LOOK FOR THE SIMILARITY IN CONCLUSIONS

We noted earlier that ideas in writing are either action ideas or situation ideas-they either tell the reader to do something or that something is the case. If they are situation ideas, they will be statements that can be described by such plural nouns as reasons, or problems, or conclusions. You will have classified the ideas in this manner because you believed each of them to possess a characteristic in common.

To review what you read about classifying in: Imposing Logical Order, when you say something like "The company has three organization problems," you have in effect taken the entire universe of possible organization problems that the company could have, and made a bifurcate division of them (Exhibit 3l).

Thus, classifying them as organization problems does not reveal anything significant about them. It is only step one in the thinking process, a simple listing of points that may be worth thinking about. Step two is to prove that these points actually do belong together by identifying the common link that justifies separating them from the others. Step three is to spell out the wider significance of the existence of that common link-that is, to create a new idea. Only then can you say that you have completed your thinking.

Most writers of business documents Stop at step one, often because they don't realize that steps two and three Me required, but usually because drawing insights from a list of points is hard work. You have to

- Find the structural similarity that ties the ideas together

- Look for closer links between the similarities

- Make the inductive leap to the summary point.