EXAMINING THE LINE OF REASONING IN WRITING

If you read an essay or a composition of text, you can use analytical thinking to break it down into different sub-components such as the introduction, body and conclusion. Depending on the aims of the essay, the introduction presents the context, defines the problem to be solved or summarises the upcoming discussion and position to be taken. The body defines key concepts and provides a description of the subject matter. While the conclusion summarises the main points.

If we examine an essay at a high macro-level, we can build a line of reasoning from what we think the author is trying to say. This can be done by looking for the one main point being made in each paragraph appearing as a key sentence or sequence of words. It may be the case that some paragraphs dont have any main points and are merely descriptive. If we place the main points from each paragraph in sequence one after another, we start to see the authors line of reasoning appearing. Lets take an example of a short piece of writing below: