How to Organize a Paper: 10 Ways to Structure Your Document for Nearly Any Occasion

When it comes to writing, designing, and communicating, don’t be a scatterbrain—stay organized! If you can be strategic about your organizational structure, you’ll be in a far better position to persuade, influence, and generally wow your audience. Wow-ing starts with conscious awareness about how your ideas progress, how they’re connected, and how they’ll build to effectively reach your audience.

Whether you’re writing an argumentative essay for your history class, a sales report for your boss, a travel magazine article for Destinations, or an op-ed piece for the newspaper, the way you organize your information may very well be the doom or success of your work. Don’t get caught thinking that you can just begin your paper without some structure in mind. Be smart and strategic about it. Stay organized.

I’ve assembled ten of the most common organizational structures that you’ll likely need, at work, school, or elsewhere. Determine which organizational structure makes the most sense for the type of information you’re trying to convey, then just follow the steps. You’ll be a communication rock star. It’s that easy!

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The 5-Paragraph Essay

Probably the most common organizational structures for writing essays–and the one you learned in high school (or even elementary)–the 5-paragraph essay is also the most basic. While this isn’t the most interesting way to write an essay, it is structured and it will do the job. Use this organizational method if you’re in a hurry or if you’re just completely stuck on where to begin.

The Toulmin Method

A more sophisticated argumentative essay style than the 5-paragraph essay, the Toulmin method is useful for making claims when you know that people will resist your ideas. This method requires you to think about counterarguments that others might make against what you have to say, making you thoroughly investigate your topic and prepare rebuttals. While the structure itself is loose, you need to carefully build your case using grounds, qualifiers, claims, warrants, rebuttals, and backing.

The Rogerian Method

Another argumentative essay structure, the Rogerian method is designed to help you come to common grounds with another person or group. While the Toulmin method (above) is meant to argue your case and change people’s opinions, the Rogerian method is meant to simply show others that your way of thinking is rational. While you aren’t necessarily trying to convince others that you are right, you are establishing  that you understand their way of thinking and that your way of thinking is equally sound.

The Inverted Pyramid

The inverted pyramid is meant for relaying information (not persuading) and is a common organizational structure found in news writing. It’s also commonly referred to as the “direct method.” The idea behind the inverted pyramid is that you want to give people the most important details first, then work backwards. It’s not a real interesting way of writing, but it’s very effective for informative and time-sensitive pieces.

The Hourglass Method

The hourglass method,  much like the inverted pyramid, starts with the most important information first. But the hourglass differs in that it makes more of an argument and tells a compelling story. After providing the reader with the most important information, you make a turn and tell a detailed story about how the events took place. The hourglass method is still considered more informative than persuasive, but it provides readers with something to think about and ponder. As in, should things have gone this way? Could it have been handled better? 

The Martini Glass Method

The martini glass structure is set up like the inverted pyramid—with most important details first—but is designed for providing a chronological series of events. While the hourglass method (above) makes a twist and tells a story to leave readers with something to think about and is partially persuasive, the martini glass method is really just for recounting details. This method is most common in sports writing where the author writes the most important thing (who won or lost and what that matters), then explains how the game or match ensued. The article will typically end with something pithy or funny, some way of summarizing the events—this is the bottom part of the glass and functions as a concluding thought or statement.

The Proposal

Proposal format is used for what it sounds like—writing proposals or pitches to people where you hope to obtain permission or funding for something. Proposals often require several pages and sections, including a title page, table of contents, list of figures, executive summaries, body content, works cited pages, appendices, and possibly even an index, depending on length. Be sure you follow the structure that is required by the organization you are submitting the proposal to. However, at the basic structural level, all proposals should generally include the topic, paradigm, gap, forecast, research, and proposition. If you can include all of those components, you’ll be much more likely to persuade your audience.

The IMRaD Format

The IMRaD format is the traditional format for scientific papers, where researchers aim to convince their readers that their research is sound and that their findings are worthy of consideration. It’s a very structured, scientific method format. This format is also good for giving recommendations to organizations, since recommendations should typically be grounded in research and findings. The letters of IMRaD stand for “Introduction, Methods, Results, analysis, and Discussion.” “Analysis” isn’t capitalized because it is considered optional and often included as a part of the discussion. When writing recommendations, replace the discussion section with recommendations.

The Narrative

Narratives are stories. Most documents can benefit from stories and you can include this format in other formats. The idea behind telling a narrative is that you can relate to your audience and explain complex or otherwise static or boring information by connecting with your audience. Narratives are incredibly memorable and an effective way to help people engage with your topic. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all organizational pattern for telling stories (think of all the different types of movies you’ve seen), all stories must include five elements: character(s), setting, plot, conflict, and resolution.

The Indirect Method

The indirect method—which is essentially the reverse of the inverted pyramid—is designed to build towards your main point, rather than giving the most important thing first. Typically, this method is used for conveying bad news to people, or information that people will not be excited to hear. Typically, you want to write in the indirect method when you want people to understand why you made the decision that you did. If, for example, your company has to make pay cuts and you have the unfortunate task of conveying that information, it may be in your best interest to use the indirect method to set up the circumstances for why this decision is being made. People still won’t be happy to hear the news, but at least they’ll understand why the decision was made.