development in essays

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Development in Composition: Building an Essay

Learning to support your main ideas with pertinent details

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• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

In composition , development (also known as elaboration ) is the process of adding informative and illustrative details to support the main idea in a paragraph or essay . Paragraphs and essays can be developed in many different ways. In conventional composition courses, the following patterns of exposition are often presented as the standard methods of development in expository writing :

Observations on Development

"[The] methods of development aren't empty jugs to pour full of any old, dull words. Neither are they straitjackets woven by fiendish English teachers to pin your writing arm to your side and keep you from expressing yourself naturally. The methods are tools for achieving your purpose in writing, whatever that purpose may be. They can help you discover what you know, what you need to know, how to think critically about your subject, and how to shape your writing." —From "The Bedford Reader" by X.J. and Dorothy M. Kennedy

The Importance of Providing Supporting Details

"Possibly the most serious—and most common—weakness of all essays by novice writers is the lack of effectively developed body paragraphs . The information in each paragraph must adequately explain, exemplify, define, or in some other way support your topic sentence . Therefore, you must include enough supporting information or evidence in each paragraph to make your readers understand your topic sentence. Moreover, you must make the information in the paragraph clear and specific enough for the readers to accept your ideas." —From "Steps to Writing Well" by Jean Wyrick

Body-Building

"What the opening of an essay promises, the body of the essay must deliver. This is known as 'developing your ideas,' but I like to use a body-building metaphor because it implies adding not just bulk to a framework, but musculature. In other words, good essay development strengthens , not merely fills out. . . .

"What is the best way to reinforce the main idea of your essay? You can do some by making good use of any combination of the following six methods of development:

• Classification and Division
• Example, case-in-point
• Characterization ,  dialogue

"By using these bodybuilding elements, you are telling your readers, 'I don't expect you to take my word for these claims ; I want you to see for yourself!" —From "LifeWriting: Drawing from Personal Experience to Create Features You Can Publish" by Fred D. White

Multiple Patterns of Development

"Although most short papers may employ one primary pattern with other patterns woven throughout, longer papers may have two or more primary patterns of development . For example, if you are writing a paper on the causes and effects of child abuse in the foster care system, you might, after the causal analysis, shift the primary focus of the essay to prevention, thus continuing the essay with a process analysis of what the state might do to prevent child abuse. Then you might end the essay by addressing the objections from those defending the system, shifting the focus of the essay to argumentation .

"Your decision to include other primary patterns depends on your purpose and audience . Your thesis makes your purpose clear to your reader. Then as you develop your essay, you may integrate other patterns into your paragraphs." —From "Bridges to Better Writing" by Luis Nazario, Deborah Borchers, and William Lewis

Further Resources

• Cause and Effect
• Comparison and Contrast
• Current-Traditional Rhetoric
• Extended Definition
• Models of Composition
• Process Analysis
• Kennedy, X.J.; Kennedy, Dorothy M. "The Bedford Reader," Seventh Edition. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000
• White, Fred D. "LifeWriting: Drawing from Personal Experience to Create Features You Can Publish." Quill Driver Books, 2004
• Nazario, Luis; Borchers, Deborah; Lewis, William; "Bridges to Better Writing. Wadsworth." 2010
• Definition and Examples of Paragraphing in Essays
• Definition and Examples of Body Paragraphs in Composition
• Best Practices for the Most Effective Use of Paragraphs
• Definition and Examples of Transitional Paragraphs
• Learn How to Use Extended Definitions in Essays and Speeches
• Conclusion in Compositions
• Understanding General-to-Specific Order in Composition
• Topic In Composition and Speech
• Understanding Organization in Composition and Speech
• Thesis: Definition and Examples in Composition
• Cause and Effect in Composition
• Definition and Examples of Analysis in Composition
• 30 Writing Topics: Analogy
• What is Classification in Grammar?
• What Is a Compelling Introduction?

• Patterns of Development in Writing
• Student Resources
• Writing Center
• Writing Guides
• The Writing Process

When beginning to write, it is helpful to determine the patterns of development that are most effective for your purpose and audience. Some general patterns of development are:

Cause and Effect details why something happens, what causes it, what are the effects and how it is related to something else.

Classification and Division groups items into their parts or types.

Compare and Contrast tells how something is like other things or how something is different from other things.

Definition explains what something is in comparison to other members of its class, along with any limitations.

Description details what something looks like and its characteristics.

Exemplification provides typical cases or examples of something.

Narration describes what, when, and where something happened.

Persuasion describes an issue and your position or opinion on the subject.

Process explains how something happened, how it works or how it is made.

