By the time you sit down to write an argument, you usually have more material than structure: a statistic from one place, a story from another, a quotation, an objection you overheard. Organizing is the work of turning that pile into a sequence a reader can follow, where each paragraph makes one claim and each claim prepares the next. Topic 2.5 showed how to read the order a writer chose for an audience. Here you make those choices yourself, first when you plan, then when you revise.
From a pile of evidence to lines of reasoning
Start by sorting, and sort by claim, not by topic. "Cost" is a topic; it can't organize a paragraph, because it doesn't say what you're arguing about cost. "The program would cost less than the town already spends on pool maintenance" is a claim, and every piece of evidence either supports it or doesn't. Write each group's claim as a full sentence that someone could disagree with.
Sorting tells you three things.
- What your body paragraphs are. Each group of evidence with a claim on top is a paragraph (or two, if the group is large).
- What your thesis is. Look at the group claims together. The thesis is the larger claim they all serve, and a pattern you notice across the groups often makes a sharper thesis than the one you started with. Topic 2.4 covers writing the thesis statement itself, including one that previews the order of your reasons.
- What doesn't belong. A piece of evidence that fits no group either supports a claim you haven't stated yet (add the claim, if it serves the thesis) or is interesting but beside the point. The second kind gets cut, however much work it took to find.
Then put the groups in order. Two forces decide it. The first is logical dependence: if claim B only makes sense once the reader accepts claim A, A comes first. You can't persuade a reader that a solution is cheap before you've shown there's a problem worth solving. The second is the audience, as in Topic 2.5: what they believe now, what they'll object to, and how soon that objection needs an answer. When the two pull in different directions, logic usually sets the outline and the audience decides how much room each step gets.
Building a paragraph in order
A body paragraph is a small argument with its own line of reasoning. The reliable order is:
- The claim (the topic sentence), stated so the reader knows what the paragraph will prove.
- Evidence, one piece at a time.
- Commentary after each piece: the sentence or two explaining how that evidence supports the claim, for this audience.
- Optionally, a closing link that ties the claim back to the thesis or sets up the next paragraph.
The commentary is where most draft paragraphs fail. A paragraph that goes claim, fact, fact, quotation, next paragraph has asked the reader to do the reasoning. The facts may be strong, but the reader doesn't know which part of each fact matters or why. Put the explanation right after the evidence it explains, not saved up for the end, so the reader never has to hold a number in mind while wondering what it is for.
Within the evidence, order matters too. Put a general fact before the specific case that shows it ("Most lockers in the east wing don't latch; mine has swung open on its own three times this month"), or the case before the generalization if you want the reader to feel the problem before measuring it. Either can work. What doesn't work is evidence in the order you happened to find it.
Transitions mark the relationships you've built. For example tells the reader evidence is coming, because and so mark cause and result, admittedly and still mark a concession and the answer to it. A transition can't create a logical connection that isn't there, though: if you can't choose the right connecting word, the two sentences may not belong next to each other. Unit 5 covers transitions in depth.
Revising: what to keep, cut, and move
Revision questions on the exam give you a numbered student draft and ask you to make it better. Topic 1.2 gave the general method for keep-or-delete questions: decide the reason before you look at the decision. For reasoning and organization, the reason is almost always about the line of reasoning.
Keep a sentence when removing it would leave a gap: a claim with no support, evidence with no explanation, an objection with no answer, or a step the next sentence depends on (watch for "this," "these," "such," which point back to something). Delete a sentence when it interrupts: a digression into a different subject, a fact that belongs to another paragraph's claim, or a repetition of what an earlier sentence already said. A deleted sentence can be true, vivid, and on topic. It fails because it does no work for this paragraph's claim.
Placement questions ask where a sentence should go. Look for what the sentence depends on and what depends on it. A sentence that answers an objection belongs right after the objection. A sentence that begins "This figure" belongs right after the figure. A sentence stating a paragraph's claim belongs at its start, not buried after the evidence.
Adding questions ask which sentence would best introduce or conclude a paragraph, or connect it to the thesis. The right choice states the link between this paragraph's claim and the main argument. The wrong ones bring in a new idea, restate the topic too broadly, or say something true that weakens the argument.
Worked examples
A student is writing to the recreation board of the invented town of Marlow, which runs the public pool. She wants the board to offer free swimming lessons to every second grader in town. Her notes:
- (a) Last summer's paid lesson roster had 140 children; only 9 came from Eastside Elementary, the school three blocks from the pool.
- (b) A two-week session costs $85 per child.
- (c) Her cousin couldn't swim until he was twelve and skipped his class's lake trip because of it.
