The biggest take away I’ve learned from this course it that structure and sequence play a big role in how we process information interpret meaning in a written work. These are aspects of the composition process that I feel I have significantly overlooked in the past. My philosophy when writing has been to dump all the most necessary information into the piece, and that, so long as its there somewhere, the reader will find what they need. However, it is one of the duties of the writer to order that information so that a deeper meaning can be arrived at when the reader witnesses how ideas interact with one another.
An analogy that I visualize to emphasize this point is that you, as a writer, are tasked with assembling a machine, that will function as a meaning translator to your reader. Even if you have knowledge of all the parts of the machine and their respective idiosyncrasies, if you don’t arrange and assemble those parts properly, the machine will not operate.
For example, before this course, I might have often overlooked an opportunity to define a new paragraph when one paragraph has diverged from its original point, or if the focus shifted from one subtopic to a new subtopic that is related but different. As a reader, it is preferable that paragraphs be simplified to represent information that could be easily summarized. If there are too many offshoots of the topic lumped into one paragraph, one can begin to feel lost. Also, this would make the material more difficult to skim or read through quickly.
Keeping the reader in mind is something I have always tried to do to some extent. But now that I’m aware of how ordering your message to have a clear structure and logical sequence is an essential part of capturing your target reader’s attention, I feel that, in the past, I neglected to fully reconcile the communication purpose with the reader’s experience and needs.