ENG2012 /

GEN2010
English for
Business Contexts
Unit 2
Text organisation
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Introduction
 The need for organisation
 Texts are judged not only on their content
but also on their organisation and textual
impact.

 Information in the clause and sentence

 Analyses the language resources for
distributing old and new information in
sentences, and patterns of organisation
over sequences of sentences.
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 The structure of the paragraph

 Introduces 4 basic kinds of paragraph
structure, and explores the differences
between point-first and point-last structures.

 Visual information in texts

 Surveys the devices at our disposal for
making texts more visually interesting, and
discusses their effects on reading.
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 Generic structure
 Introduces the notion of generic structure,
concentrating on narratives and news
reports and showing how the latter’s
structure gives scope for bias.
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A. The need for organisation

 Supposing you were a student living in
university accommodation near
Tottenham Court Road in London, and
some gave you the following directions to
get to their home. See next slide.
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 It’s 4 Hills Road, Buckhurst Hill. There’s a pond opposite it,

and beyond a pond a church called St. John’s with a spire.
It’s in a cul-de-sac. You go up Palmerston Road from
Buckhurst Hill tube station, turning right and then left as you
come out of the station. It’s a Central Line station, the
Epping branch, and the Hainault branch. You’ll need to go
to Tottenham Court Road station and take the eastbound
train. When you get to the top of Palmerston Road you turn
right at the T-junction, cross over the High Road and take a
path with the pond on your right. It’s the second house, on
the left.
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 Can you identify any problem in

terms of the organisation of the
text?

>>
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Spoken text is –
 entirely linear

Written text is –
 Predominantly so
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 We have to listen in the order in which the

words are spoken, and we often read the text
in the order in which it is presented to us.

 Despite this, this varies with the kind of text,

and how visual it’s.

 Because language text is largely linear, the

order in which we present information is
crucial in organising our material effectively.
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 Infact, reading a text is very much like

making a journey from one point to
another.
 If a longish text is well organised, it will be
possible for the writer to make the text
sectionalised by giving a map and visual
cues to the reader
 E.g.
 Indicating in advance and by graphic
devices
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Activity A
 Read the table on the next slide on the
familiar topic of deep and surface
approaches to learning. Your task is to
select the appropriate following sentences
so that the ideas of the paragraph are
developed in the clearest and most logical
way. Choose one sentence (a, b, or c) from
each row after reading the introductory
sentence below.
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Students who are most successful in their university studies are often said to
take a deep approach to learning
A B C
University study can often In this approach, students Successful students avoid
be very demanding for understand information taking a surface approach
students. rather than memorize it. to their studies.
A B C
A surface approach, by What some students use The reason is that a
contrast, is one in which is a surface approach to surface approach helps
students do memorize in learning to help them learners to pass exams.
order to pass exams. pass exams.
A B C
To help them get the best Students are put under Exams tend to encourage
grades, some students considerable stress by the use of surface
use this approach. exams and may not do strategies, especially in
their best because of “content heavy” subject
anxiety. areas.
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Information in the clause and

sentence
To analyse clauses for their
information structure, we can
divide them into two parts
called –
 Theme, and
 Rheme
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Basicelements of the clause

can be labelled –
 Subject, object, verb, adverbial

Theme will be the first of these

elements to occur in the clause
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(1)
Subject Verb Object Adverbial
John Ate the tomatoes on Wednesday
Theme………. Rheme……………………………………………..

(2)
Object Subject Verb Adverbial
The tomatoes John ate on Wednesday
Theme………. Rheme……………………………………………..
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(3)
Adverbial Subject Verb Object
On John ate the tomatoes
Wednesday
Theme………. Rheme……………………………………………

Passive voice:
(4)
Subject Verb Adverbial Adverbial
The tomatoes were eaten on Wednesday by John
Theme………. Rheme……………………………………………..
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 Theme-Rheme and Given-New

 The most straightforward way of organising

information in a text is to put –

 old/given information, information we already

have, in the Theme position
 new information towards the end of the
Rheme.
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The structure of the paragraph –

Thematic strings/thematic
development
A clear pattern of thematic development
is a sign of good organisation.

