A Clear, Logical Organization: Cueing the Reader

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 Analyze 
Use the basic features.

Experienced writers know that readers often have trouble making their way through new and difficult material. To avoid having them give up in frustration, writers strive to construct a reader-friendly organization: They include a thesis statement that asserts the focus or main point—the answer to the “So what?” question. In addition writers sometimes include a forecasting statement, which alerts readers to the main topics to be discussed, and include transitional words and phrases to guide readers from topic to topic.

ANALYZE & WRITE

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Write a paragraph or two analyzing the strategies Toufexis uses to organize her essay, Love: The Right Chemistry, for readers:

  1. Skim the essay, and note in the margin where she announces her concept and forecasts the topics she uses to organize her explanation. Then highlight the passage where she discusses each topic. How well does her forecast work to make her essay readable?
  2. Study how Toufexis connects the topic of “love maps” (pars. 17–18) to the topics she discussed earlier in the essay. Identify any sentences that connect the two parts of the article, and assess how well they work.

    Question