a descriptive essay, the two work together.

The following are possible transition words to include when using spatial order:

• Just to the left or just to the right
• On the left or on the right
• Across from
• A little further down
• To the south, to the east, and so on
• A few yards away
• Turning left or turning right

Key Takeaways

• The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to, your thesis statement.
• A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
• Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
• Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
• Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
• Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.

Organizing Your Writing Copyright © 2016 by Writing for Success is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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OASIS: Writing Center

Writing a paper: organizing your thoughts.

Stacks of notes, books, and course materials in front of a blank computer screen may cause a moment of writer's block as you go to organize your paper, but there is no need to panic. Instead, organizing your paper will give you a sense of control and allow you to better integrate your ideas as you start to write.

Organizing your paper can be a daunting task if you begin too late, so organizing a paper should take place during the  reading and note-taking process . As you read and take notes, make sure to group your data into self-contained categories . These categories will help you to build the structure of your paper.

Take, for example, a paper about children's education and the quantity of television children watch. Some categories may be the following:

• Amount of television children watch (by population, age, gender, etc.)
• Behaviors or issues linked to television watching (obesity, ADHD, etc.)
• Outcomes linked to television watching (performance in school, expected income, etc.)
• Factors influencing school performance (parent involvement, study time, etc.)

The list above holds some clear themes that may emerge you as read through the literature. It is sometimes a challenge to know what information to group together into a category. Sources that share similar data, support one another, or bring about similar concerns may be a good place to start looking for such categories.

For example, let's say you had three sources that had the following information:

• The average American youth spends 900 hours in school over the course of a school year; the average American youth watches 1500 hours of television a year (Herr, 2001).
• "According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), kids in the United States watch about 4 hours of TV a day - even though the AAP guidelines say children older than 2 should watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming" (Folder, Crisp, & Watson, 2005, p. 2).
• "According to AAP (2007) guidelines, children under age 2 should have no screen time (TV, DVDs or videotapes, computers, or video games) at all. During the first 2 years, a critical time for brain development, TV can get in the way of exploring, learning, and spending time interacting and playing with parents and others, which helps young children develop the skills they need to grow cognitively, physically, socially, and emotionally" (Folder, Crisp, & Watson, 2005, p. 9).

With these three ideas, you might group them under this category: Amount of television children watch.

Each of these source quotations or paraphrases supports that category. For each group of information, repeat this process to group similar categories together. Then you can move on to order the information you gather.

Once you have read your sources, taken notes, and grouped your information by category, the next step is to  read critically , evaluate your sources , determine your thesis statement , and decide the best order in which to present your research. Note that as you begin to narrow your topic or focus, you will find some sources are not relevant.  That is fine! Do not try to squeeze every source mentioning "children" and "television" into your paper.

Let's say you have come up with the following categories from the sources you have read:

• Children watch more than the recommended amount of television.
• The more television children watch, the less likely they are to study.
• Certain groups of children watch more television than others.
• Students whose grades are poor in high school are 56% less likely to graduate from college.
• Poor performance in middle school correlates to poor high school performance.

You will want the order of your material to advance and prove your thesis. Every thesis needs to be capable of advancement. Let's assume that your thesis is Children who watch more than the recommended amount of television are less likely to receive a college education. In this case, it seems that you will want to start off by showing that there is a problem, and then giving examples of that problem and its consequences.

The best order for these categories would be the following:

• Poor performance in middle school correlates to poor high school performance

The way a paper is organized is largely the result of the logical and causal relationships between the categories or topics apparent in the research. In other words, each category's placement is specifically chosen so that it is the result of the previous theme and able to contribute to the next, as the previous example shows. It is often a good practice to save your strongest argument or evidence until the end of the paper and build up to it. Using careful organization to advance your thesis will help guide your reader to your conclusion!

Mindmapping Video

Note that this video was created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

• Prewriting Demonstrations: Mindmapping (video transcript)

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Organization and Structure

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

There is no single organizational pattern that works well for all writing across all disciplines; rather, organization depends on what you’re writing, who you’re writing it for, and where your writing will be read. In order to communicate your ideas, you’ll need to use a logical and consistent organizational structure in all of your writing. We can think about organization at the global level (your entire paper or project) as well as at the local level (a chapter, section, or paragraph). For an American academic situation, this means that at all times, the goal of revising for organization and structure is to consciously design your writing projects to make them easy for readers to understand. In this context, you as the writer are always responsible for the reader's ability to understand your work; in other words, American academic writing is writer-responsible. A good goal is to make your writing accessible and comprehensible to someone who just reads sections of your writing rather than the entire piece. This handout provides strategies for revising your writing to help meet this goal.

