This organizational pattern guides the reader through the explanation of a problem and the solution the writer is advancing. Below is an example in which this organizational pattern is not used. You'll see the problems:
|
I would like to train the employees in our department to use a standard financial package. By learning such a package, they could track their own expenses and print out the results to give to management for the financial accounting. This would avoid the problem we have been having of employees submitting incomplete records that are not organized. These packages I have in mind are something like Quicken.
|
Readers may get the idea after reading the entire paragraph, but it makes them do too much work. The more work readers must do, the more likely they will miss the relationships among the ideas and become confused.
The common organizational pattern the writer should have used is this:
Explain the situation.
Define anything the reader may need to understand.
Explain the problem.
Advance the solution to the problem.
Explain how it solves the problem or produces results.
Now consider the same paragraph following this format:
|
We have had a problem with employees submitting incomplete records that are not well organized. The result has been that our accountants have had to ask them for more data, and no one is happy with the process. To solve this problem, I would like to train the employees in our department to use a standard financial package such as Quicken. By learning such a package, they could track their own expenses and print out the results to give to management for the financial accounting.
|
These are the parts:
|
Situation: We have had a problem with employees submitting incomplete records that are not well organized.
Problem: The result has been that our accountants have had to ask them for more data, and no one is happy with the process.
Solution: I would like to train the employees in our department to use a standard financial package such as Quicken.
Definition: "such as Quicken."
How it solves the problem: By learning such a package, they could track their own expenses and print out the results to give to management for the financial accounting.
|
|