Indentifying the basics of structure

What are the ingredients of a well-structured piece of writing? Well, writing first things first is a great start.

You confuse readers when you don't tell them your overall position early on and upfront. I know that keeping a few tricks up your sleeve is more exciting — or even better (like a detective story) subtly leading readers into believing something that's the opposite of what turns out, in a dramatic final paragraph, to be the case! — but it is confusing.

Also, in the context of factual writing, revealing your position at the outset is more honest, because then readers can critically evaluate your arguments. For instance, if you're going to present an argument that Shakespeare was an Eskimo, say so early on and then readers can be duly sceptical of any incidental details your essay starts to dwell on regarding textual evidence of Shakespeare's deep interest in snow and ice.

Another part of structuring your writing is to keep related information together. Suppose that you're discussing the health effects of pollution and you have three points about the ways that cars create dangerous fumes. At the very least consider whether to group the points together. (Sometimes. of course, you may have good reasons for keeping them separate.)

A book's index often reveals how methodical and organised the author really is, and how well he (or she) has grouped connected material together. If key topics in the index are revealed as page sweeps (such as 34–41), this is a better sign than if the same specific theme turns up in 10 or 20 different locations in the book.

View an index as a kind of X-ray of a book that reveals its hidden structure. Try indexing some of your own longer pieces of writing; you may be surprised to see how scattered your thoughts are! Even easier and quicker if you're word-processing is to search your document for certain words. Do you keep mentioning ‘paradigm’, for example, or have too many ‘buts’ and ‘howevers’? X-ray your own work by checking for key terms. Sometimes the check reveals problems!

What about layout and graphics? After all, isn't a picture worth a thousand words? Well, maybe for writing holiday news, but not in Critical Writing. No, no, no! Don't use graphics to prove your arguments. Critical Writing isn't marketing. Use graphics only to illustrate ideas that you've presented first in the main text. Similarly, don't rely on headings or snazzy fonts and text styles to make your points. But you can use all these things to highlight ideas and signpost things to the reader. That's after all, what a For Dummies book is doing all the time. Look at the next heading — doesn't it help you quickly navigate the text?

Presenting the evidence and setting out the argument

In Critical Writing the emphasis is on producing reasons to support or (equally importantly) to discredit a position. Evidence is crucial for both kinds of activity, although clearly you need to produce more evidence for controversial claims than for common sense assertions that your readers may reasonably be expected not to need convincing of.

Leave background information, anecdotes or jokes, useful as they are for reaching word-targets, to Internet chat rooms! Likewise, statements of personal opinion don't fit in with the central idea of Critical Writing, which is to persuade through argument.

Writing comes in all shapes and sizes, but the essay format is often the way in which colleges demand it and so I concentrate on that style here. Academic essays are supposed to argue a certain position and provide reasons that support a conclusion. Thus they are ‘critical thinking’ in capsule form.

But, like life, an essay is more complicated than that. In Critical Writing you need to make a particular effort to identify conflicting positions and to acknowledge different views. A more sophisticated essay shows how the main conclusions follow from the evidence provided, but may also explore issues and arguments related to the question that don't support the eventual conclusions. In this important sense, a good essay consists of several arguments, some of which are in competition with each other.

I hear you saying, ‘hold on there!’ Surely the aim is to write only what's strictly relevant and right? But remember that interpretation is the key in Critical Writing. You don't need to show you can either rote learn or reinvent the wheel. In most cases your job is to examine other people's ideas and select from them the elements you need to argue your case.

And don't be dogmatic (I say dogmatically). Respect different views and approaches and display a spirit of negotiation in your Critical Writing.

Checking out the key principles of well-structured writing

Writing well requires three things — knowledge of your topic, organisation and communication skills. The last one is the Cinderella skill — not invited to the party — in many academic contexts. In this section, you can learn how to make all three elements come to you as naturally as breathing.

Lecturer Andrew Northedge is an expert in this area and here, to get you started, are some of his most useful points for his students.

Re-working that first draft

When you've written your first draft, you arrive at the often neglected after-writing stage. No, not turning the TV on, putting your feet up and getting the beer out! It's now the real work begins.

Lecturer Andrew Northedge's tip for this stage is to spend time on improving the flow. He means mainly ensuring that the paragraphs follow (flow) in a smooth sequence. He recommends adding in extra text at key points that helps readers by tipping them off in advance where the argument is heading. Check out the later section ‘Spotting and using keywords’ for more details.