- (d) The pool sits empty on weekday mornings in June; the swim team uses it in the afternoons.
- (e) Lifeguards are already on the clock those mornings to clean the pool and test the water.
- (f) The town's own budget sheet says three instructors for four weeks of mornings would cost about $6,000.
- (g) Two swim instructors she interviewed said seven-year-olds learn faster than older beginners because they are less afraid of the water.
- (h) The pool opened in 1962, paid for by a bond that every Marlow household helped repay.
Group the notes under claims, decide what to cut, and order the paragraphs for this audience.
Show solution
Groups.
- The current lessons miss the children who need them most: (a), (b), (c). The roster shows who is left out, the price explains why, and the cousin's story shows what being left out costs.
- The town can run free lessons for little money because the pool and staff are already there: (d), (e), (f).
- Second grade is the right year to teach every child: (g).
Note (h) fits none of the claims as evidence, but it isn't beside the point: it says the pool belongs to every household, including the ones on the Eastside who can't afford lessons. It belongs in the conclusion, where it turns the proposal into a matter of fairness. If it had nothing to say about the thesis, it would be cut.
Order. The problem paragraph comes first, because the cost paragraph only matters once the board accepts that something needs fixing. The cost paragraph comes second, sooner than it might for a different audience, because money is the board's main reason to say no, and it should be answered before that reason hardens. The second-grade paragraph comes third: it refines a proposal the board is already considering. The cousin's story stays short. For a board that thinks in budgets, one sentence of human cost after the roster numbers is enough.
Thesis the groups point to. Marlow should offer free swimming lessons to every second grader, because the paid lessons miss the children who most need them and the town already has the pool, the hours, and the staff to fix that.
Write the second body paragraph from the plan above.
Show solution
Free lessons would cost the town little, because almost everything they need already exists. The pool sits empty on weekday mornings in June, while the swim team waits for its afternoon practice. Lifeguards are already paid for those mornings to clean the pool and test the water, so the town wouldn't be adding a single guard; it would be giving the guards children to watch. That leaves only the instructors. According to the board's own budget sheet, three instructors for four weeks of mornings would cost about $6,000. For that price, every second grader in Marlow, including the Eastside children who now rarely appear on a lesson roster, would learn to swim in a building their families have already paid for.
Why it works. The first sentence states a claim the board might doubt, and the rest of the paragraph proves it. Each piece of evidence is followed by commentary: the empty mornings and paid lifeguards are explained as "not adding a single guard," so the board sees that the only new cost is the instructors. The $6,000 figure comes from the board's own budget sheet, which this audience can't easily dismiss. The last sentence ties the cost back to the problem from the first paragraph and quietly prepares the conclusion about who owns the pool. Nothing in the paragraph is about anything but cost.
The passage below is a draft.
(1) Every day, the Hillcrest High cafeteria throws away about forty pounds of fruit peels, vegetable scraps, and bread crusts. (2) Meanwhile, the school garden behind the science wing buys bags of compost every spring. (3) The cafeteria should collect its food scraps for the garden's compost bins instead of sending them to the landfill.
(4) A compost program would save the garden club money. (5) Last year the club spent $310 on bagged compost, nearly half of its budget. (6) The club's adviser, Ms. Ferrante, estimates that forty pounds of scraps a day would produce more compost than the garden's twelve beds can use. (7) Ms. Ferrante first started the garden club as a way to get students outside during lunch. (8) Money the club no longer spends on compost could buy seeds and tools for the new beds it hopes to build.
(9) The club already keeps two closed bins behind the greenhouse, and in three years no one has complained about them. (10) Some students worry that compost bins will smell or attract animals. (11) Adding cafeteria scraps would require only a third bin and a weekly turning schedule.
Question 1. Should the writer keep or delete sentence 7?
- (A) Keep it, because it explains why the garden club was founded.
- (B) Keep it, because it shows that Ms. Ferrante is qualified to estimate how much compost the scraps would produce.
- (C) Delete it, because it interrupts the paragraph's explanation of how composting would save the club money.
- (D) Delete it, because it contradicts the estimate in sentence 6.
Question 2. To improve the logic of the third paragraph, where should sentence 9 be placed?
- (A) Where it is now
- (B) After sentence 10
- (C) After sentence 11
- (D) After sentence 3
Question 3. The writer wants to add a sentence at the end of the third paragraph that connects it to the main argument. Which choice best accomplishes this goal?
- (A) Composting is a natural process that farmers have relied on for thousands of years.
- (B) With one more bin, the cafeteria's daily scraps could feed the garden instead of the landfill, without the problems students fear.
- (C) Ms. Ferrante hopes the garden will grow enough tomatoes for the cafeteria's salad bar next fall.
