ABSTRACT
It’s simple really: you say what you’re going to say; you say it; then you say what you’ve said. Three chances to fix the message in terms of beginnings, middles and endings. It is the rhetoric of clarity, of simple truths, simply told. You set up the problem, why this is an important problem, say how you’re going to write about it, the issues to be resolved and the strategy to be used in resolving it. Then, in the middle, the problem is analysed into its parts, the importance of each part made clear and the evidence or arguments required for overcoming each part of the problem is marshalled logically until in the conclusion a drawing together can be made, summarising the process through which each part of the problem has been fully examined and all the issues resolved. Of course, there are variations. The aim may instead be to unpack what had seemed to be a watertight solution to show that the problems, in fact, remain unsolved. Or, the aim may be to show that previous researchers had attended to the wrong problem or irrelevant questions. Or the message might be a story that enters an ongoing dispute, or a set of disagreements in order to stake a claim in the debate – perhaps an airing of an offence, whether real or imagined, is the intention. Possibly the aim of the writer is to illustrate differences between this thing and that thing, this concept and that concept. In each case, the same writing strategy can be employed: say what you’re going to say; say it; then say what you’ve said. The message is conceived as in some way ‘fixed’ or, at least sufficiently fixed, as to be received in such a way that the reader receives what the writer intended. In its traditional sense, writing implies both a notion of authorship (addresser[s]) and of audience (addressee[s]). It has content and it has context: it tells a story, no matter whether as a text it is designated as fiction or non-fiction. The addresser desires to convey some message to a world as audience.
