| Move | What you do |
| WHAT | Identify the cause and effect the topic asks about, before you explain how one produces the other. |
| HOW | Explain how the cause produces the effect, and how a specific choice in the writing makes that relationship readable. |
| WHY | Explain why the creator built that relationship this way. Stay inside the text. A saying about people in general is not the insight. |
WHAT, HOW, and WHY are moves inside Thought and Understanding, not the scores themselves. A WHY that leaves the text can still be Satisfactory. A precise HOW can be Excellent. A plot-level thesis limits how far the thinking can go. It does not set the score for Evidence, Form, Choice, or Correctness.
Use this organizer before drafting or revising. Start with Cause → Effect. Explain How one produces the other and how the author presents it. Then ask Why the creator built that relationship this way.
The purple arrow points to the link between Cause → Effect. Explain that link in How. In Why, explain why the creator built that relationship this way.
A condition, choice, or pressure in the text.
What follows from that cause, in relation to the topic.
- How does the cause create this specific effect?
- How does the author show us?
Hamlet · HOW In “To be or not to be,” “or” holds living and dying open as equal options. The question of action never settles into a deed, so the soliloquy is how thought stands in for the responsibility to avenge his father.
Identify a cause → effect relationship that answers the topic. A list of scenes leaves that relationship unexplained.
Hamlet · WHAT Cause: Hamlet treats thought as a substitute for action. Effect: he cannot face the responsibility to avenge his father.
- Why did the author build this cause and effect in this way?
- Which choice makes that reason visible?
- What does that construction change about how the idea is read?
- Does the explanation stay inside this text, or does it turn into a saying about people in general?
Hamlet · WHY The line is built as an alternative that does not close. Shakespeare keeps “or” unresolved so delay is heard as thinking, and the responsibility never turns into the deed.
While you revise (one paragraph at a time)
- Have you linked a cause to an effect, or only retold the plot? (WHAT)
- How does the cause produce the effect, and how does the author show it? (HOW)
- Why this construction? Does the explanation say why the creator built the relationship this way?
Levels can overlap
Cause and effect, How, and Why are drafting moves, not scores. A Why that leaves the text can still be Satisfactory. A precise How can be Excellent.
Open full-page organizer (print-friendly) →
For a thesis that names a text and the idea the text creator develops in it, use the worked examples in Section 05: Thesis Construction.