Yes, assume your reader has just woken up and has 20+ tabs open they're trying to speed-read through before they finish their bagel and coffee and rush off to work. They want the firehose, not Dostoyevsky.
Good rule of thumb for this kind of audience - invert your essay structure. Put the concluding paragraph first, then work backwards through the supporting paragraphs till you get to the original question.
That style is much more engaging than traditional, overused, boring form of "Intro para -> 3x supporting para -> conclusion". Instead make a strong/counterintuitive/nonobvious/etc unsupported assertion right off the bat, then work backwards to support it.
That initial assertion captures peoples attention much more effectively than a slow build up, b/c they then want to read on to find out if the author can actually support it, and are gratified when you do.
> Good rule of thumb for this kind of audience - invert your essay structure. Put the concluding paragraph first, then work backwards through the supporting paragraphs till you get to the original question.
> That style is much more engaging than traditional, overused, boring form of "Intro para -> 3x supporting para -> conclusion".
No, its not "more engaging" than the traditional 5 paragraph essay, because in the traditional 5-paragraph essay format, the first sentence (the thesis statement) is the unsupported (to that point!) position which the rest of the essay supports. You aren't arguing for "inverting" the "traditional, overused, boring" 5 paragraph essay format, you are arguing for using the "traditional, overused, boring" 5 paragraph essay format in exactly the manner it is traditionally taught.
> Haha, fine, then I'm arguing for inverting whatever the current standard seems to be
Insofar as long, rambling intros that don't get quickly to a point are the norm, that's a standard only insofar as "people don't bother to apply any writing advice anyone has ever given" is a standard.
What I described isn't a TLDR, it's still a full essay, just with the most powerful/engaging content up front, instead of buried at the end.
In fact I've recently found myself reading blog posts backward just to skip the rambling pre-amble and get straight to the meat of it, but I still backtrack from the end to the beginning, filling in the details.
I agree with you, except that beginning a piece with an argument and then following that argument with supporting evidence isn't inverted -- it's Essay Writing 101.
That's not quite what I meant. I'm saying, start with the conclusion to the argument, then work backwards through the supporting evidence to the argument, and conclude by reviewing how the originally stated conclusion satisfies it.
Can't think of a good example atm, but will try to find one and have it handy in case this topic ever comes up again.
Good rule of thumb for this kind of audience - invert your essay structure. Put the concluding paragraph first, then work backwards through the supporting paragraphs till you get to the original question.
That style is much more engaging than traditional, overused, boring form of "Intro para -> 3x supporting para -> conclusion". Instead make a strong/counterintuitive/nonobvious/etc unsupported assertion right off the bat, then work backwards to support it.
That initial assertion captures peoples attention much more effectively than a slow build up, b/c they then want to read on to find out if the author can actually support it, and are gratified when you do.