Over the
last ten years I have taught a lot of writing classes and have also worked with
students one-on-one with their papers. When I talk about structuring writing, I
often use the analogy of a house. It has seemed to work really well, and I’d
like to share two ideas about this (organization, coherence) with you as well.
Organization
First, imagine
when you walk into your own house and step into the kitchen, what do you expect to find?
Typically, you’ll see a fridge, microwave, stove, sink, cabinets, drawers, and
other things. What is the purpose of the kitchen? To eat, of course! Actually,
to be more accurate, the kitchen has to do with food: the preparing of it, the
storing of it, the cleaning of it, the storing of dishes that serve food . . .
but food is the main theme of the room. All of the main furniture that goes
into this room supports the main purpose of the kitchen, which has to do with
food.
Now, let’s step
into the living room. Again, what do you typically see? You may see a TV, a
couch, stereo, lamps, bookshelves, family pictures, a lazy boy, etc. What do
you think the purpose of the living room is? When I ask this question, people
will say, “To relax, to have friends over, to chill.” So again, the living room
has a main purpose, which is to relax and to hang out with friends and family.
All the furniture here, from the couch to the TV to the lights is intended to
fit this main purpose.
We could
move to the bedroom, the bathroom, and other rooms of the house and quickly
identify the main purpose of the room (the bathroom: to get clean; the bedroom:
to sleep, to have personal space) and we would find most of the furniture is
there to fit that purpose. In a well-organized house, nearly everything in each
room fits the main purpose of the room, and in a cluttered or disorganized
house, we find furniture in rooms that don’t fit, or we find too much furniture
. . . or too little.
So how does
this relate to writing? I’m glad you asked. In the same way that the rooms of a
house each have a purpose and the furniture in those rooms fits that main
purpose, an essay has a similar structure. Think of the essay as its own house.
The paragraphs are the rooms in the house.
Each paragraph should be about one idea. The supporting details,
examples, and evidence are the furniture that are related to the main purpose
of that paragraph. If there are too few details and examples, the room isn’t
comfortable. If there are too many, the room can begin to become cluttered, or
starts to spill over into trying to fill too many purposes. Many writing
instructors suggest creating paragraphs that are between 3-8 sentences. There
is no magic to this, and this is not set in stone. The idea BEHIND it, though,
is this: your paragraph should be about
one idea and you need enough supporting “furniture” in the room to comfortably
fill this function.
Coherence (Flow)
Now that we’ve
talked about organization of the rooms, let’s talk about flow. Yes, there’s a kind of Feng Shui or flow that should exist in
your papers as well. If we were to take a tour of your house, we might start
out in the living room, then move to the kitchen, and so on, throughout the
house. Imagine that someone in the group was busy looking at the fridge and
didn’t hear that the rest of the group had moved on. Suddenly, they look up and
they’re all alone, wondering how they missed the cue that the group was done
with the kitchen and had gone somewhere else. It’s important to have
markers, or sign posts, in your writing that signal to the reader that you’re
done with one idea and are beginning a new one (moving from room to room).
Some good
markers include, but aren’t limited to, the following:
First,
Second,
In addition,
On the other
hand,
Also,
Finally,
However,
Meanwhile,
Next,
In contrast,
You probably
get the picture.
Another way
I talk about this idea of coherence, or flow, is that it’s like going on a road
trip. You’re not in danger of getting lost on the straightaways, but it’s the
turns, the “forks in the road,” the choices you have to make, to go right or
left, when you can miss your cue and find yourself lost. As a reader, you need to work hard to make the
signage clear. The above markers are the equivalent to, “Stop here, Road Out
Ahead, Turn Right.” They help our reader make the journey without getting lost.
One final
point about coherence, and then I’ll move on: avoid writing overly confusing
sentences if you want your reader to track with you. Watch for double negatives
(test makers love using them, but they’re not good for clear communication).
Also, watch wordy phrases and too many passive sentences (we’ll talk about that
another time).
When you’re
in the drafting stage of your writing, you may not be thinking about the
organization and coherence ideas we’ve talked about, and that’s okay. The main
purpose of the draft is to get your ideas down on paper as quickly as possible.
You’re “unpacking the truck” into your house in the drafting phase. But in the revision phase, ask yourself whether
each of your paragraphs serves one purpose (rooms) and whether the furniture
(supporting ideas) is in the right room or not. In other words, do your dirty
dishes belong in the bedroom or in the kitchen? Does your shower towel belong
in the living room or in the bathroom? You may need to spend some time “cleaning
house” by moving around ideas into the right rooms/paragraphs.
We’ve
covered a couple ideas about writing today, and I hope it’s helpful. If nothing
else, many of my students have said the house analogy has “stuck” with them
months and years after we talked about it. If this has been helpful, let me
know, and feel free to send me what’s been helpful for you. I’ll look forward
to hearing from you!