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30 Patterns of Organization and Methods of Development

Patterns of organization can help your readers follow the ideas within your essay and your paragraphs, but they can also work as methods of development to help you recognize and further develop ideas and relationships in your writing. Here are some strategies that can help you with both organization and development in your essays.

Major Patterns of Organization

• Now take the pie out of the oven and let it cool on the stovetop.
• Mix the dry ingredients with the liquid ingredients.
• Set the pie crust aside while you make the filling.

How did it feel to read the above list? A bit confusing, I would guess. That’s because the steps for making a pie were not well organized, and the steps don’t include enough detail for us to know exactly what we should do. (Like what are the dry and liquid ingredients?) We all know that starting instructions from the beginning and giving each detailed step in the order it should happen is vital to having a good outcome, in this case a yummy pie! But it’s not always so simple to know how to organize or develop ideas, and sometimes there’s more than one way, which complicates things even further.

First, let’s take a look at a couple of ways to think about organization.

General to Specific or Specific to General

It might be useful to think about organizing your topic like a triangle:

The first triangle represents starting with the most general, big picture information first, moving then to more detailed and often more personal information later in the paper. The second triangle represents an organizational structure that starts with the specific, small scale information first and then moves to the more global, big picture stuff.

For example, if your topic is traffic in Vancouver, British Columbia, an essay that uses the general-to-specific organizational structure might begin this way:

Many people consider Vancouver, British Columbia, to be a relaxed place to live. They would be shocked to know how bad the traffic is traveling major arteries into the city and even driving around the city itself.

An essay that uses the specific-to-general structure might start like this:

Transit is crowded, parking is expensive, and vehicles stop and go through the main streets of the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, and that is just once travelers brave the crowded arteries to enter the city; Vancouver’s traffic problem does not lend itself to the relaxed atmosphere many believe the city to have.

What’s the difference between these two introductions? And how might they appeal to the intended audience for this essay in different ways? The first introduction is looking at the big picture of the problem and mentions pollution’s impact on all citizens in Portland, while the second introduction focuses on one specific family. The first helps readers see how vast the problem really is, and the second helps connect readers to a real family, making an emotional appeal from the very beginning. Neither introduction is necessarily better. You’ll choose one over the other based on the kind of tone you’d like to create and how you’d like to affect your audience. It’s completely up to you to make this decision.

Does the Triangle Mean the Essay Keeps Getting More Specific or More Broad until the Very End?

The triangle is kind of a general guide, meaning you’re allowed to move around within it all you want. For example, it’s possible that each of your paragraphs will be its own triangle, starting with the general or specific and moving out or in. However, if you begin very broadly, it might be effective to end your essay in a more specific, personal way. And if you begin with a personal story, consider ending your essay by touching on the global impact and importance of your topic.

Are There Other Ways to Think about Organizing My Ideas?

Yes! Rather than thinking about which of your ideas are most specific or personal or which are more broad or universal, you might consider one of the following ways of organizing your ideas:

• Most important information first (consider what you want readers to focus on first)
• Chronological order (the order in time that events take place)
• Compare and contrast (ideas are organized together because of their relationship to each other)

The section on Methods of Development, below, offers more detail about some of these organizational patterns, along with some others.

Choose one of the following topics, and practice writing a few opening sentences like we did above, once using the general-to-specific format and once using the specific-to-general. Which do you like better? What audience would be attracted to which one? Share with peers to see how others tackled this challenge. How would you rewrite their sentences? Why? Discuss your changes and listen to how your peers have revised your sentences. Taking in other people’s ideas will help you see new ways to approach your own writing and thinking. Topics:

• Facing fears
• Safety in sports
• Community policing
• Educating prisoners
• Sex education

Methods of Development

The methods of development covered here are best used as ways to look at what’s already happening in your draft and to consider how you might emphasize or expand on any existing patterns. You might already be familiar with some of these patterns because teachers will sometimes assign them as the purpose for writing an essay. For example, you might have been asked to write a cause-and-effect essay or a comparison-and-contrast essay.

It’s important to emphasize here that patterns of organization or methods of developing content usually happen naturally as a consequence of the way the writer engages with and organizes information while writing. That is to say, most writers don’t sit down and say, “I think I’ll write a cause-and-effect essay today.”  Instead, a writer might be more likely to be interested in a topic, say, the state of drinking water in the local community, and as the writer begins to explore the topic, certain cause-and-effect relationships between environmental pollutants and the community water supply may begin to emerge.

