essay about importance of organization

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9.3 Organizing Your Writing

Learning objectives.

• Understand how and why organizational techniques help writers and readers stay focused.
• Assess how and when to use chronological order to organize an essay.
• Recognize how and when to use order of importance to organize an essay.
• Determine how and when to use spatial order to organize an essay.

The method of organization you choose for your essay is just as important as its content. Without a clear organizational pattern, your reader could become confused and lose interest. The way you structure your essay helps your readers draw connections between the body and the thesis, and the structure also keeps you focused as you plan and write the essay. Choosing your organizational pattern before you outline ensures that each body paragraph works to support and develop your thesis.

This section covers three ways to organize body paragraphs:

• Chronological order
• Order of importance
• Spatial order

When you begin to draft your essay, your ideas may seem to flow from your mind in a seemingly random manner. Your readers, who bring to the table different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas, need you to clearly organize these ideas in order to help process and accept them.

A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft. Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

Chronological Order

In Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , you learned that chronological arrangement has the following purposes:

• To explain the history of an event or a topic
• To tell a story or relate an experience
• To explain how to do or to make something
• To explain the steps in a process

Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing , which is a form of writing that narrates, describes, informs, or explains a process. When using chronological order, arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions. This method requires you to use words such as first , second , then , after that , later , and finally . These transition words guide you and your reader through the paper as you expand your thesis.

For example, if you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day. You would follow the chain of events using words such as first , then , next , and so on.

Writing at Work

At some point in your career you may have to file a complaint with your human resources department. Using chronological order is a useful tool in describing the events that led up to your filing the grievance. You would logically lay out the events in the order that they occurred using the key transition words. The more logical your complaint, the more likely you will be well received and helped.

Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.

Keep in mind that chronological order is most appropriate for the following purposes:

• Writing essays containing heavy research
• Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
• Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

When using chronological order, your introduction should indicate the information you will cover and in what order, and the introduction should also establish the relevance of the information. Your body paragraphs should then provide clear divisions or steps in chronology. You can divide your paragraphs by time (such as decades, wars, or other historical events) or by the same structure of the work you are examining (such as a line-by-line explication of a poem).

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that describes a process you are familiar with and can do well. Assume that your reader is unfamiliar with the procedure. Remember to use the chronological key words, such as first , second , then , and finally .

Order of Importance

Recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that order of importance is best used for the following purposes:

• Persuading and convincing
• Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
• Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution

Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to begin with your most important supporting point, such as in an essay that contains a thesis that is highly debatable. When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.

For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are most importantly , almost as importantly , just as importantly , and finally .

During your career, you may be required to work on a team that devises a strategy for a specific goal of your company, such as increasing profits. When planning your strategy you should organize your steps in order of importance. This demonstrates the ability to prioritize and plan. Using the order of importance technique also shows that you can create a resolution with logical steps for accomplishing a common goal.

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on. Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.

Spatial Order

As stated in Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , spatial order is best used for the following purposes:

• Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
• Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
• Writing a descriptive essay

Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space, for example in a bedroom. As the writer, you create a picture for your reader, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.

The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place. The key to using this method is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.

Pay attention to the following student’s description of her bedroom and how she guides the reader through the viewing process, foot by foot.

Attached to my bedroom wall is a small wooden rack dangling with red and turquoise necklaces that shimmer as you enter. Just to the right of the rack is my window, framed by billowy white curtains. The peace of such an image is a stark contrast to my desk, which sits to the right of the window, layered in textbooks, crumpled papers, coffee cups, and an overflowing ashtray. Turning my head to the right, I see a set of two bare windows that frame the trees outside the glass like a 3D painting. Below the windows is an oak chest from which blankets and scarves are protruding. Against the wall opposite the billowy curtains is an antique dresser, on top of which sits a jewelry box and a few picture frames. A tall mirror attached to the dresser takes up most of the wall, which is the color of lavender.

The paragraph incorporates two objectives you have learned in this chapter: using an implied topic sentence and applying spatial order. Often in a descriptive essay, the two work together.

The following are possible transition words to include when using spatial order:

• Just to the left or just to the right
• On the left or on the right
• Across from
• A little further down
• To the south, to the east, and so on
• A few yards away
• Turning left or turning right

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph using spatial order that describes your commute to work, school, or another location you visit often.

Collaboration

Please share with a classmate and compare your answers.

