LOGIC IN WRITING, THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING LOGIC IN WRITING

One of the least pleasant aspects of a professional person's job is the need to put things in writing. Almost everyone finds it a chore and wishes he were better at it. And many people are told specifically that they need to hone this skill if they want to progress.

The reason most people fail to show much improvement is that they assume that writing more clearly means writing simpler, more direct sentences. And it is often true that the sentences in their documents are overlong and unwieldy. Moreover, their language is frequently too technical or too abstract, and their paragraphs on occasion are awkwardly developed.

But these are weaknesses of style, and it is notoriously difficult for a person who has completed the formal part of his education to change his writing style. Not that it cannot be done; rather it's like learning to type. It requires a good many repetitive exercises, for which most on-the-job writers in industry and government simply cannot find the time. As a result, they continue to be told they need to write "more clearly."

However, there is a second cause of unclear writing, far more pervasive than the first and much easier to correct. This relates to the structure of the document-the order in which the sentences appear regardless of whether they are well or poorly written. If a person's writing is unclear, it is most likely because the ordering of the ideas conflicts with the capability of a reader's mind to process them.

The easiest order for a reader is to receive the major, more abstract ideas before he is required to take in the minor, supporting ones. And since the major ideas are always derived from the minor ones, the ideal structure of the ideas will always be a pyramid of groups of ideas tied together by a single overall thought. Within that pyramidal structure, the ideas will relate vertically-in that a point at any level will always be a summary of the ideas grouped below; and horizontally-in that the ideas will have been grouped together because together they present a logical argument.

You can very easily communicate to a reader the ideas arranged in a pyramidal £orm by simply starting at the top and moving down each leg of the pyramid. The statement of the major ideas causes the reader to question the writer's basis for making the point, and the next level down in the pyramid answers that question. You then continue the question/answer dialogue until you have communicated all the ideas to the reader.

This question/answer response to stated ideas appears to be automatic in everyone, regardless of nationality. Also true of each of us is the fact that we cannot know what we think precisely until we have symbolized it in some way, either by saying it out loud or writing it down. Fortunately, it turns out that the structure required to clarify a person's thinking to himself is also a pyramid. Thus, the writer who forces himself to structure his thinking into a pyramid also finds that he has so clarified the thinking that he can easily write clear; direct sentences.

This first section explains why a reader responds best to a pyramid structure, and how the logical substructures that make up that pyramid interact. It tells you how to use this knowledge to identify the ideas you need to include in a particular document, and to work out a clear relationship between them. It also gives a detailed analysis of the logic of introductions, and dispels the confusion that may surround your understanding of deductive and inductive argument.

At the end, you will understand the basics of how to form your thinking into a simple pyramid structure. Subsequent sections will explain the subtleties of using the pyramid rules to check that the points you include in the pyramid are indeed valid, coherent, and complete, and to help you discover your unarticulated ideas, which can lead to moving your thinking forward creatively.