So if these patterns just occur naturally in writing, what’s the use in knowing about them? Well, sometimes you might be revising a draft and notice that some of your paragraphs are a bit underdeveloped. Maybe they lack a clear topic, or maybe they lack support. In either case, you can look to these common methods of development to find ways to sharpen those vague topics or to add support where needed. Do you have a clear cause statement somewhere but you haven’t explored the effects?  Are you lacking detail somewhere where a narrative story or historical chronology can help build reader interest and add support?  Are you struggling to define an idea that might benefit from some comparison or contrast?  Read on to consider some of the ways that these strategies can help you in revision.

Cause and Effect (or Effect and Cause)

Do you see a potential cause-and-effect relationship developing in your draft?  The cause-and-effect pattern may be used to identify one or more causes followed by one or more effects or results. Or you may reverse this sequence and describe effects first and then the cause or causes. For example, the causes of water pollution might be followed by its effects on both humans and animals. You may use obvious transitions to clarify cause and effect, such as “What are the results? Here are some of them…” or you might simply use the words cause , effect , and result , to cue the reader about your about the relationships that you’re establishing.

Problem-Solution

At some point does your essay explore a problem or suggest a solution? The problem-solution pattern is commonly used in identifying something that’s wrong and in contemplating what might be done to remedy the situation. There are probably more ways to organize a problem-solution approach, but but here are three possibilities:

• Describe the problem, followed by the solution.
• Propose the solution first and then describe the problems that motivated it.
• Or a problem may be followed by several solutions, one of which is selected as the best.

When the solution is stated at the end of the paper, the pattern is sometimes called the delayed proposal. For a hostile audience, it may be effective to describe the problem, show why other solutions do not work, and finally suggest the favored solution. You can emphasize the words problem and solution to signal these sections of your paper for your reader.

Chronology or Narrative

Do you need to develop support for a topic where telling a story can illustrate some important concept for your readers? Material arranged chronologically is explained as it occurs in time. A chronological or narrative method of development might help you find a way to add both interest and content to your essay. Material arranged chronologically is explained as it occurs in time. This pattern may be used to establish what has happened. Chronology or narrative can be a great way to introduce your essay by providing a background or history behind your topic. Or you may want to tell a story to develop one or more points in the body of your essay. You can use transitional words like then , next , and finally to make the parts of the chronology clear.

Comparison and Contrast

Are you trying to define something? Do you need your readers to understand what something is and what it is not? The comparison-and-contrast method of development is particularly useful in extending a definition, or anywhere you need to show how a subject is like or unlike another subject. For example, the statement is often made that drug abuse is a medical problem instead of a criminal justice issue. An author might attempt to prove this point by comparing drug addiction to AIDS, cancer, or heart disease to redefine the term “addiction” as a medical problem. A statement in opposition to this idea could just as easily establish contrast by explaining all the ways that addiction is different from what we traditionally understand as an illness. In seeking to establish comparison or contrast in your writing, some words or terms that might be useful are by contrast , in comparison , while , some , and others .

These four methods of development—cause and effect, problem-solution, chronology or narrative, and comparison and contrast—are just a few ways to organize and develop ideas and content in your essays. It’s important to note that they should not be a starting point for writers who want to write something authentic—something that they care deeply about. Instead, they can be a great way to help you look for what’s already happening with your topic or in a draft, to help you to write more, or to help you reorganize some parts of an essay that seem to lack connection or feel disjointed. Look for organizational patterns when you’re reading work by professional writers. Notice where they combine strategies (e.g., a problem-solution pattern that uses cause-and-effect organization, or a comparison-contrast pattern that uses narrative or chronology to develop similarities or differences). Pay attention to how different writers emphasize and develop their main ideas, and use what you find to inspire you in your own writing. Better yet, work on developing  completely new patterns of your own.

Text Attributions

• This chapter was adapted from “ Patterns of Organization and Methods of Development ” in The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence . Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.

Media Attributions

• “ Peach and lavender pie ” by Heather Joan is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Licence .
• “General to Specific vs. Specific to General Triangles” by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear is under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence .

Advanced English Copyright © 2021 by Allison Kilgannon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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17 Rhetorical Modes for Paragraphs & Essays

Questions to Ponder

Before you read this chapter, discuss with partners:

• What are rhetorical modes (also called “patterns of organization” and “methods of development”)? Can you list some examples?
• Why are rhetorical modes important in writing? Jot down your ideas.

Now read the graphic below. Can you add to the list of rhetorical modes that you created with your partners?

Rhetorical Modes

Rhetorical modes are also called patterns of organization or methods of development ; they are the ways that authors and speakers organize their ideas to communicate effectively. The rhetorical modes that are covered here are best used as ways to look at what’s already happening in your draft and to consider how you might emphasize or expand on any existing patterns. You might already be familiar with some of these patterns because instructors will sometimes assign them as the purpose for writing an essay. For example, you might have been asked to write a cause and effect essay or a comparison and contrast essay.