But just saying what the next paragraph is about isn't enough: you need to have a reason for your choice of content too — a sensible plan guiding the writing overall. The topics need to follow on from each other coherently and logically.

To make sure that this happens, you need either to be very good at writing ‘off the top of your head’ (what's sometimes called ‘steam of consciousness’ writing — the optimistic idea that your subconscious does all the work for you) or you need to have a pretty detailed and careful draft outline to guide your writing. You won't be surprised that for most people, a separate plan — one that delivers a sequence of points for the essay — together with links that connect them one to the next, works best in practice.

Linking can seem a subtle concept, but it's not difficult. It simply involves using certain words to connect your paragraphs. Suppose that you're writing an essay on the prospects of a manned base on Mars in the next decade, and your paragraph ends with the observation that the Mars base will require protection from meteorites. Then the next paragraph really needs to follow up this issue, perhaps by talking about meteorite proof domes or about other problems. When the essay changes direction, you can start the new paragraph with a few link words, such as ‘Another practical issue for any future interplanetary base may be . . .’.

Such writing tricks are so easy that people often take them for granted. Yet they can make all the difference between readability — and indigestibility.

Most people can always identify good writing because only good writing is interesting, effective and informative. For this reason, a vital part of Critical Writing is Critical Reading, because you have to be able to read and re-read your drafts with a critical eye before you're going to be able to improve them.

Deconstructing the question

Essay titles and assignment questions matter. Think of them as introducing you to an audience with a very particular interest. Imagine, for example, people who have paid to hear a talk on how to grow tomatoes — they're not going to be happy with one about the merits of ketchup over brown sauce!

The Critical Thinker's first job when writing is to think through exactly what that interest is — all the implications of the essay title or question. Don't tell the audience what you're interested in — tell readers only about what they want to know. The title or question is your indispensable guide to that.

Critical Thinking involves close examination of texts. Yet students often spend surprising little time on the very short and easily underestimated line or two that comes in the form of the question or assignment. Yet if you settle for a general impression of this short text, and charge off in the wrong direction, you can waste a lot of time and effort. Much better to deconstruct the question carefully, noting the choice and special significance of the words and assumptions behind it.

In the academic context, the need to ‘answer the question’ is paramount. As Andrew Northedge, the Open University lecturer stresses, everything in an essay should relate to the question, and what's more, you need to make clear that this is the case. Northedge sees successful essays as featuring one long argument with every paragraph leading inexorably to, and supporting, the conclusion. Although that could be that there are no simple answers.

Producing effective conclusions

A crucial part of structuring an academic essay is ensuring that your conclusion is effective.

Don't just answer the question, make clear that you've answered it. And the ‘it’ must be the original question. Yes, this advice sounds obvious, but in colleges anyway, the answer is only right if it matches the original question. Often it doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with the question under examination or in the title, or if you conclude that there's no answer or that it all ‘depends’. But absolutely without exception you have to make clear and unambiguously that your conclusion follows from the evidence you've presented and deals with the point you set out originally to explore.

So, when you write the conclusion, don't worry about insulting the reader's intelligence — just go right ahead and spell things out. The same applies for all your earlier, subsidiary points too — your intermediate conclusions that build up to your final one (more on these in the later ‘Using intermediate conclusions’ section).

Keeping your audience in mind

It's only common sense that different kinds of writing are aimed at different kinds of readers, and for sure, Critical Writing is expecting Critical Reading later. But it's important to realise that this readership is essentially imaginary. Be careful not to aim at too narrow an audience. What you don't do, for example, if you're a student asked to write an essay entitled ‘What's the root of the world's problems today?’ is produce an essay arguing in favour of a radical redistribution of wealth and against cruelty to animals, just because your teacher is a sandal-wearing vegetarian who hates rich people.

Noooo, not at all! You address not your supervisor but (at the very least) all the people the supervisor would expect your essay to need to convince too. For a student, rather obviously and literally, this would be examiners, but examiners too stand in for a wider audience. On a topic like this they'd judge an essay to be convincing and persuasive only if it would persuade any educated and reasonable person.