- (D) Some schools have removed their compost bins after problems with raccoons.
Show solution
1. (C). The paragraph's claim (sentence 4) is about saving money, and sentences 5, 6 and 8 each serve it. Sentence 7 is about the club's history, a different subject, and it separates sentence 6 from sentence 8, which follows from it. (A) gives a true description of sentence 7 but no reason it helps this paragraph. (B) is the tempting choice: it sounds like a credibility argument, but the sentence says nothing about Ms. Ferrante's expertise in compost. (D) is false; nothing in sentence 7 conflicts with sentence 6.
2. (B). Sentence 9 answers the worry in sentence 10, so it must come after the worry is raised. As written, the paragraph gives the answer before the reader knows the question. (C) would also put the answer after the objection, but sentence 11 speaks of "a third bin," which only makes sense once sentence 9 has told the reader about the two bins already behind the greenhouse. Placed after sentence 11, sentence 9 would arrive too late for that phrase and would sit apart from the worry it answers. In order B the paragraph runs worry, answer, then the small addition the program needs. (D) moves an answer to an objection into the introduction, before any objection exists.
3. (B). It ties the paragraph's answer to the objection back to the thesis in sentence 3 (scraps to the garden, not the landfill). (A) is true but general and connects to nothing specific in the draft. (C) brings in a new idea at the end of a paragraph about objections. (D) supports the objection the paragraph is trying to answer.
Where students lose points
On the exam
Multiple-choice writing questions about drafts ask whether to keep or delete a sentence, where to place a sentence, which sentence best introduces or concludes a paragraph, and which revision best supports the writer's claim. Each one is answered by identifying the claim the paragraph is making. In the argument and synthesis essays, a clear line of reasoning (paragraphs that each make a claim and explain their evidence, in an order where each builds on the last) is what the evidence-and-commentary row rewards at its top levels. The exam doesn't require a set number of paragraphs; it rewards reasoning a reader can follow.
Check yourself
Question 1
A student is arguing that her school should replace its paper hall passes with a sign-out sheet. Which of these would work best as the controlling idea of a body paragraph?
- A
Hall passes and their history at the school
- B
Paper passes are lost so often that teachers waste class time writing new ones
- C
The problem of hall passes
- D
Some teachers like paper passes and some do not
Show answer
B
A body paragraph needs an arguable claim that its evidence can prove, and B is one. A and C name topics, which can hold any fact at all, and D is a neutral observation that takes no position.
- A
Question 2
A draft paragraph claims that a town's new bike lane has made Front Street safer. Its sentences give the crash counts before and after the lane opened, quote a shop owner who now bikes to work, and then note that the lane was painted green because green paint is easier for drivers to see at night. The writer is deciding whether to keep the sentence about the shop owner. What is the best decision?
- A
Keep it, because quotations make any paragraph more convincing.
- B
Keep it, because it shows that the bike lane is popular.
- C
Delete it, because it supports a different claim (that people use the lane) rather than the claim that the street is safer.
- D
Delete it, because a shop owner is not a reliable source.
Show answer
C
The paragraph's claim is about safety, and a shop owner's commute shows use, not safety. Choice B is accurate about what the sentence shows, which is why it tempts, but popularity is not this paragraph's claim. The green-paint sentence, by contrast, does explain a safety feature.
- A
Question 3
A writer has three claims for an argument that her city should plant shade trees along its bus stops: (1) most bus stops have no shade, (2) riders waiting in summer heat face real health risks, (3) trees cost less over twenty years than metal shelters. Give an effective order and explain the principle behind it.
Show answer
1, then 2, then 3. The lack of shade has to be established before the risk of waiting in the sun means anything, and trees only look like a good solution once the reader accepts that the shade problem is worth fixing; each claim depends on the one before it.
Logical dependence sets the order: a claim comes after the claims it relies on. The audience can then shift emphasis (a budget-minded reader might get a longer cost paragraph) but not reverse the chain.
Question 4
A paragraph reads: "Our cafeteria line takes too long. Last Tuesday the wait was 19 minutes. The lunch period is 30 minutes. Three cashiers are scheduled but only one register works." What does the paragraph most need?
- A
More statistics about wait times on other days
- B
Commentary explaining what the numbers mean, such as that students are left 11 minutes to eat
- C
A quotation from a cafeteria worker
- D
A transition word at the start of each sentence
Show answer
B
The evidence is already there; what's missing is the reasoning that connects it to the claim, such as subtracting the wait from the period and pointing out that two cashiers have nothing to do. Choice D adds connecting words, but transitions can't supply reasoning the writer hasn't done.
- A