The Introduction and logical structures

The Introduction builds up what follows. It also gives the reader some information to help him or her decide what to expect, how reading will meet the reader’s needs. A well-written Introduction will motivate the reader to continue.

I present two styles of Introductions: the storytelling style, and the essay style.

Storytelling style

Essay style

The Intro is the first and the last part of the document you compose.

Logical structures

In a previous lesson we looked at the Story structure. The story is an example of an inductive structure. What are others?

Common structures include deduction, induction, process or series of events, members of a class, parts of a whole, and the dialectic (which we already took up). I call these structures “logical” because they arrange ideas in a consistent way. The order or arrangement corresponds to what our mind finds easy to process. For example, the mind appears wired to make sense of reality through stories. The mind learns through association. It sees or creates patterns. It judges based on time sequence, interpreting as cause an event that came prior to another, the effect.

A. Deduction

In its simplest form the deduction contains three parts: a minor premise (data), a major premise (rule), and the conclusion which follows necessarily if the data and the rule are true. The classic example is the syllogism:

Data: Aristotle is a man.

Rule: All men are mortal.

Conclusion: Aristotle is mortal.

The syllogism can take the form of a conditional “If/Then” statement.

Rule: If it rains, the road gets wet.

Data: It rained.

Conclusion: The road got wet.

The deduction follows rules by virtue of which some syllogisms and conditionals are valid and others are invalid. For example, this conditional is invalid.

Rule: If it rains, the road gets wet.

Data: The road is wet.

Conclusion: It rained. 

But this one is valid:

Rule: If it rains, the road gets wet.

Data: The road is not wet.

Conclusion: It did not rain. 

The rules that govern deductions are covered by the subject of Logic. It is a fascinating subject, but is beyond the scope of this course.

B. Induction

Take the previous syllogism:

Rule: If it rains, the road gets wet.

Data: The road is not wet.

Conclusion: It did not rain.

But we knew it rained. So why is the road dry? Well, on some days the road is too hot and the rain too little; on other days the winds are too strong, evaporation is so fast. Heat and wind are factors that a) can vary from one day to another; or b) are only two among many, most of which we ignore, or assume, or will never know. But if we observed enough days, variations in all those known and unknown factors will “even out” enough for us to make the conclusion: rain —> wet road.

Humans are inductive by instinct. But sometimes a handful of examples are not enough to make a conclusion, e.g., ivermectin was thought to be cure for COVID based on a) anecdotal evidence, and b) uncontrolled bias in cited studies. 

And so induction has rules, too. These rules are covered by experimental design, clinical research design, statistics, and more arcane ones such as the rules that operate inside artificial intelligence programs. Again, a fascinating subject that is beyond the scope of this course.

A common induction format in science is IMRaD. Storytelling itself is inductive especially if used to argue, e.g., a court case.

C. Process, chain of events

Stories are typically a chain of events: first this happened, then this, etc. A description of a process or instructions are also like this.

A chain of cause and effect is another.

“One thing led to another, therefore my client isn’t guilty.” 

The “therefore” indicates that the chain was used as an argument. 

Processes have rules. One, you can’t leave out an essential step, nor allow steps to be assumed without basis. Another is, every step must be true, or else you might end up on a slippery slope argument, such as

Why are fire trucks red?

A firetruck has 4 wheels and 3 men.

4 x 3 equals 12.

There are 12 inches in a ruler.

There is a ruler in Russia.

Russia is Red.

That’s why a fire truck is red.

D. Parts of a whole

“The insect’s body is made up of three regions: head, thorax, abdomen. In the head we find the eyes and antennae. In the thorax we find the legs and the wings. In the abdomen we find…”. 

You got the idea. Parts can be conceptual, e.g., 

“This policy will be examined from three angles: Practicability, Needs, and Benefits.”

One rule with parts is that since they are potentially numerous, infinite even, choose a level of detail that is appropriate to your purpose, your resources, and your audience’s purpose.

Avoid banality: 

“My policy paper has three parts: intro, body, and conclusion,” 

is banal. Better, write in the intro

 “My policy paper will examine three aspects of the policy: practicability, needs, and benefits.” 

You’re giving it an intro, a body, and a conclusion anyway, so no need to announce it.

E. Members of classes

A familiar example of this format is when we name a new species and then discuss why it belongs to this kingdom, phylum, class, family, order, genus, species. This is also the preferred format when, say, classifying 

“Problems of the lockdowns include physical, mental, and economic. Under physical we have…”

F. Dialectic

We have alread discussed the thesis, antithesis, synthesis. This structure was invented in the Middle Ages, implying that structures were made by people who solved problems and then tried to codify how they solved them. The PNB format of policy papers was invented to summarize the persuasive parts of a policy speech. Even the 5-point structure of stories was invented in Classical Greece, although storytelling itself is as old as our race.

G. Other formats

Other ways of organizing ideas include “Pros and Cons”, “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats”, “Compare and Contrast”, “Practicability, Needs, Benefits” and “Point, Reason, Example, Point”. In criticism of oral presentations I use “Manner, Matter, Method”, or the more entertaining “Kiss, Kick, Kiss”. There are many more.

The point is: organized ideas are easier to understand. The brain works through pigeonholing. 

Rules about lists

We see from the discussion above that a structure organizes ideas, and the structure’s name, in plural, is a kind of title for the list it heads. For example, the list 

“data, rule, conclusion” 

is headed by a plural noun “arguments”. Episodes are “important events in the last 10 years”, “head, thorax, and abdomen” are “parts”. These examples lead to the first of 3 rules about lists:

Items on a list must be described by a “single” plural noun.

Two more rules help to decide what go in a list. These are called the MECE Rules. As much as possible:

Items on a list must be mutually exclusive (no overlaps).

Items on a list must be comprehensively exhaustive.

One way to make your list comprehensively exhaustive is to work on the plural noun that is the heading of that list. For example, you wish to talk about the damages brought about by the pandemic. Here are many potential ideas:

1. “The top three psychological damages brought about by lockdowns” —> a list of 3 items; you justify in the text “Who said these are the top 3?” Also, putting “psychological” means you ignore other damages that are not psychological.

2. “Here are 5 examples of story plots.” There are anywhere from 7 to 30 standard plots depending on who you ask. “Examples”, in contrast to #1, don’t require you to justify. You may do that, of course.

3. “Organisms responsible for disease include bacteria, fungi, and others.” That’s a list of 3 items that is exhaustive. Not a superb example, but you get the idea.

A final recommendation about lists, not a rule:

Limit any list (at same level) to three items at most.

So, if you have a list of 7 items, group them.

These rules are not written in stone. It may be good to violate them, for example, use a list of ONE, or a list of 10, e.g., The 10 Commandments. Still, in general, following these rules make your writing more understandable.