Patterns of organization or methods of developing content usually happen naturally as a consequence of the way the writer engages with and organizes information while writing. That is to say, most writers don’t sit down and say, “I think I’ll write a cause and effect essay today.”  Instead, a writer might be more likely to be interested in a topic, say, the state of drinking water in the local community, and as the writer begins to explore the topic, certain cause and effect relationships between environmental pollutants and the community water supply may begin to emerge . And in fact, many times, one essay may incorporate two or more rhetorical modes, as the author makes an argument for their point of view.

Activity A ~ Brainstorming Rhetorical Modes

Pause here to brainstorm ideas with your partner. Using the chart above (“ Choosing Paragraph Patterns “), discuss some of the topics below. Which mode(s) might you use in an essay about these topics? Would you need to explore more than one rhetorical mode for each topic?

• Gender roles
• Race in America
• The value of art in society
• Travel as part of a well-rounded education
• Drugs and alcohol
• Advice to new parents
• Advice to teachers
• The value of making mistakes
• How you’d spend a million dollars
• What a tough day at work taught you about yourself or others
• My family history
• Your idea: ___________

Keep reading to consider some of the ways that these strategies can help you as you revise a draft.

Cause/Effect

Do you see a potential cause-and-effect relationship developing in your draft?  The cause/effect pattern may be used to identify one or more causes followed by one or more effects or results. Or you may reverse this sequence and describe effects first and then the cause or causes. For example, the causes of water pollution might be followed by its effects on both humans and animals. Use the signal words cause ,  effect , and  result , to cue the reader about your about the relationships that you’re establishing.

Here’s an example article from T he New York Times , “ Rough Times Take Bloom Off a New Year’s Rite, the Rose Parade ,” that explores the cause and effect relationship (from 2011) between Pasadena’s budgetary challenges and the ability of their Rose Parade floats to deck themselves out in full bloom.

Problem/Solution

At some point does your essay explore a problem or suggest a solution? The problem/solution pattern is commonly used in identifying something that’s wrong and in contemplating what might be done to remedy the situation. For example, the problem of water pollution could be described, followed by ideas of new ways to solve the problem. There are probably more ways to organize a problem/solution approach, but here are three possibilities:

• Describe the problem, followed by the solution
• Propose the solution first and then describe the problems that motivated it
• Explain a problem, followed by several solutions, and select one solution as the best

Emphasize the words problem  and  solution  to signal these sections of your paper for your reader.

Here’s an example article from T he New York Times , “ Monks Embrace Web to Reach Recruits ,” that highlights an unexpected approach by a group of Benedictine monks in Rhode Island; they’ve turned to social media to grow their dwindling membership.

Compare/Contrast

Are you trying to define something? Do you need your readers to understand what something is and what it is not? The compare-and-contrast method of development is particularly useful in extending a definition, or anywhere you need to show how a subject is like or unlike another subject. For example, the statement is often made that drug abuse is a medical problem instead of a criminal justice issue. An author might attempt to prove this point by comparing drug addiction to AIDS, cancer, or heart disease to redefine the term “addiction” as a medical problem. A statement in opposition to this idea could just as easily establish contrast by explaining all the ways that addiction is different from what we traditionally understand as an illness. In seeking to establish comparison or contrast in your writing, some words or terms that might be useful are by contrast ,  in comparison ,  while ,  some , and  others .

Here’s an example article from T he New York Times “ Who Wants to Shop in a Big Box Store, Anyway? ” The author explores some interesting differences between the average American and average Indian consumer to contemplate the potential success of big box stores in India and also to contemplate why these giant big box corporations, like Walmart or Target, might have to rethink their business model.

These three methods of development—cause/effect, problem/solution, and compare/contrast—are just a few ways to organize and develop ideas and content in your essays. It’s important to note that they should not be a starting point for writers who want to write something authentic, to discuss something that they care deeply about. Instead, they can be a great way to help you look for what’s already happening with your topic or in a draft, to help you to write more, or to help you reorganize some parts of an essay that seem to lack connection or feel disjointed.

Sometimes writers incorporate a variety of modes in any one essay. For example, under the umbrella of an argument essay, and author might choose to write paragraphs showing cause and effect, description, and narrative. The rhetorical mode writers choose depends on the purpose for writing. Rhetorical modes are a set of tools that will give you greater flexibility and effectiveness in communicating with your audience and expressing ideas.