 Remember the text concerning the horse-

riding accident to Christopher Reeve?
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‘Superman’ may never walk again

1. SUPERMAN star Christopher Reeve is in
hospital with a suspected broken back.
2. His family ordered hospital officials not to give out
any information – but sources say he is partially
paralysed.
3. The actor’s publicist was plainly upset as she
revealed that horse-mad Reeve was hurt show-
jumping in Virginia.
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4. Witnesses saw him hit the ground hard as his

horse shied.
5. As doctors evaluated his condition in the
acute-care ward at the University of
Virginia’s Medical Centre, it was not known
whether he will walk again.
6. Reeve, 43 and 6ft. 4in. was flown to the
hospital by air-ambulance after doctors at
the competition decided he needed special
care.
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7. Reeve, who starred in 4 Superman movies,

lived with his British lover Gael Exton for 11
years.

8. They had two children.

9. Reeve then began a relationship with singer

Dana Morosini.
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 Notice that the Themes are as follows –

 Superman star Christopher Reeve
 His family
 Sources
 The actor’s publicist
 She
 Horse-mad Reeve
 Witnesses
 Doctors
 Reeve, 43 and 6ft. 4in.
 Doctors
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 Reeve
 They
 Reeve

 There is an obvious pattern here. The Themes

always refer to people, in step with the dictum (a
short statement) that the news is about people
and has human interest.

 Almost half of the Themes refer to Reeve. The other

people referred to are those who have reacted
verbally to the accident or its aftermath.
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 The words in the Theme of sentences and

clauses have a very important role in
making a text hang together, technically,
giving it cohesion.

 Orto put it another way, repeated

references to the same people or
semantic areas throughout a text may
well help the text cohere.
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 Butif the expressions which refer to them

are in Theme position, this cohesion will be
more obvious and more organised.
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Activity B
 Can you write a summary of the news
article ’Superman’ may never walk
again?
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The structure of the paragraph –

Paragraph structure
 Thematic development is one area
to pay attention to in organising our
text.

 Butequally important is paragraph

structure.
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 Walter Nash (1980) suggests that –

 4 quite typical ways of organising paragraphs in
continuous prose, namely –
 The step
 The stack
 The chain
 The balance

 These are not rigid patterns and may be

combined/modified, but they often give a basic
shape to paragraphs and sections of writing.
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The Step The Stack

The Chain The Balance

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A recipe
 Heat fat is frying pan. When hot add
peas. Turn and stir-fry slowly over a
medium heat. Add chicken broth and
continue to stir-fry for one more minute.
Sprinkle with salt, sugar and sherry and stir-
fry gently for one further minute and
serve.
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The Step

 This is part of a recipe.

 This is one example of a procedure – a text
type that tells you how to carry out a
process step by step in the right order.

 The step is probably the basic design which

underlines procedures, as well as narratives,
both of which depend on an ordering of
events in time.
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 In this recipe, there is very little attempt to

make the text hang together internally, not
much cohesion.
 Why?
 Thisis because only the means of cooking is
repeated, namely ‘stir-fry’; and
 None of the ingredients is mentioned more
than once; and
 There is no pattern of thematic development.
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 Rather it is the external activity which

gives it coherence, along with the
repetition of commands/imperatives –
 ‘heat’
 ‘add’
 ‘stir-fry’
 ‘sprinkle’
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The Stack
 Stacks amount to lists of arguments/facts
which are piled up.

 The example on the next slides probably only

makes sense if the reader knows the
Singapore context.
 The government controls the number of cars on
the road by issuing limited numbers of
Certificates of Entitlement (COE), and has
several current campaigns, among them to
save water, and to adopt a healthy lifestyle.
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There are many things illogical and self-contradictory about the

Singapore government’s giving way to public pressure and
allowing more cars on to the road just before an election. First, this
ill-thought-out move will inevitably result in more fatalities on
Singapore’s highways – there were already ninety deaths in the
first quarter of 1997. Second, if the government believes in a
healthy lifestyle for its citizens, then discouraging walking, even if
only to the bus stop, is a step backwards.
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Who knows how much car use might contribute to heart disease through

obesity in years to come? The another government campaign – to save

water – would achieve some success if there were fewer cars about that

had to be regularly washed. Furthermore, with world-wide oil reserves likely

to halve in the next fifteen years we must be sensible enough to prepare

ourselves for transport like the underground system, buses and bicycles

which use non-renewable energy more efficiently or avoid using it

altogether. Frankly, increasing the population of cars, while politically

pragmatic, seems quite irrational.

