Planning and organising your writing
OCR Spec point SC2.5 assesses the ability to "plan, organise and emphasise ideas effectively using paragraphing, cohesive devices and rhetorical features". This is assessed within AO5 — particularly in the descriptor criteria about "varied and inventive structural choices" (band 5) versus "some structural choices" (band 3).
Students who write vivid individual sentences but have no overall plan often cap at band 3. Students who plan effectively and organise their writing coherently consistently score higher.
The five-minute plan
The most common mistake is starting to write immediately. Even a rough plan transforms the quality of the final piece by:
- Preventing you from running out of ideas mid-way
- Ensuring your ending echoes or extends your opening
- Making sure each paragraph has a clear purpose
- Reducing the risk of a tone or register shift
A five-minute plan for a persuasive article:
- P1 — Hook: the specific moment or anecdote
- P2 — Position: your claim
- P3 — Evidence/development: strongest argument
- P4 — Counter-argument: concede then refute
- P5 — Close: call-to-action or image that echoes P1
A five-minute plan for a creative piece:
- Opening image / in media res
- Character revealed via gesture
- The central moment (slowed down)
- Reaction / shift
- Closing image (echo of opening)
Paragraphing — what a paragraph actually does
A paragraph is not just "a new idea". At the top band, each paragraph:
- Opens with a topic sentence that makes a clear, specific claim
- Develops the claim with evidence (quotation, example, detail)
- Explains the significance of the evidence
- Closes with a sentence that either resolves the paragraph or pivots to the next
A paragraph that opens, develops and closes well will be coherent even if the writing inside it is imperfect.
Cohesive devices — the connective toolkit
Cohesion is what makes writing feel joined-up rather than disjointed. Examiners count cohesive devices as evidence of structural control.
Between paragraphs:
- Discourse markers: "However,", "Furthermore,", "In contrast,", "Consequently,", "Nevertheless,"
- Pronoun continuity: using "this", "these" or "it" to refer back to the previous paragraph's key noun
- Repetition of a key phrase across paragraphs (anaphora at structural level)
- Connective questions: "But what about those who disagree?"
Within paragraphs:
- Conjunction pairs: "not only… but also", "both… and", "neither… nor"
- Concession moves: "While it is true that…, nonetheless…"
- Causal connectives: "because", "since", "as a result", "therefore"
Global cohesion (whole piece):
- Cyclical structure: return to the opening image in the closing paragraph
- Motif: a recurring image or phrase that develops in meaning as the piece progresses
- Pronoun shift: moving from "I" to "we" to implicate the reader progressively
Rhetorical features — structure as persuasion
Rhetorical structure operates at the level of how an argument is organised:
- Rule of three / tricolon — "Liberty, equality, fraternity." Three-part structures feel complete and memorable.
- Anaphora at paragraph level — each paragraph opens with the same phrase to create insistence ("We must ask…", "We must insist…", "We must demand…")
- Climactic ordering — arrange your arguments from weakest to strongest so the speech/article builds to its most powerful point
- Counterargument placement — put the counter-argument in the middle, not the end; ending with a refutation is stronger than ending with a concession
- Parallelism — "We came here to build, not to break; to listen, not to shout." Balanced pairs create rhetorical weight
- Volta — a deliberate turn or reversal in the argument ("And yet…" / "But here is what no one will tell you:") that creates structural surprise
✦Worked example— Worked example — paragraph openings that build structure
Task: article arguing for universal free school meals.
- P1: "Yesterday, fourteen million children in the UK went to school hungry." (Hook: statistic)
- P2: "This is not a problem of individual families." (Position: reframing blame)
- P3: "The evidence from universal free-meal trials is unambiguous." (Evidence: authority)
- P4: "Critics will say the cost is prohibitive." (Counter-argument)
- P5: "The question is not whether we can afford to feed our children. The question is whether we can afford not to." (Close: rhetorical reversal)
Each paragraph opening signals what it will do and how it relates to the paragraph before.
➜Try this— Quick check before submitting
- Five-paragraph (or equivalent) structure?
- Topic sentence at the start of each paragraph?
- At least three different cohesive devices (not just "however")?
- Counter-argument addressed before the close?
- Opening and closing connected (cyclical structure, motif, or echoed image)?
AI-generated · claude-opus-4-7 · v3-ocr-english-language