In addition to cause/effect , problem/solution , and compare/contrast , there are many other types of rhetorical modes:

• Classification and division , often used in science, takes large ideas and divides them into manageable chunks of information, classifying and organizing them into types and parts.
• Definition  clarifies the meaning of terms and concepts, providing context and description for deeper understanding of those ideas.
• Description  provides detailed information using adjectives that appeal to the five senses (what people see, hear, smell, taste, and touch) as well as other vivid details that help readers visualize or understand an item or concept.
• Evaluation  analyzes and judges the value and merit of an essay, a concept, or topic.
• Illustration  provides examples and evidence in detail to support, explain, and analyze a main point or idea.
• Narrative  uses fictional or nonfictional stories in a chronological sequence of events, often including detailed descriptions and appeals to the senses and emotions of readers while storytelling to reveal a theme or moment.
• Persuasion  (i.e., argumentation) logically attempts to convince readers to agree with an opinion or take an action; the argument also acknowledges opposing viewpoints and accommodates and/or refutes them with diplomatic and respectful language, as well as provides precise and accurate evidence and other expert supporting details.
• Process analysis  describes and explains, step by step, chronologically, in detail, and with precision and accuracy, how to do something or how something works.

Assignment prompts for college essays may require a specific rhetorical mode, or you may be able to choose the best mode(s) to express your ideas clearly. Either way, be sure to ask your instructor if you are not sure which rhetorical mode(s) to use.

Key Takeaways

Why are rhetorical modes important?

• As readers, understanding an author’s rhetorical mode helps us to understand the text, and to read and think critically.
• Knowing the rhetorical mode helps us to identify the author’s main ideas, which helps us to summarize the author’s work.
• As writers, we use rhetorical modes to make our writing clearer; they help us signal our topic and direction to our readers.
• Rhetorical modes also help us to develop support and keep our readers interested.

Activity B ~ Identifying Rhetorical Modes

• Read a printed or online essay or article. A letter to the editor or an editorial from a newspaper would be perfect. Then, with a partner, identify the modes of writing found in the article. (Use the lists above to help.) Analyze the different choices the writer has made about language and organization to express a point of view. Notice how the author may combine rhetorical modes (for example, a problem-solution article that uses cause-and-effect organization in some paragraphs, or a definition pattern that uses narrative or compare and contrast paragraphs to develop similarities or differences).
• Select, read, and annotate a sample student essay in a specific style as provided in “ Readings: Examples of Essays ” from Saylor Academy . Note in the margins or on another sheet of paper what rhetorical mode each paragraph uses, how those modes and paragraphs support the overall rhetorical mode of the essay, and whether each paragraph does so successfully or not. Discuss in small groups and summarize your findings to report to the rest of the class.

If you want to learn more about three common rhetorical modes, read what the New York Times  has to say in their learning blog article, “ Compare-Contrast, Cause-Effect, Problem Solution: Common ‘Text Types’ in The Times .”

Note: links open in new tabs.

This chapter was modified from the following Open Educational Resources:

“Patterns of Organization and Methods of Development ” from The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

“ Introduction ” from  English Composition   by Karyl Garland, Ann Inoshita, Jeanne K. Tsutsui Keuma, Kate Sims, and Tasha Williams, is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

“ Chapter 10: The Rhetorical Modes ” and “ Chapter 15: Readings: Examples of Essays ,” from  Writing for Success from Saylor Academy, which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.

to think about

to write quickly

to come out, to be revealed

to decorate themselves

to fix; to make right

getting smaller

ENGLISH 087: Academic Advanced Writing Copyright © 2020 by Nancy Hutchison is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Patterns (Modes) of Development

Andy Gurevich

Modes (Patterns) of Essay Development

Many college essays follow a primary pattern of development for laying out their ideas and expressing their main thesis. Others are organized according to genre. A pattern of development is the way the essay is organized, from one paragraph to the next, in order to present its thesis and the relevant, authoritative support for it.

One of the many choices you have to make in the writing process is how to arrange your material. All writers begin with an idea and then work to translate their thoughts about a subject into a clear and easily read essay. This is made relatively easy when your assignment specifies a particular pattern of development.

Probing your subject by asking a series of questions can often help you to order your ideas by suggesting an effective arrangement for your essay. The initial “answers” you discover to these probing questions will lend themselves to an organizational structure based on causation or comparison or definition, etc. This tendency will reveal your likely pattern of development.

Even if your assignment does not specify a particular pattern of development, asking the questions below can still help you to develop an effective arrangement for your essay.

Your readers will be experiencing your essay in time. That is, they will read it starting in paragraph one and then two, then three, four, five, six… This may seem obvious, but you will need to consider how the reader will experience the essay in time and in relation to your thesis statement.