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 The
above example is quite a common
paragraph structure in
exposition/argument.
 It begins with a topic sentence, announcing
the main idea/point at issue.
 It then proceeds to give a stack of
amplifying comments, all of which can be
related back to the topic sentence.
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 Such stack patterns also have the option,

taken up here, of ending with a
restatement of the writer’s main point, nicely
rounding things off.
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 The choice of ‘First’, ‘Second’, ‘another’,

‘Furthermore’ is an example of signposts
given to the reader to make the
organisation of the text clear.
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 But quite apart from these, the paragraph displays

cohesion through using vocabulary with related
and contrasting meanings
 ‘Illogical’ in sentence 1 is echoed by ‘ill-considered’ in
sentence 2 and ‘irrational’ in the last sentence and
contrasts with ‘sensible’ in the second last sentence.
 The word ‘government’ recurs 3 times, and the related
words ‘election’ and ‘political’ occur in the first and final
sentences.
 The word ‘self-contradictory’ is expanded in sentences 3
and 4, which claim that the increase in the number of cars
works against two government campaigns.
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The Chain

 The
previous two paragraph patterns we
have looked at show very tight
organisation.

 But
the chain has a more exploratory or
rambling feel about it.
 It is a design where the sentences
appearing in succession are linked most
obviously only to the previous sentence.
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Mosquitoes are the greediest creatures I have ever

met, my children not excluded. They combine the
vice of greed with the virtue of persistence and buzz
around for hours in the darkness seeking out those
few patches of bare white flesh I leave uncovered.
Under that flesh, as they well know, flow pints of that
red juicy food known as blood. Blood is to
mosquitoes, what Fosters lager is to Australians.
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However, it is only the females which suck blood, the

males feeding on nectar (a sweet liquid produced
by flowers and collected by bees and other insects).
If they both fed on blood there would be no hope.
But, as it is, providing we can live far enough away
from flowers there is some hope that, to find a mate,
the blood-sucking sex will have to keep away from
us.
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 The chain-like structure links one sentence

to the next.

 Thecohesion is achieved by repeating

vocabulary, or using pronouns to refer
‘back’ to something which has come in
the previous sentence –
 See next slide
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Sentences 1 – 2 mosquitoes they

greediest greed
Sentences 2 – 3 bare flesh That flesh
Sentences 3 – 4 blood blood
Sentences 4 – 5 mosquitoes males, females
blood blood
Sentences 5 – 6 makes, females they both
blood blood
feeding fed
Sentences 6 – 7 blood blood-sucking
no hope some hope
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The Balance

 The last basic design for paragraphs/texts

is the balance.
 This metaphor suggests a weighing up of
descriptive facts, or arguments for and
against a proposition, giving equal
proportion to each side, without coming
down firmly in favour of one/the other.
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The Institute of education certainly has a more human scale than the
National University of Singapore, both in size of student population and
in its architecture. On the other hand, the University, being more
modern and its buildings and larger in size, can afford better resources
than the Institute. Its library is one of the best in the region, and the
computing facilities are second to none. However it is sprawled over
Kent Ridge, with narrow bending walkways which never allow you to
see anyone else from a distance, and this, coupled with its long, bare,
windowless corridors gives it a rather impersonal atmosphere.
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The Institute, by contrast, may have decaying, termite-

infested buildings, cave-like offices, and uneven floors,
but it has a more homely, if messy, human feel to it.
And while a larger proportion of students at the
University are just after a certificate to improve their
chances of material success, the undergraduate at the
Institute of Education is more likely committed to a
worthwhile career, and may be a kinder kind of soul.
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 Thereare several Balances in this

paragraph. Very often one sentence is
weighed against another by using
words/phrases specifically to point
contrasts –
 ‘on the other hand’
 ‘by contrast’
 ‘however’
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 At other times, the Balance occurs in mid-

sentence through use of a conjunction
like –
 ‘while’

 More generally, the frequent use of

comparatives – ‘better’, ‘kinder’, ‘more’ –
gives an overall sense of weighing up two
things in opposition.
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 Sometimes the Balance is unequal.

