Sorting Information

Once you gather information, you need to analyze and sort that information. Through your reading, you may discover that although emphases are different in different sources, and what authors want to talk about is different, they seem to repeat the same themes. If different people pursuing different goals repeat the same themes, those themes are probably important, as they are what we call the common points in the discussion. This is a key principle in using sources and in writing. Identify the common points, and let them do the work for you.

So, ask yourself what major themes, categories, or concepts emerge from the information?  And which of these themes, categories, or concepts directly address your purpose and audience?  Analyze and sort your content by factoring out and naming major points to use in your document.

You can do a simple list, or you might use a map to sort and order information, such as this:

Sample sorting

Remember the ongoing sample situation:

Your manager tasks you to provide a briefing about a European Court of Justice ruling to search engine optimization specialists who work in the field with clients. Your manager suspects that clients of the firm will ask about the ruling and she wants consultants to be able to answer clients’ questions with confidence based on the latest information.

A sample sort might look like this.

Ordering Information

Once you identify important points, consider the order in which you should offer them, based on your purpose and audience. When you write a technical document, not only must you think of the right information to include (or exclude), you must also determine an appropriate way to arrange it.

There are many different, standard ways of ordering information:

• logical – sequencing thoughts that lead into one another, with background information provided first
• problem-solution
• chronological
• specific to general; general to specific
• most to least important (or most to least controversial or interesting); least to most important (or least to most controversial or interesting)
• simple to complex
• spatial organization (for physical descriptions, e.g., top to bottom, left to right, outside to inside)

• thing-at-rest to thing-in-motion (e.g., describe a thing, then discuss its operation)
• concept to application of the concept
• date to conclusions; conclusions in brief, to data, to conclusions

These are just a few possibilities for ordering information. Whichever sequencing you choose, make sure to be consistent with it, and avoid mixing approaches randomly. For example, presenting some data, stating a few conclusions, and then switching back and forth between data and conclusions haphazardly will only confuse your reader.

The important thing to remember about ordering information is that you order it consciously, by concept (and not by source). Look at your important points and decide what type of order makes the most sense given your content, purpose, and audience.