Note that this resource focuses on writing for an American academic setting, specifically for graduate students. American academic writing is of course not the only standard for academic writing, and researchers around the globe will have different expectations for organization and structure. The OWL has some more resources about writing for American and international audiences here .

Whole-Essay Structure

While organization varies across and within disciplines, usually based on the genre, publication venue, and other rhetorical considerations of the writing, a great deal of academic writing can be described by the acronym IMRAD (or IMRaD): Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This structure is common across most of the sciences and is often used in the humanities for empirical research. This structure doesn't serve every purpose (for instance, it may be difficult to follow IMRAD in a proposal for a future study or in more exploratory writing in the humanities), and it is often tweaked or changed to fit a particular situation. Still, its wide use as a base for a great deal of scholarly writing makes it worthwhile to break down here.

• Introduction : What is the purpose of the study? What were the research questions? What necessary background information should the reader understand to help contextualize the study? (Some disciplines include their literature review section as part of the introduction; some give the literature review its own heading on the same level as the other sections, i.e., ILMRAD.) Some writers use the CARS model to help craft their introductions more effectively.
• Methods: What methods did the researchers use? How was the study conducted? If the study included participants, who were they, and how were they selected?
• Results : This section lists the data. What did the researchers find as a result of their experiments (or, if the research is not experimental, what did the researchers learn from the study)? How were the research questions answered?
• Discussion : This section places the data within the larger conversation of the field. What might the results mean? Do these results agree or disagree with other literature cited? What should researchers do in the future?

Depending on your discipline, this may be exactly the structure you should use in your writing; or, it may be a base that you can see under the surface of published pieces in your field, which then diverge from the IMRAD structure to meet the expectations of other scholars in the field. However, you should always check to see what's expected of you in a given situation; this might mean talking to the professor for your class, looking at a journal's submission guidelines, reading your field's style manual, examining published examples, or asking a trusted mentor. Every field is a little different.

Outlining & Reverse Outlining

One of the most effective ways to get your ideas organized is to write an outline. A traditional outline comes as the pre-writing or drafting stage of the writing process. As you make your outline, think about all of the concepts, topics, and ideas you will need to include in order to accomplish your goal for the piece of writing. This may also include important citations and key terms. Write down each of these, and then consider what information readers will need to know in order for each point to make sense. Try to arrange your ideas in a way that logically progresses, building from one key idea or point to the next.

Questions for Writing Outlines

• What are the main points I am trying to make in this piece of writing?
• What background information will my readers need to understand each point? What will novice readers vs. experienced readers need to know?
• In what order do I want to present my ideas? Most important to least important, or least important to most important? Chronologically? Most complex to least complex? According to categories? Another order?

Reverse outlining comes at the drafting or revision stage of the writing process. After you have a complete draft of your project (or a section of your project), work alone or with a partner to read your project with the goal of understanding the main points you have made and the relationship of these points to one another. The OWL has another resource about reverse outlining here.

Questions for Writing Reverse Outlines

• What topics are covered in this piece of writing?
• In what order are the ideas presented? Is this order logical for both novice and experienced readers?
• Is adequate background information provided for each point, making it easy to understand how one idea leads to the next?
• What other points might the author include to further develop the writing project?

Organizing at the sentence and paragraph level

Signposting.

Signposting is the practice of using language specifically designed to help orient readers of your text. We call it signposting because this practice is like leaving road signs for a driver — it tells your reader where to go and what to expect up ahead. Signposting includes the use of transitional words and phrasing, and they may be explicit or more subtle. For example, an explicit signpost might say:

This section will cover Topic A­­ and Topic B­­­­­.

A more subtle signpost might look like this:

It's important to consider the impact of Topic A­­ and Topic B­­­­­.

The style of signpost you use will depend on the genre of your paper, the discipline in which you are writing, and your or your readers’ personal preferences. Regardless of the style of signpost you select, it’s important to include signposts regularly. They occur most frequently at the beginnings and endings of sections of your paper. It is often helpful to include signposts at mid-points in your project in order to remind readers of where you are in your argument.

