Structure Remember to treat writing as a system. Make your logical argument flow, building words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into sections, and sections into documents. Vary your constructions – they mark out the cadence of your writing. You can use cadence to convey your message. For example, a …

Having used the systems approach to develop a solid design for writing, the writer must then turn his or her attention to the implementation. In the systems world this is analogous to putting together the very best components to do the job of expression. Most readers will at once recognize …

In our last post we looked at making a high-level system design for a paper about a project, arguing that a proposed design change would make it impossible to complete a hypothetical project by its original due date. The design called for a four-paragraph structure that flowed as follows: P1 …

All writing, especially expository writing, is about using a system design. In a pattern familiar to any systems engineer, the writing project begins with high level requirements that will decompose to lower level requirements, a functional map for meeting those requirements and a particular physical implementation. The effective author begins …