Why Your Text Structure is Important

March 28, 2017 by AES | Categories: Writing No Comments ↓

Text structure is the way an author arranges ideas in a text in order to help readers more easily understand what they’re reading. If your content is clearly structured, whether it’s a blog post or a book, you’re more likely to attract readers.

How people scan a text

Before someone decides whether to read something or buy a book or other work, they usually give it a quick scan, either online or in a book store. If the title has captured their interest, they next want to get an idea of what the text is about.

To do this, there are several areas of a text that people tend to look at: the table of contents or TOC (if there is one), chapter titles (if applicable), headings and subheadings, and the first paragraph of a block of text. They may also dive down to the first sentence of several paragraphs to see how well the author has state his or her thoughts.

Specifically, potential readers might be looking for wording that logically supports the theme, whether the work is fiction or non-fiction. Does the text support the title? If the work is non-fiction, this is even more relevant. Does the structure (TOC, headings, graphics, etc.) enhance what the work is about. The better the text is structured and written, the easier it becomes for readers to move to the next step.

Tips to create effective structure for your text

After the title and table of contents, effective structure depends on three things: 1) your headings, 2) the first paragraph after the chapter title or number, and after each heading or subheading, and 3) the first sentence of each new paragraph. If you start writing by creating and organizing a detailed outline of the topics you want to cover, you pretty much have created your headings and sub-headings. They may change as you actually write, but at least you’ve created the structure.

Headings

Headings should be attractive, both visually and in the wording, and they should clearly describe the content of the subsequent text. Using effective headings allows your potential readers to quickly scan through your text in order to decide whether or not to read further or buy your work. Headings should be used to start text that has a specific theme. Each new theme, then, would have its own heading or sub-heading. Using keywords in the heading is also an effective strategy.

First paragraphs

Your potential readers might scan only the first paragraph of your blog post, or the first paragraph of your book’s introduction or each chapter and heading. Those paragraphs either need a teaser, something to draw the reader forward (e.g., a question), or they need to contain the main message of that section of text. And using keywords in that paragraph can be effective; it keeps your potential reader focused on your topic.

Sentences

As you were probably taught in school, it’s important that the first sentence of a paragraph should be the lead thought of that paragraph, with remaining sentences adding details to that first sentence. Because people who are scanning your text tend to read only that first sentence, it needs to grab their attention. This is another great place to insert keywords. Note: In well-structured and well-written text, your keywords should come up quite naturally.

Conclusion

Text structure is important to attract readers. Creating quality content that’s well-structured and well-written, takes practice and attention. As always, it’s important to keep your reader in mind.