Questions for Identifying and Evaluating Signposts

• How and where does the author include a phrase, sentence, or short group of sentences that explains the purpose and contents of the paper?
• How does each section of the paper provide a brief summary of what was covered earlier in the paper?
• How does each section of the paper explain what will be covered in that section?
• How does the author use transitional words and phrases to guide readers through ideas (e.g. however, in addition, similarly, nevertheless, another, while, because, first, second, next, then etc.)?

WORKS CONSULTED

Clark, I. (2006). Writing the successful thesis and dissertation: Entering the conversation . Prentice Hall Press.

Davis, M., Davis, K. J., & Dunagan, M. (2012). Scientific papers and presentations . Academic press.

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2.5: Organizing Your Writing

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Organizing Your Writing

Chronological Order, Order of Importance, and Spatial Order

The method of organization for essays and paragraphs is just as important as content. When you begin to draft an essay or paragraph, your ideas may seem to flow from your mind in a seemingly random manner; however, your readers, who bring to the table different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas, need you to clearly organize these ideas to help them draw connections between the body and the thesis.

A solid organizational pattern not only helps readers to process and accept your ideas, but also gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your essay (or paragraph).

Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. In addition, planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

This section covers three ways to organize both essays and paragraphs: chronological order, order of importance, and spatial order.

Chronological Order

Chronological arrangement has the following purposes:

• To explain the history of an event or a topic
• To tell a story or relate an experience
• To explain how to do or to make something
• To explain the steps in a process

Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing, which is a form of writing that narrates, describes, informs, or explains a process.

When using chronological order, arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions. This method requires you to use words such as first, second, then, after that, later, and finally. These transition words guide you and your reader through the paper as you expand your thesis.

For example, if you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day. You would follow the chain of events using words such as first, then, next, and so on.

Keep in mind that chronological order is most appropriate for the following purposes:

• Writing essays containing heavy research
• Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
• Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

When using chronological order, your introduction should indicate the information you will cover and should also establish the relevance of the information. Your body paragraphs should then provide clear divisions or steps in chronology. You can divide your paragraphs by time (such as decades, wars, or other historical events) or by the same structure of the work you are examining (such as a line-by-line explication of a poem).

Exercise: Organizing Chronologically

Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.

Exercise: Step by Step Process

Write a paragraph that describes a process you are familiar with and can do well. Assume that your reader is unfamiliar with the procedure.

Remember to use the chronological keywords: first, second, then, and finally.

Order of Importance

Order of importance is best used for the following purposes:

• Persuading and convincing
• Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
• Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution

Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength.

Sometimes, it is necessary to begin with the most important supporting point, such as in an essay that contains a thesis that is highly debatable.

When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.

For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

During your career, you may be required to work on a team that devises a strategy for a specific goal of your company, such as increasing profits. When planning your strategy you should organize your steps in order of importance. This demonstrates the ability to prioritize and plan. Using the order of importance technique also shows that you can create a resolution with logical steps for accomplishing a common goal.

Spatial Order

Spatial order is best used for the following purposes:

• Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
• Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
• Writing a descriptive essay

Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space, for example in a bedroom. As the writer, you create a picture for your readers, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.

The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place. The key to using this method is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.

Pay attention to the following student’s description of her bedroom and how she guides the reader through the viewing process, foot by foot:

Attached to my back bedroom wall is a small wooden rack festooned with red and turquoise necklaces that shimmer as I enter. Just to the right of the rack, billowy white curtains frame a large window with a sill that ends just six inches from the floor. The peace of such an image is a stark contrast to my desk, sitting to the right of the window, layered in textbooks, crumpled papers, coffee cups, and an overflowing ashtray. Turning my head to the right, I see a set of two bare windows that frame the trees outside the glass like a three-dimensional painting. Below the windows is an oak chest from which blankets and scarves are protruding. Against the wall opposite the billowy curtains is an antique dresser, on top of which sits a jewelry box and a few picture frames. A tall mirror attached to the dresser takes up much of the lavender wall.

The paragraph incorporates two objectives covered in this chapter: using an implied topic sentence and applying spatial order. Often in a descriptive essay, the two objectives work together.

The following are possible transition words to include when using spatial order:

• Just to the left or just to the right
• On the left or on the right
• Across from
• A little further down
• To the south, to the east, and so on
• A few yards away
• Turning left or turning right

Exercise: Order of Importance

Write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on.

Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.

Key Takeaways

• The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to your thesis statement.
• A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
• Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
• Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
• Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
• Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.