7 Organizing Your Information

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Understanding Three Principles for Organizing Technical Information

ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCE AND PURPOSE

USING CONVENTIONAL PATTERNS OF ORGANIZATION

DISPLAYING YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL PATTERN PROMINENTLY

Understanding Conventional Organizational Patterns

CHRONOLOGICAL

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information Chronologically

SPATIAL

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information Spatially

GENERAL TO SPECIFIC

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information from General to Specific

MORE IMPORTANT TO LESS IMPORTANT

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information from More Important to Less Important

COMPARISON AND CONTRAST

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information by Comparison and Contrast

• ETHICS NOTE: Comparing and Contrasting Fairly

CLASSIFICATION OR PARTITION

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information by Classification or Partition

PROBLEM-METHODS-SOLUTION

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information by Problem-Methods-Solution

CAUSE AND EFFECT

• GUIDELINES: Organizing Information by Cause and Effect

WRITER’S CHECKLIST

EXERCISES

LEARNINGCURVE: Organizing and Emphasizing Your Information and

CASE 7: Organizing a Document for Clarity—and Diplomacy and

During the planning phase of your writing process, you need to organize the information that will go into a document. Writers draw on a number of structures, or organizational patterns, to deliver information to their audiences. But how do you know which organizational patterns will work best for a given project? Is it a question of the information you want to communicate? The audience you are addressing? The purpose you are trying to achieve? The culture in your own company? Short answer: to varying degrees, all of these factors will influence the pattern you choose. To get some ideas, talk with experienced co-workers, study other similar documents, and read this chapter.

At this point, you should know for whom you are writing and why, and you should have completed most of your research. Now it is time to start organizing the information that will make up the body of your document, whether it is a print document or an online one.