LOOK FOR THE QUESTION

Once you have the basic parts of the problem laid out, you are ready to look for the reader's question. This question will depend on how far along in the problem the reader has progressed before you began to analyze it. Does he simply want to know how to get from R1 to R2? Or has he already decided how to do that, in which case he will of course have a different question.

A big error some writers make is in not specifying to themselves whether some action has already been taken by the reader to solve the problem. Recognizing when action has been taken-and how that affects the question a document is meant to answer-greatly simplifies writing the introduction and structuring the subsequent reasoning.

Using the problem definition as a guide, we can see that readers will generally face one of seven problem situations, depending on where they stand in terms of seeking a solution:

Most common circumstances

1. They do not know how to get from R1 to R2.

2. They think they know how to get from R1 to R2, but they are not certain they are right.

3. They know for sure how to get from R1 to R2, but they do not know how to implement the solution.

Variations on the most common circumstances

4. They thought they knew how to get from R1 to R2 and implemented it, but that solution turned out not to work for some reason.

5. They have identified several possible solutions, but don't know which to pick.

Also possible but not common

6. They know R1 but cannot articulate R2 specifically enough to permit looking for a solution.

7. They know R2 but are not sure whether they are at R1 (typical benchmarking study).

Exhibit 34 shows how the elements of the problem definition would map to the introduction in each of the seven cases.