Don’t worry, this isn’t particularly complicated – well, not too much. There are just a few ways, and some are used for very specific writing types. We will deal with those first, before coming back to the two most common – Deductive and Inductive. (I know we repeat a lot of ideas in this module – we really want to get this point across. Bear with us!)

Remember that these different ways will all depend on the type of document, purpose in writing or specific information we have collected.

Ordering ideas in a time-based sequence can be used for a variety of writing types. Entire documents or major parts of documents can be ordered in this way. Examples are:

There are only few occasions when you will need to use this way to organise your main points. Use this way when you are writing about different geographical locations, organisational divisions, sections or units. It can be useful for comparative analysis and some field reports where several sites are visited for comparison.

Now we have covered Chronology and Location, let’s look at the most common ways you will be using.

This really is an underlying principle that should guide all our planning and presentation of ideas. Don’t forget – it’s not what’s important to you that matters, but what’s important for your reader. Your reader is going to care about results and significance a lot more than method. So if you spent six hours walking up a mountain to conduct a survey, it’s the survey’s conclusions that matter and not its design or the journey.

One thing you definitely will organise using order of importance is your recommendations. These will very often be presented as a list, either bulleted or numbered. Some tips on making lists:

Even if you are using bullets, think about the hierarchy of ideas. While a bulleted list indicates that ideas are of equal importance – numbers indicate degree of importance of sequence – the brain doesn’t work like that. A reader will always, at some level, assume that the top of the list is more important than the bottom. So look at your list carefully and make sure that your most important recommendation comes first.

Avoid long lists. Typically your list should be between three and seven items. After seven, the short term memory has trouble grasping everything. That’s why most telephone numbers – the variable part, anyway – are seven digits and not eight.

If you can’t find a clear order of importance, arrange your list from General to Specific. Talk about ‘education’ before you talk about ‘schools’ and ‘teachers’, and ‘health’ before detailing ‘doctors’ and ‘hospitals’. That’s the Ladder of Abstraction again. You can go both ways, and we will look at that a bit further in the next section.

Before we do, let’s remember that we can organise entire documents using order of importance. For example, this is how we organise effective proposals.

If we follow the proposal Mind Map clockwise, we start with the most essential point: the problem to be addressed. (Within the Challenge / Problem statement also, we follow the same principle of importance – the core problem first, then the effects, and finally the causes.)

Next comes the Programme Description, and this follows the hierarchy of ideas of our Project Planning Matrix / Logical Framework, from Goal right down to Activities.

The next sections – Staffing, Evaluation and Budget – are less important than the problem and its solution, and the part where you describe your organisation’s ability to deliver the promised results comes last. After all, we should ‘sell’ the project need first, the solution second and ourselves last. (You will have already convinced your reader of your abilities by this point anyway – after all, it’s your plan.)

Interestingly, reports are typically NOT organised by order of importance. Due to their origins in scientific reporting, the most common report structure (discussed in the module on Planning) usually has the most important parts – the conclusions and recommendations – last. 

Use Order of Importance also for:

Now we are back where we started this module. As long as you have given your conclusion first, you can either continue to work down the Ladder of Abstraction, i.e. moving from the general / abstract towards the more specific / concrete; or you can use the scientific approach and build your argument upwards. As long as you have made your conclusion / purpose clear at the very beginning, you are free to choose.

We prefer the Deductive approach for the reasons mentioned earlier – it’s easier to understand, it saves time, etc. But we do not insist that you turn your writing completely upside down just because we say so.