 We may have made up our mind
already which side we come down
on, and simply admit one/two
contrary arguments to make us
appear reasonable.
 See next slide
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Although pet cats and dogs are invaluable

companions for old people, and are creatures ‘for
children to learn benevolence upon’, these
advantages cannot outweigh the negative impacts
they have on the environment. They consume huge
amounts of protein in a world where a quarter of the
population is hungry.
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They spread diseases to human

populations, particularly when owners do
nothing to control their defecation in public
parks and on pavements. There are
numerous instances of young children
being attacked, disfigured by ‘guard dogs.
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 Thefirst clause, ‘Although… upon’, makes

a couple of concessions to those in favour
of pets.
 This makes the writer appear reasonable,
before the crushing weight of arguments
against is ‘stacked’ up against them.
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 Thereis a very small stack of two items on

the one side of the Balance, but a much
bigger one on the other side –
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 Cohesion and coherence

 A text may be cohesive without necessarily being

coherent

 Cohesion does not cause coherence.

 Cohesion is determined by lexically and
grammatically salient inter-sentential relationships.
 In other words, cohesion describes the way in
which a text is tied together by linguistic devices.
e.g. ‘conjunctions’, ‘pronouns’
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 Coherence is based on semantic relationships.

 Coherence means the text is easy to read and
understand because the text follows a certain
kind of logical order and the organisation of
ideas is systematical and logical.
 e.g. ‘chronological order’, ‘spatial order’, ‘order of
importance’
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E. The structure of the paragraph –

The point/topic sentence of
paragraph/text
 Another crucial aspect of paragraph and text
structure is the position of the point/topic
sentence

 The main idea, the most essential new

information, can appear in at least two
positions.
 It may come in the first sentence as it does in
the example of a stack.
 In other paragraph/discourse types, it may
come last, towards the end of the
paragraph/text.
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 Deductive and inductive

 Point-first structures are called deductive

 Point-last structures are called inductive

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 Deductive structures are generally easier

to absorb than Inductive ones

 Deductive structures –
 Allow skimming, or
 Allow the reader to abandon reading half-
way through the text, while still
understanding the gist of it, and so are less
time-consuming.
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 Inductive structures –
 Demand more time, and place emphasis
on the process of reading rather than
simply the information as a product.
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B. Summarising skills
 Summarising
 Another way of incorporating others’
material into your writing
 Requiring to apply everything you’ve
learned about paraphrasing
 Changing keywords/phrases and the word order of the
sentences in the original text (e.g. passivisation, reposition
of new and given information)
 Writing in your own words
 Added challenge of summarising: Reducing
the length of the text you’re referring to
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Summarising
 More useful than paraphrasing
because summarising reduces an
original text significantly
 Aiming at reducing a text by at
least 50%
 Only main points included while all
details and exampled excluded
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Changing keywords/phrases
Original word/phrase Substitute word/phrase
reverence
ancient
complex
sweeping
consequences

Tips: http://www.thesaurus.com
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Original word/phrase Substitute word/phrase

reverence respect
ancient very old
complex complicated
sweeping dramatic
consequences results

• Both paraphrasing and

summarising are difficult skills to
master
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Purpose Expression Reporting verbs Quotations

To introduce a As + family name of has suggested + direct
writer’s/speak writer/speaker… claims quotation
er’s view notes
argues
reports
indicates
has proposed
To use a The point/My indicates that… + direct
writer/speaker argument is supported makes the point that… quotation
to support a by + name of found that…
point you are writer/speaker who… provides evidence to
making show that…
concludes that
To agree or I agree/cannot agree belief that + direct
disagree with with + claim that quotation
a writer’s/speaker’s suggestion that
writer/speaker name in the
possessive…
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Summary
 This unit explores the ways in which text is
organised.

 To organise information within the

clause/sentence, to preserve Given-New order
in Theme and Rheme, and how to relate
Themes throughout paragraphs

 To organise information and ideas in 4 basic

kinds of paragraphs – Step, Stack, Chain and
Balance – patterns which in practice we can
blend
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 To position the point first or last in the

discourse to give a deductive or inductive
structure

 Specific genres have their own

organisational conventions, which may or
may not be required or taught in schools
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Activity A
 This paragraph begins with a reference to the deep
approach to learning

 Thus, the most logical development will be “b”, in which the

writer tries to define what is meant by the deep approach

 The next sentence will be “a”; in sentence “a”, the writer has
used “by contrast” to signal the change of the idea from deep
approach to surface approach.

 Finally, as in sentence “a” the writer has mentioned exams, the

only logical sentence that follows “a” will be “c”

 The logical sequence is b-a-c.