What Are Organizational Patterns in Writing?

Different types of writings require different styles of writing. There are several ways in which a piece of text is structured and organized in the English language. However, some are very common and used quite often. Proper organization of ideas in a text is an important aspect of writing. Without a coherent and proper organizational pattern, a piece of writing, no matter how good or bad, can never convey its meaning to the readers. In fact, there are chances of the readers ending up in more confusion if the text is not organized properly. There are numerous styles one can adapt to organize his or her ideas in a written text. An understanding of all the commonly used organizational patterns helps the writer in writing better along with practicing new ideas without any fear of the readers not understanding them at all. Here are some of the most common organizational patterns in writing.

Chronological Order

One of the most common and easiest organizational patterns in writing is the chronological order. When you are following the chronological order in writing, you have to adhere to a specific pattern of time. Writings that follow the chronological order start at a specific time period. It sticks to a particular timeline. Most fiction novels and stories follow the chronological order. There are also non-fiction pieces of writings that follow the chronological order. For example, a biography written about a specific person or the narration of a specific event.

Order of Importance

Another common organization pattern in writing is the order of importance. As the name indicates, it follows an order where the important details are mentioned first. This type of organizational pattern is often found in essays and academic writings. When writing in the order of importance, the author first lists out all the details, descriptions, and explanations. Then they mention the most important and credible ones in the beginning.

Categorical

Categorical or topical patterns organize the ideas in a text under different categories or headings. All the categories in a text are interrelated and each contain chunks of text that are more closely interlinked.

Spatial

This pattern of organization is used whenever the ideas to be conveyed through the text can be alluded to one specific physical location to make their understanding easier for the readers.

Compare and Contrast

The third most common organizational pattern in writing is to compare and contrast. In this type of pattern usually two objects are discussed. This organizational pattern is often divided into parts. In the first part, a comparison is done. The author discusses the similarities between two different objects. The second part contains a contrast. In this part, the author discusses the differences between the two objects. This type of writing is commonly found in newspapers, product reviews, and magazine articles. This type of pattern is easily distinguishable from the rest.