That said, the judgement about audience, however, is far from being as simple as just writing for some perfectly ‘wise person’. You need to consider the whole range of particular factors. For example, if you're writing a student dissertation for a supervisor in China or India or Saudi Arabia, you shouldn't assume the same shared base of political opinions as you maybe can when writing within the UK, or indeed, Western Europe.

Considering the detail required

Any question set by an exam board or a tutor comes with certain expectations of the ‘level of detail’ wanted and about background knowledge within a certain subject domain — plus important assumptions about the style of writing. I know from personal experience that writing an interesting and highly creative narrative on a topic is pointless if the examiner wants a demonstration of knowledge of certain particular points. Dull, maybe, but that's how it is, and Critical Writers are nothing if not realistic.

To work out the relevant ‘domain of expertise’, to use a flowery phrase, ask yourself: what's the practical context? For example, if you're writing an essay on ‘What role can organic farming have in feeding the world?’, you need to identify the appropriate framework: is the context a course on economics, farming technology or social psychology? Or perhaps it's not a course at all, but an assignment for a company making, say, organic ice cream.

The topics and evidence you look at in most detail depend on the key audience you're writing for (see the nearby sidebar ‘Types of audiences’ for more information).

Student essays aren't exactly journal articles, let alone full-blown dissertations (thank goodness), but they're a highly structured kind of writing that must focus on developing an argument.

A good way to road-test your writing is to write your conclusion down — and then write the opposite! Now, can you quickly find in your piece of writing the key points that you can read out to dissuade anyone arguing this ‘opposite position’?

Understanding that only gardens should be flowery

Rule number one of Critical Wiring is keep sentences short and simple. Doing so is easy and it's a mystery why many people seem to prefer writing long complicated sentences that introduce ambiguity and are tiring for readers to follow. They oblige readers to retain in their memory, at least briefly, one part of the sentence while they struggle to process the next bit — or the bit after that!

Rule 2 is avoid specialist terms and technical language where possible, and where you do need them clearly introduce and explain them. Similarly, flag up non-specialist terms that can be used in more than one way as ambiguous and define them for the purposes of the essay.

A good way to road check the comprehensibility of your writing, or at least of certain phrases, is to read it aloud. Remember, you don't have to appear to be a know-all. So simplify wherever possible.

Spotting and using keywords

Keywords emphasise or indicate the focus or intentions of the writer. They ask the readers to think in a particular way, specifically to anticipate what's about to happen next. The use of appropriate keywords makes your writing much more effective.

Okay, so keywords are worth using. But which ones are they? Not all words are equal! Part of writing effectively is certainly to use a relatively small number of powerful words, in the sense that they help to shape your argument and guide readers through it.

Between you and me, quite a bit of nonsense is sometimes written about Critical Thinking keywords, which in no way fits with real language and the kinds of things that people read and write. For example, when you read a journal article, you're unlikely to find a phrase such as ‘I will start by arguing . . .’, but many Critical Thinking guides call this an excellent syntactical device! Similarly, some lecturers forbid their students from writing ‘Finally, in conclusion’, but some Critical Thinking guides earnestly assure their readers that this is part of constructing a good essay.

No, the truth is a bit more subtle. A lot of the navigation of writing is implied: the first paragraph is probably going to introduce the topic, for example, and the last one is probably the conclusion.

With that cautionary note in mind, here are some patterns in writing that you need to be aware of:

• Keywords flagging up another argument in support of a view: Similarly, equally, again, another, in the same way, likewise.
• Keywords flagging up alternative perspectives and arguments: On the other hand (that's one of my favourites!), yet, however, but.
• Keywords rowing back against a criticism just advanced, in support of an earlier view: Nonetheless, even so, however, but (yes, keywords can serve different purposes).
• Keywords to tell the reader that you're about to draw some conclusions (get ready!): Therefore, thus, for this reason, because of this, it seems that.

Presenting the evidence and setting out the argument

Particularly in the academic context, where issues are complex and approaches can differ widely, a written essay is like a spoken debate, with several speakers who present their positions, and have to justify them too. Your role, as the author of the piece of Critical Writing, is to ‘chair the debate’ — asking searching questions, and (most exciting of all!) ruling on whether the speaker has met the objection or is starting to digress.

A skilled Critical Writer (like a good chairperson in a meeting), always tries to get all the important issues at least aired, and also knows how much space to give to each position, not forgetting when to rein people in — to ‘keep them to the point’.

