Writing as a House: On Organization and Coherence

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!