http://www.macmillanhighered.com/launchpad/models13e
among the best
tennis players in
the history of the
game.
Serena ‐
Williams
compare with
other tennis
players?
sisters with other players and
provide evidence to support the
claim that they are “among the
best.”
superior ability and accomplishments as well
as descriptions of their athletic feats.
How to build a
personal website.
How do you
build a
personal
website?
Process analysis. The word how,
especially in the phrase how to,
implies a procedure that can be
explained in steps or stages.
Description. The writer should describe the
website, especially the look and design of the
site, at various points in the process.
Petroleum and
natural gas prices
should be
federally
controlled.
What should
be done about
petroleum
and natural
gas prices?
Argument. The word should signals
a debatable claim and proposal,
which calls for evidence and
reasoning in support of the
conclusion.
Comparison and contrast and cause and effect.
The writer should present evidence from a
comparison of federally controlled pricing with
deregulated pricing, as well as from a
discussion of the effects of deregulation.
For more practice, visit the LaunchPad for Models for Writers: LearningCurve > Patterns of Organization
Map Your Organization
After you decide what you want to write about and come up with some ideas about what you might like to say, your next task is to organize the main ideas for your essay in a way that seems both natural and logical to you. One way to map your ideas is to make an outline. In constructing this outline, if you discover that a particular organizational pattern will help you in generating ideas, you might consider using that as your overall organizing principle.
Some writers make a detailed outline and fill it out point by point, whereas others follow a general plan and let the writing take them where it will, making any necessary adjustments to the plan when they revise.
Here are some major patterns of organization you may want to use for your outline:
Chronological (oldest to newest, or the reverse)
Spatial (top to bottom, left to right, inside to outside, and so forth)
Least familiar to most familiar
Easiest to most difficult to comprehend
Easiest to most difficult to accept
According to similarities or differences
Notice that some of these organizational patterns correspond to the rhetorical patterns in Part