Organizing Your Ideas

Lisa Blankenship

Writing is incredibly important.

Through writing we often discover what it is we have to say. Through writing we can make sense out of our experiences. Through writing we can understand ourselves and others more—even or maybe especially those who are really different from us. Through writing we can create new knowledge and communicate it to others in a form that will outlast our time on this planet.

In making an argument or developing a thesis about the importance of writing, I just used principles that are thousands of years old, originating from classical Greek and Roman thinking, and that contemporary philosophers and rhetoricians have updated for use today. Philosopher Stephen Toulmin (1922–2009) updated the rhetorical theories of Aristotle in the mid-twentieth century, resulting in rhetorical devices such as warrants, premises, grounds, and lines of argument becoming everyday terms, which I’ll discuss below. (And in the paragraph above I also just used a rhetorical strategy or trope called anaphora that involves the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive sentences.)

You could say, in other words, that “Writing is incredibly important” is my thesis statement, and that I support that thesis with a few different lines of argument, also known as grounds or evidence. So “Writing is incredibly important” because:

1.through writing we often discover what it is we have to say;

2.through writing we can make sense out of our experiences;

3.through writing we can understand ourselves and others more—even or maybe especially those who are really different from us; and

4.through writing we can create new knowledge and communicate it to others in a form that will outlast our time on this planet.

The various sections or paragraphs of my essay would then go on to support these lines of argument (which Kate Eickmeyer calls “subarguments” in her essay “Organizing an Argument”). An outline of my paper could look something like:

I.Introduction / Establish why I’m writing the piece and preview my thesis/argument: Writing is incredibly important.

II.Section 1 / Reason 1: Through writing we often discover what it is we have to say.

A.Example from my own experience

B.Quotes from famous writers

C.Example from research on the writing process

III.Section 2 / Reason 2: Through writing we can make sense out of our experiences.

IV.Section 3 / Reason 3: Through writing we can understand ourselves and others more—even or maybe especially those who are really different than us.

V.Section 4 / Reason 4: Through writing we can create new knowledge.

VI.Section 5 / Reason 5: Through writing we can communicate knowledge to others in a form that will outlast our time on this planet.

VII.Conclusion / Implications of my thesis

Even though it may bear a resemblance, this approach to writing an essay is not the same as the “five-paragraph essay” you may have been taught to crank out for exams or night-before-it’s-due paper writing. Unfortunately, decades of standardized testing have created the monster of the five-paragraph essay—something people dread reading as much as they dread writing. Essayist and college writing professor John Warner laments about this creature in Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities:

If writing is like exercise, the five-paragraph essay is like one of those ab belt doohickeys that claim to electroshock your core into a six-pack, so you can avoid doing all those annoying sit-ups. The five-paragraph essay is an artificial construct, a way to contain and control variables and keep students from wandering too far off track. All they need are the ideas to fill in the blanks. It is very rare to see a five-paragraph essay in the wild; one finds them only in the captivity of the classroom. (29)

Researchers who study the writing process have been saying for many years that standardized testing does not make better writing or writers (Hillocks), but high stakes testing remains common as a measure of writing ability, and as a result the form writing often takes in such conditions is a hollow shell compared to the rich tradition writing and rhetorical theory offer us, going all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome.

The outline I wrote above resembles (and is influenced by) classical rhetorical notions about how to arrange a speech (or similarly, and in this case, a piece of writing). Arrangement, or organizing an argument, featured prominently in classical rhetoric in the West, and was one of the five canons of rhetoric:

• Invention
• Arrangement
• Style
• Memory
• Delivery

Classical notions of arrangement date back to the rhetorician and philosopher Cicero’s work De Inventione in the first century BCE, and included the following:

• Exordium (introduction)
• Narratio (statement of the issue at hand or the question to be addressed)
• Partitio (division of the question into smaller parts or narrowing the question)
• Confirmatio (making one’s case or laying out the evidence to support your thesis)
• Refutatio (engaging in counterarguments or arguments against your thesis)
• Peroratio (conclusion)

As I discuss in “Stasis Theory,” in the mid-twentieth century the philosopher Stephen Toulmin adapted Aristotelian rhetoric into a method of thinking and argumentation used primarily in the legal field but that can be applied to almost any topic. Using Toulmin to think with can help you invent arguments and clarify your thinking, and it also can help you arrange your ideas or lines of arguments.

The well-known concepts of claims, grounds, lines of argument, qualifier, and rebuttal come from Toulmin. His concept of a claim is essentially a thesis—it encapsulates the argument, like a Twitter version of a piece of writing in one sentence. Ideally, you don’t start out with a thesis; you discover one through a process. His concept of grounds is what “holds up” or supports the thesis.

A pared-down version of Toulmin’s philosophy of how we reason in everyday life is as follows:

• Claim: The point a writer or speaker is trying to make.
  • e.g. We should take steps to address climate change.
• Grounds: (Also known as reasons) The proof or evidence that leads a writer or speaker to draw a conclusion or make a claim (thesis), and, vice versa, evidence they use to support a claim
  • Grounds or reasons can consist of statistics, quotations, reports, findings, physical evidence, personal experience, or various forms of reasoning based on Aristotelian topoi or stasis theory (see “Stasis Theory”).
  • e.g. Polar ice caps are melting. The scientific community has determined that global warming is escalating. Catastrophic weather events are increasing at an alarming rate. (Each one of these reasons could be a section or paragraph on which you elaborate.).
  • In Aristotelian rhetoric, the grounds and the claim can be expressed together as an enthymeme, or line of argument.
  • e.g. Because catastrophic weather events are increasing at an alarming rate, we should take steps to address climate change.

• Qualifier: Demonstrates the degree to which a writer or speaker stands behind the claim
• Rebuttal: Addresses arguments against your claim (also known as counterarguments)

A note about qualifiers, rebuttals, and listening to those who disagree with you:

Acknowledging that your claim may not always be true or only true under certain circumstances can increase your credibility or ethos with an audience. It’s also an ethical and intellectually honest exercise to go through as you write. Qualifiers also are known as concessions—an important part of living in a democracy and shared decision making. Ask yourself questions such as: What reasons would my audience give against my claim? How can I acknowledge I’ve considered their position? Such questions can change your own perspective and change a rhetorical situation; rather than just trying to change someone’s mind, you could end up learning and changing (and increase the chances your audience will do the same, the focus of a book I wrote about empathy as a rhetorical concept).

Using Toulmin to Create an Outline

You can use Toulmin concepts to help organize your ideas during your writing process, either at the beginning or even after you’ve developed a rough first draft (reverse outlining to see what it is you’re saying in a draft). First, write down your thesis statement, then below it your grounds or reasons (evidence) you plan to use to support it; these can be sections or paragraphs of your paper and can include things like stories (for literacy narratives and position papers), textual and historical details (for rhetorical and literary analysis papers), and statistics and other data (for argument or position papers).

Works Cited

Hillocks, Jr., George. The Testing Trap: How State Writing Assessments Control Learning. New York: Teachers College Press, 2002.

Toulmin, Stephen E. The Uses of Argument. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Warner, John. Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.