Critical Writers need to argue one thing one moment — then another contrary thing — and at any point change their tone and ‘their mind’. They have to think for several people all at once — it requires them to become almost schizophrenic! Plus, they continually try to judge the whole situation as reflected in what they've just written!

Thus, a danger always exists that a piece of Critical Writing can degenerate into a babble of different opinions, all competing for the reader's attention and appearing not to relate to each other. At worse, such writing becomes an unstructured mess.

As in a debate, the key thing in Critical Writing is to have a good chairperson . Someone has to be in charge and you, the writer, are the all-important chair of the debate. Happily, as with a real debate, in Critical Writing one position can ‘triumph’ over another — by producing a killer fact, for example, or by demonstrating a contradiction in the opponent's logic. Rule on those points for the reader.

Signposting to keep readers on course

Give directions! Use signpost words to guide your readers:

• To introduce a new idea: Write phrases such as ‘first of all’ or ‘some recent research shows’.
• To back up something already mentioned: Use words such as ‘similarly’ or ‘ indeed’.
• To indicate a change of direction and introduce alternative perspectives on an issue: Use phrases such as ‘on the other hand’ or words like ‘equally’ and ‘nonetheless’.

Paragraphs are another great tool to help readers navigate your writing. Ensure that each paragraph deals only with one idea, and in a similar spirit aim to give each idea its own paragraph.

Some ideas of course require several paragraphs, but in this case, each paragraph represents a slightly different aspect of the discussion:

• Deal with each idea in its own paragraph.
• Use the first line to signpost the contents of the paragraph.
• Arrange the paragraphs in a logical sequence.

Using intermediate conclusions

Many arguments contain within them smaller arguments — sub-arguments. When the conclusion of this sub-argument is needed for the following, larger argument, they're called intermediate conclusions (see Figure 10-1).

So, intermediate conclusions are (surprise, surprise) a kind of conclusion — but they're also propositions (the series of claims in an essay about the world — about facts or logical relationships). In romantic novels, a proposition is usually a man asking for a woman's hand in marriage, but Critical Thinkers aren't interested in that kind of proposition!

Often a proposition is the length of a sentence, but propositions and sentences don't necessarily correspond. A sentence can easily contain several propositions. For example, the sentence ‘Eating sugar makes children fat and rots their teeth’ is really two propositions. (Consider, for example, that eating fried foods will make children fat but not rot their teeth.) On the other hand, some propositions may be spread over several sentences.

In an essay arguing for a particular point of view, the author will often simply assert at least one but, more usually, two or three) propositions which together make up — the premises or starting assumptions — and provide another proposition as the conclusion.

In between, however, the piece of writing may contain several intermediate conclusions that are derived, directly or indirectly, from the premises. These intermediate conclusions have a special character — they're supported by reasons and themselves lend support (acting as a reason) for the main conclusion. Intermediate conclusions are both the premises for a new argument and the conclusions of an earlier one. They're like stepping stones to the main conclusion.

In fact, you can strip down a successful essay to just the propositions (P), intermediate conclusions (IC) and final conclusion (FC) (identified perhaps P1, P2, P3, IC1, IC2, FC), even if this means throwing out everything that made the essay colourful, readable and fun. As far as the logic goes, it wouldn't matter.

This exercise (which I call Intermediate Conclusions on the Moon) makes this point clearer. Strip the following short passage down to its premises, intermediate conclusions and final conclusion (answers at the end of the chapter):

If humankind is to be survive an all out nuclear war on Earth, then people must be prepared to create colonies on the Moon. However, the Moon is a hostile environment. For a start, it contains very little water and there is no breathable atmosphere. It may be possible to import from Earth a certain amount of material to create a base but from then on the base must be self-sufficient and able to continually recycle everything humans need to survive.

Unfortunately, experiments with sealed communities in the desert on Earth have shown that there is always a degradation and loss of minerals and nutrients in such biospheres. Therefore the only way for a long-term Moon base to survive is for the astronauts to mine the surrounding rocks for minerals and water.

Recent measurements by orbiting satellites indicate that the Moon likely has adequate reserves of everything that a Moon Base may require, and so, the dream of ‘Man on the Moon’ is perhaps not so far-fetched after all.