Answer First
Give the answer in the first sentence, then group the reasons beneath it, parallel reasons or a chain, never both at once, with the evidence at the leaves.
Best for a Challenge, a Decision, at the end · Barbara Minto, 1970s · takes an hour to get it into one sentence
How to run it
- Write who this is for, what they already believe, and what they will do with the answer. Then write the question they are asking, in their words. Answering a better question than the one asked reads as evasion.
- Write the answer in one sentence. The whole recommendation, as the first thing they read. If it won’t go in one sentence, go back to the thinking.
- Write three groups beneath it, each asserting one claim in a sentence that directly holds the answer up. Order them by strength. Two groups is usually a debate; four is usually a list.
- Fill each group with two to five supports that argue alike: all parallel reasons, or all steps in a chain. Never both in one group. Put the evidence, the fact or figure or source, behind each support.
- Test each support: if this fell, would the claim still stand? If yes, it is colour, not support, and it moves to an appendix or goes.
- Read it as the reader will. Write the thirty-second version: the answer, the three claims, nothing else. Then write the strongest objection and say which group answers it. If none does, you are missing a group.
Where it falls down. Answer first with nothing beneath it is an assertion, and a confident one is worse than a hesitant one.
With a pen
Who it’s for, and the question they’re asking
The answer, in one sentence
Group 1: the claimParallel or chain. Supports, each with evidence. Load-bearing?
Group 2
Group 3
The thirty-second versionThe answer, the three claims, nothing else
The strongest objectionAnd which group answers it