OVERALL STRUCTURE

5 paragraphs

Para 1: Intro – thesis—SOCCER IS A BETTER SPORT THAN FOOTBALL – divided into 3 parts or reasons

Para 2: Reason/Part 1 – soccer everybody plays all over the field

Para 3: Reason/Part 2 – Soccer less violent

Para 4: Reason/Part 3 – soccer easier to play – just need a ball.

Para 5: SAME AS PARA 1, summary, repeat

FOR AD PAPER

PARA 1: BACKGROUND INFO

  1. describe the ad – stuff you will develop later
  2. What’s the product?
  3. Who’s the audience? Who’s the ad selling to?

PARA 2: SNOB APPEAL (for example – use, of course, what you find in your own ad)

PARA 3: COMPLIMENT CLAIM (for example – use, of course, what you find in your own ad)

PARA 4: SEX APPEAL (for example – use, of course, what you find in your own ad)

PARA 5:HEALTH APPEAL (for example – use, of course, what you find in your own ad)

conclusion: HOW I CHANGED THE AD. AND WHY – CRITICIZE/SATIRIZE THE MAIN APPEAL OF THE AD.

LOWER LEVEL – sentence/paragraph structure

The Given-New Contract

Simply stated, this means that, to provide the greatest clarity, you should place OLD INFORMATION before NEW INFORMATION, being careful to tie the new info to the old material that your audience already knows, at all levels of length: sentence, paragraph, essay.

Which of the following paragraphs is easier to read and makes more sense?

A. The means by which Asian products have successfully competed with your products in Western Pacific markets will constitute the objective of the first phase of this study. The labor costs of competitors and their ability to introduce new products quickly are the first issues to be examined. A plan that will demonstrate how your company can take advantage of unexpected market opportunities, particularly on the Pacific Rim, will be developed from this study.

B. In the first phase of this study, we will examine how Asian products have successfully competed with your products in Western Pacific markets. The study will first examine labor costs of competitors and their ability to introduce new products quickly. We will develop from this study a plan that will demonstrate how your company can take advantage of unexpected market opportunities, particularly on the Pacific Rim.

What are the differences?

OLD info which the reader already knows → NEW info.

The OLD info can stay consistent throughout -- as here, with "the study" -- or the new info at the end of one sentence can become the already familiar info at the beginning of the next one.

Sentence #1. Some astonishing questions about the nature of the universe have been raised by scientists exploring black holes in space.

Sentence #3. So much matter compressed into so little volume changes the fabric of space around it in puzzling ways.

Which makes a better sentence #2:

a. A black hole is created by the collapse of a dead star into a point about as big as a marble.

b. The collapse of a dead star into a point about as big as a marble creates a black hole.

Adapted from Joseph Williams, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace. New York: Longman, 1997.