Thus, we will need to organize the essay into a coherent pattern which allows the reader to easily follow our logic through the essay and fully relate it back to our central theme(s). Some essays use a combination of patterns to communicate their ideas, but usually a primary pattern is established to present the overall structure and logical flow of the essay.

Common patterns of development include:

• Narration & Description
• Exemplification
• Cause & Effect
• Comparison & Contrast
• Argumentation
• Process Analysis
• There are several more variations of patterns of development (see below) but these are the most common.

BEST: Patterns of development work best when they are used consistently and in conjunction with the structure and theme of the primary thesis statement.

• Consult this link from the Purdue OWL site to a more developed discussion on the more popular modes of essay writing .
• Consult this handout from Hunter College New York on the basic understanding and uses of the primary patterns of development .
• Consult this handout on the patterns of development discussed as the modes of essay writing .
• Consult   this link from Lumen Learning on the Rhetorical Modes that helps to visualize and summarize the primary patterns of rhetorical writing.
• Consult this link from Lincoln University on Rhetorical Patterns . With relevant exercises and questions.

Patterns of organization can help your readers follow the ideas within your essay and your paragraphs, but they can also work as methods of development to help you recognize and further develop ideas and relationships in your writing. Here are some strategies that can help you with both organization and development in your essays.

Major Patterns of Organization

Read the following sentences:

• Now take the pie out of the oven and let it cool on the stovetop.
• Mix the dry ingredients with the liquid ingredients.
• Set the pie crust aside while you make the filling.

How did it feel to read the above list? A bit confusing, I would guess. That’s because the steps for making a pie were not well organized, and the steps don’t include enough detail for us to know exactly what we should do. (Like what are the dry and liquid ingredients?) We all know that starting instructions from the beginning and giving each detailed step in the order it should happen is vital to having a good outcome, in this case a yummy pie! But it’s not always so simple to know how to organize or develop ideas, and sometimes there’s more than one way, which complicates things even further.

First, let’s take a look at a couple of ways to think about organization.

General to Specific or Specific to General

It might be useful to think about organizing your topic like a triangle:

The first triangle represents starting with the most general, big picture information first, moving then to more detailed and often more personal information later in the paper. The second triangle represents an organizational structure that starts with the specific, small scale information first and then moves to the more global, big picture stuff.

For example, if your topic is air pollution in Portland, Oregon, an essay that uses the general-to-specific organizational structure might begin this way:

Many people consider Portland, Oregon, to be an environmentally friendly, pollution-free place to live. They would be shocked to know how many pollutants are in the air causing a multitude of health problems in Portland’s citizens.

An essay that uses the specific-to-general structure might start like this:

When Nancy moved to Portland, Oregon, with her husband and two kids, she expected to find a clean, pollution-free city. She was shocked and angered when her daughter was diagnosed with asthma caused by air pollution.

What’s the difference between these two introductions? And how might they appeal to the intended audience for this essay (Portland voters) in different ways? The first introduction is looking at the big picture of the problem and mentions pollution’s impact on all citizens in Portland, while the second introduction focuses on one specific family. The first helps readers see how vast the problem really is, and the second helps connect readers to a real family, making an emotional appeal from the very beginning. Neither introduction is necessarily better. You’ll choose one over the other based on the kind of tone you’d like to create and how you’d like to affect your audience. It’s completely up to you to make this decision.

Does the Triangle Mean the Essay Keeps Getting More Specific or More Broad until the Very End?

The triangle is kind of a general guide, meaning you’re allowed to move around within it all you want. For example, it’s possible that each of your paragraphs will be its own triangle, starting with the general or specific and moving out or in. However, if you begin very broadly, it might be effective to end your essay in a more specific, personal way. And if you begin with a personal story, consider ending your essay by touching on the global impact and importance of your topic.

Are There Other Ways to Think about Organizing My Ideas?

Yes! Rather than thinking about which of your ideas are most specific or personal or which are more broad or universal, you might consider one of the following ways of organizing your ideas:

• Most important information first (consider what you want readers to focus on first)
• Chronological order (the order in time that events take place)
• Compare and contrast (ideas are organized together because of their relationship to each other)

The section on Methods of Development, below, offers more detail about some of these organizational patterns, along with some others.

Choose one of the following topics, and practice writing a few opening sentences like we did above, once using the general-to-specific format and once using the specific-to-general. Which do you like better? What audience would be attracted to which one? Share with peers to see how others tackled this challenge. How would you rewrite their sentences? Why? Discuss your changes and listen to how your peers have revised your sentences. Taking in other people’s ideas will help you see new ways to approach your own writing and thinking.

