Understanding a text
Content
Understanding structure and organisation
As a reader, you will often experience (or you often might have experienced) trouble getting the meaning clear. The text might look chaotic, dense and abstruse at a first glance. But this, in most academic texts, is just an illusion, as these types of texts are usually clearly structured and organised. Patterns or structures into which texts are organised will help you clarify the meaning.
Skimming (see Chapter 1) will help you get aware of text organisation: read the title, look quickly at the number and length of paragraphs, read quickly the first sentences in each paragraph. This will help you realise the outer structure of the text and get an initial idea of what the text is about. Only after this short activity should you engage in detailed reading.
In reading, you can follow the typical critical reading protocol (adapted from Wallace 2004):
- Predict by studying the title
- Establish your own position
- Scan (search)
- Read carefully
Types of organisation
Texts, of course, are organised differently, depending on many factors: purpose of the text, its audience, the author and their intention. Despite the variety and hypothetical infiniteness of combinations of words and sentences, there are typical ways of structuring (academic) texts. Some of the most common types of organisation include the following:
- Sequence / process description
- Cause and effect (simple vs complex)
- Problem-solution-evaluation
- Comparison and contrast
- For and against (advantages vs disadvantages)
More specifically, research academic articles published in scientific journals follow a strictly given structure (which can differ across fields of study). In humanities, the following structure is usually kept to:
- Title
- Abstract
- Review of existing literature
- Research questions/hypothesis
- Methodology
- Description of the experiment
- Results
- Discussion and limitations
- Conclusion
- References
Knowing how articles are structured will help you find specific information efficiently without having to read the texts from beginning to end.
Task 1
Read the following text and complete the task below.
Poverty
From the last chapter you should have some understanding about why different people have different incomes. A person’s earnings depend on the supply and demand for that person’s labour, which in turn depend on natural ability, human capital, compensating differentials, discrimination and so on. The factors that determine wages are also largely responsible for determining how an economy’s total income is distributed among the various members of society. In other words, they determine who is rich and who is poor.
In this chapter we discuss the distribution of income – a topic that raises some fundamental questions about the role of economic policy. One of the Ten Principles of Economics is that governments can sometimes improve market outcomes. This possibility is particularly important when considering the distribution of income. The invisible hand of the marketplace acts to allocate resources efficiently, but it does not necessarily ensure that resources are allocated fairly. As a result, many economists – although not all – believe that the government should redistribute income to achieve greater equality. In doing so, however, the government runs into another of the Ten Principles of Economics: people face trade-offs. When the government enacts policies to make the distribution of income more equitable, it distorts incentives, alters behaviour and makes the allocation of resources less efficient.
Our discussion of the distribution of income proceeds in three steps. First, we assess how much inequality there is in our society. Second, we consider some different views about what role the government should play in altering the distribution of income. Third, we discuss various public policies aimed at helping society’s poorest members.
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Which pattern of organisation from the ones mentioned above is used in this text?
sequence description -
Think about the language that helps you identify this.
from the last chapter; in this chapter; …in three steps; first,… second,… third…
Source: Mankiw Gregory, N. Principles of Economics. Ninth Edition. Hampshire: Cengage Learning, 2021
Connecting ideas
Having introduced the general idea of text structure and organisation, let us now take a closer look at specific language used to connect the text – this is the glue which links the parts of the text together and makes it an organic, functioning whole.
In general, there are three possible means of gluing a text together, making it clearly structured.
- pronoun referents (e.g.: this, these…)
- synonyms (e.g.: organisation-structure)
- linking words (e.g.: however; furthermore; in conclusion…)
The feature of a well-structured text is called ‘text cohesion’ – it ensures continuity from one paragraph to another, but also continuity within individual paragraphs. Usually, it is done by:
- Rephrasing key words or expressions
- Repeating key words or expressions
- Ending a paragraph with a question which is answered in the next
- Maintaining the grammatical subject of the last sentence of the paragraph in the first sentence of the next
- Using phrases which refer back to the previous paragraph or forward to the next
Task 2
Read the following text and put the paragraphs in the correct order.
Utilitarianism
Source: Mankiw Gregory, N. Principles of Economics. Ninth Edition. Hampshire: Cengage Learning, 2021
Task 3
In the introduction, we studied specific language used to connect the text. How is continuity ensured in the following paragraph? Study the paragraph below in detail and identify the most common means of cohesion used.
- pronouns referents
- synonyms
- linking words
To take from Dieter to pay Ernst, the government must pursue policies that redistribute income, such as the income tax and welfare systems that operate in all industrialized countries. Under these policies, people with high incomes pay high taxes, and people with low incomes receive income transfers. We know, however, that taxes distort incentives and cause deadweight losses. If the government takes away additional income a person might earn through higher income taxes or reduced transfers, both Dieter and Ernst have less incentive to work hard. As they work less, society’s income falls, and so does total utility. The utilitarian government has to balance the gains from greater equality against the losses from distorted incentives. To maximize total utility, therefore, the government stops short of making society fully egalitarian.
Source: Mankiw Gregory, N. Principles of Economics. Ninth Edition. Hampshire: Cengage Learning, 2021
Task 4
How is the paragraph-to-paragraph continuity ensured? Study paragraphs 1 and 2 and identify the transitions (see below):
A prominent school of thought in political philosophy is utilitarianism. The founders of utilitarianism were the British philosophers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). To a large extent, the goal of utilitarians is to apply the logic of individual decision making to questions concerning morality and public policy.
The starting point of utilitarianism is the notion of utility, which, you might recall, is the level of happiness or satisfaction that a person receives from consumption or his or her circumstances. Utility is a measure of well-being and, according to utilitarians, is the ultimate objective of all public and private actions. The proper goal of the government, they claim, is to maximize the sum of utility of everyone in society.
Mark the transitions used:
Source: Mankiw Gregory, N. Principles of Economics. Ninth Edition. Hampshire: Cengage Learning, 2021
Task 5
Identify the expressions that ensure the continuity within the following paragraph.
The utilitarian case for redistributing income is based on the assumption of diminishing marginal utility. It seems reasonable that an extra euro of income to a poor person provides that person with more additional utility than does an extra euro to a rich person. In other words, as a person’s income rises, the extra well-being derived from an additional euro of income falls. This plausible assumption, together with the utilitarian goal of maximizing total utility, implies that the government should try to achieve a more equal distribution of income.
Source: Mankiw Gregory, N. Principles of Economics. Ninth Edition. Hampshire: Cengage Learning, 2021