• Facing fears
• Safety in sports
• Community policing
• Educating prisoners
• Sex education
• A book or movie that impacted you
• One thing you would change about your community
• Beauty standards
• Toxic masculinity
• How the media affects identity formation
• Gender roles
• Race in America
• The value of art in society
• Travel as part of a well-rounded education
• Drugs and alcohol
• Advice to new parents
• Advice to teachers
• The value of making mistakes
• How you’d spend a million dollars
• What a tough day at work taught you about yourself or others.

The methods of development covered here are best used as ways to look at what’s already happening in your draft and to consider how you might emphasize or expand on any existing patterns. You might already be familiar with some of these patterns because teachers will sometimes assign them as the purpose for writing an essay. For example, you might have been asked to write a cause-and-effect essay or a comparison-and-contrast essay.

It’s important to emphasize here that patterns of organization or methods of developing content usually happen naturally as a consequence of the way the writer engages with and organizes information while writing. That is to say, most writers don’t sit down and say, “I think I’ll write a cause-and-effect essay today.”  Instead, a writer might be more likely to be interested in a topic, say, the state of drinking water in the local community, and as the writer begins to explore the topic, certain cause-and-effect relationships between environmental pollutants and the community water supply may begin to emerge.

So if these patterns just occur naturally in writing, what’s the use in knowing about them?  Well, sometimes you might be revising a draft and notice that some of your paragraphs are a bit underdeveloped. Maybe they lack a clear topic, or maybe they lack support. In either case, you can look to these common methods of development to find ways to sharpen those vague topics or to add support where needed. Do you have a clear cause statement somewhere but you haven’t explored the effects?  Are you lacking detail somewhere where a narrative story or historical chronology can help build reader interest and add support?  Are you struggling to define an idea that might benefit from some comparison or contrast?  Read on to consider some of the ways that these strategies can help you in revision. And if you want to learn more, check out what the New York Times has to say in their learning blog article, “ Compare-Contrast, Cause-Effect, Problem Solution: Common ‘Text Types’ in The Times .”

Cause and Effect (or Effect and Cause)

Do you see a potential cause-and-effect relationship developing in your draft?  The cause-and-effect pattern may be used to identify one or more causes followed by one or more effects or results. Or you may reverse this sequence and describe effects first and then the cause or causes. For example, the causes of water pollution might be followed by its effects on both humans and animals. You may use obvious transitions to clarify cause and effect, such as “What are the results? Here are some of them…” or you might simply use the words cause , effect , and result , to cue the reader about your about the relationships that you’re establishing.

Here’s an example article from the New York times, “ Rough Times Take Bloom Off a New Year’s Rite, the Rose Parade ,” that explores the cause and effect relationship (from 2011) between Pasadena’s budgetary challenges and the ability of their Rose Parade floats to deck themselves out in full bloom.

Problem-Solution

At some point does your essay explore a problem or suggest a solution? The problem-solution pattern is commonly used in identifying something that’s wrong and in contemplating what might be done to remedy the situation. There are probably more ways to organize a problem-solution approach, but but here are three possibilities:

• Describe the problem, followed by the solution.
• Propose the solution first and then describe the problems that motivated it.
• Or a problem may be followed by several solutions, one of which is selected as the best.

When the solution is stated at the end of the paper, the pattern is sometimes called the delayed proposal. For a hostile audience, it may be effective to describe the problem, show why other solutions do not work, and finally suggest the favored solution. You can emphasize the words problem and solution to signal these sections of your paper for your reader.

Here’s an example article from the New York times, “ Monks Embrace Web to Reach Recruits ,” that highlights an unexpected approach by a group of Benedictine monks in Rhode Island; they’ve turned to social media to grow their dwindling membership. Monks on Facebook?  Who knew?

Chronology or Narrative

Do you need to develop support for a topic where telling a story can illustrate some important concept for your readers? Material arranged chronologically is explained as it occurs in time. A chronological or narrative method of development might help you find a way to add both interest and content to your essay. Material arranged chronologically is explained as it occurs in time. This pattern may be used to establish what has happened. Chronology or narrative can be a great way to introduce your essay by providing a background or history behind your topic. Or you may want to tell a story to develop one or more points in the body of your essay. You can use transitional words like then , next , and finally to make the parts of the chronology clear.

Here’s an example article from the Center for Media Literacy (originally published in the journal Media & Values ): “ From Savers to Spenders: How Children Became a Consumer Market .” To encourage his readers to think about why and how children are being marketed to by advertisers, the author uses a historical chronology of how the spending habits of children changed over a number of decades.

Comparison and Contrast

Are you trying to define something? Do you need your readers to understand what something is and what it is not? The comparison-and-contrast method of development is particularly useful in extending a definition, or anywhere you need to show how a subject is like or unlike another subject. For example, the statement is often made that drug abuse is a medical problem instead of a criminal justice issue. An author might attempt to prove this point by comparing drug addiction to AIDS, cancer, or heart disease to redefine the term “addiction” as a medical problem. A statement in opposition to this idea could just as easily establish contrast by explaining all the ways that addiction is different from what we traditionally understand as an illness. In seeking to establish comparison or contrast in your writing, some words or terms that might be useful are by contrast , in comparison , while , some , and others .

Here’s an example article from the New York times: “ Who Wants to Shop in a Big Box Store, Anyway ? ” The author explores some interesting differences between the average American and average Indian consumer to contemplate the potential success of big box stores in India and also to contemplate why these giant big box corporations, like Walmart or Target, might have to rethink their business model.

These four methods of development—cause and effect, problem-solution, chronology or narrative, and comparison and contrast—are just a few ways to organize and develop ideas and content in your essays. It’s important to note that they should not be a starting point for writers who want to write something authentic—something that they care deeply about. Instead, they can be a great way to help you look for what’s already happening with your topic or in a draft, to help you to write more, or to help you reorganize some parts of an essay that seem to lack connection or feel disjointed. Look for organizational patterns when you’re reading work by professional writers. Notice where they combine strategies (e.g a problem-solution pattern that uses cause-and-effect organization, or a comparison-contrast pattern that uses narrative or chronology to develop similarities or differences). Pay attention to how different writers emphasize and develop their main ideas, and use what you find to inspire you in your own writing. Better yet, work on developing  completely new patterns of your own.

(adapted, in part, from The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear. This OER text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.)

Patterns (Modes) of Development Copyright © 2023 by Andy Gurevich is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Does my paper flow? Tips for creating a well-structured essay.

by Jessica Diaz

A sure way to improve your paper is to strengthen the way you present your argument. Whether you only have a thesis statement or already have a fully-written essay, these tips can help your paper flow logically from start to finish.

Going from a thesis statement to a first outline

Break down your thesis statement

No matter what you are arguing, your thesis can be broken down into smaller points that need to be backed up with evidence. These claims can often be used to create a ready outline for the rest of your paper, and help you check that you are including all the evidence you should have.

Take the following thesis statement:

Despite the similarities between the documentaries Blackfish and The Cove , the use of excessive anthropomorphism in Blackfish allowed it to achieve more tangible success for animal rights movements, illustrating the need for animal rights documentaries to appeal to human emotion.

We can break the thesis down into everything that needs to be supported:

Despite the similarities between the documentaries Blackfish and The Cove , the use of excessive anthropomorphism in Blackfish allowed it to achieve more tangible success for animal rights movements , illustrating the need for animal rights documentaries to appeal to human emotion .

In the paper, we have to (1) explain and support the similarities between the two documentaries, (2) provide support for excessive anthropomorphism in Blackfish , (3) show that Blackfish achieved more tangible success than The Cove , and (4) demonstrate the importance of human emotion in animal documentaries.

Already, we have four main points that can serve as the backbone for an essay outline, and they are already in an order that makes some intuitive sense for building up the argument.

It is likely that you will need to rearrange, expand, or further break down the outline. For example, in this case we would probably need to add a paragraph that explains anthropomorphism. We also might want to move the section on differences in animal rights success earlier so that it contrasts with the similarities between the films. However, having this starting structure and identifying the main sections of the paper can allow you to go ahead and start writing!

Checking that your argument builds

Reverse outline

While writing, it is often hard to take a step back and assess whether your paper makes sense or reads well. Creating a reverse outline can help you get a zoomed-out picture of what you wrote and helps you see if any paragraphs or ideas need to be rearranged.

To create a reverse outline, go through your paper paragraph-by-paragraph. For each one, read it and summarize the main point of the paragraph in 3-5 words. In most cases, this should align closely with the topic sentence of that paragraph. Once you have gone through the entire paper, you should end up with a list of phrases that, when read in order, walk through your argument.

Does the order make sense? Are the ideas that should go together actually next to each other? Without the extra clutter, the reverse outline helps you answer these questions while looking at your entire structure at once.

Each line of your reverse outline should build on the last one, meaning none of them should make sense in isolation (except the first one). Try pretending you don’t know anything about this topic and read one of your paragraph phrases at random (or read it to someone else!). Does it make sense, or does it need more context? Do the paragraphs that go before it give the context it needs?

The reverse outline method and the line of thinking detailed above help put you in the mind of your reader. Your reader will only encounter your ideas in the order that you give it to them, so it is important to take this step back to make sure that order is the right one.

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