Key Takeaways

• The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to, your thesis statement.
• A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
• Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
• Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
• Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
• Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Organization and Structure

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

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There is no single organizational pattern that works well for all writing across all disciplines; rather, organization depends on what you’re writing, who you’re writing it for, and where your writing will be read. In order to communicate your ideas, you’ll need to use a logical and consistent organizational structure in all of your writing. We can think about organization at the global level (your entire paper or project) as well as at the local level (a chapter, section, or paragraph). For an American academic situation, this means that at all times, the goal of revising for organization and structure is to consciously design your writing projects to make them easy for readers to understand. In this context, you as the writer are always responsible for the reader's ability to understand your work; in other words, American academic writing is writer-responsible. A good goal is to make your writing accessible and comprehensible to someone who just reads sections of your writing rather than the entire piece. This handout provides strategies for revising your writing to help meet this goal.

Note that this resource focuses on writing for an American academic setting, specifically for graduate students. American academic writing is of course not the only standard for academic writing, and researchers around the globe will have different expectations for organization and structure. The OWL has some more resources about writing for American and international audiences here .

Whole-Essay Structure

While organization varies across and within disciplines, usually based on the genre, publication venue, and other rhetorical considerations of the writing, a great deal of academic writing can be described by the acronym IMRAD (or IMRaD): Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This structure is common across most of the sciences and is often used in the humanities for empirical research. This structure doesn't serve every purpose (for instance, it may be difficult to follow IMRAD in a proposal for a future study or in more exploratory writing in the humanities), and it is often tweaked or changed to fit a particular situation. Still, its wide use as a base for a great deal of scholarly writing makes it worthwhile to break down here.

• Introduction : What is the purpose of the study? What were the research questions? What necessary background information should the reader understand to help contextualize the study? (Some disciplines include their literature review section as part of the introduction; some give the literature review its own heading on the same level as the other sections, i.e., ILMRAD.) Some writers use the CARS model to help craft their introductions more effectively.
• Methods: What methods did the researchers use? How was the study conducted? If the study included participants, who were they, and how were they selected?
• Results : This section lists the data. What did the researchers find as a result of their experiments (or, if the research is not experimental, what did the researchers learn from the study)? How were the research questions answered?
• Discussion : This section places the data within the larger conversation of the field. What might the results mean? Do these results agree or disagree with other literature cited? What should researchers do in the future?

Depending on your discipline, this may be exactly the structure you should use in your writing; or, it may be a base that you can see under the surface of published pieces in your field, which then diverge from the IMRAD structure to meet the expectations of other scholars in the field. However, you should always check to see what's expected of you in a given situation; this might mean talking to the professor for your class, looking at a journal's submission guidelines, reading your field's style manual, examining published examples, or asking a trusted mentor. Every field is a little different.

Outlining & Reverse Outlining

One of the most effective ways to get your ideas organized is to write an outline. A traditional outline comes as the pre-writing or drafting stage of the writing process. As you make your outline, think about all of the concepts, topics, and ideas you will need to include in order to accomplish your goal for the piece of writing. This may also include important citations and key terms. Write down each of these, and then consider what information readers will need to know in order for each point to make sense. Try to arrange your ideas in a way that logically progresses, building from one key idea or point to the next.

Questions for Writing Outlines

• What are the main points I am trying to make in this piece of writing?
• What background information will my readers need to understand each point? What will novice readers vs. experienced readers need to know?
• In what order do I want to present my ideas? Most important to least important, or least important to most important? Chronologically? Most complex to least complex? According to categories? Another order?

Reverse outlining comes at the drafting or revision stage of the writing process. After you have a complete draft of your project (or a section of your project), work alone or with a partner to read your project with the goal of understanding the main points you have made and the relationship of these points to one another. The OWL has another resource about reverse outlining here.

Questions for Writing Reverse Outlines

• What topics are covered in this piece of writing?
• In what order are the ideas presented? Is this order logical for both novice and experienced readers?
• Is adequate background information provided for each point, making it easy to understand how one idea leads to the next?
• What other points might the author include to further develop the writing project?

Organizing at the sentence and paragraph level

Signposting.

Signposting is the practice of using language specifically designed to help orient readers of your text. We call it signposting because this practice is like leaving road signs for a driver — it tells your reader where to go and what to expect up ahead. Signposting includes the use of transitional words and phrasing, and they may be explicit or more subtle. For example, an explicit signpost might say:

This section will cover Topic A­­ and Topic B­­­­­.

A more subtle signpost might look like this:

It's important to consider the impact of Topic A­­ and Topic B­­­­­.

The style of signpost you use will depend on the genre of your paper, the discipline in which you are writing, and your or your readers’ personal preferences. Regardless of the style of signpost you select, it’s important to include signposts regularly. They occur most frequently at the beginnings and endings of sections of your paper. It is often helpful to include signposts at mid-points in your project in order to remind readers of where you are in your argument.

Questions for Identifying and Evaluating Signposts

• How and where does the author include a phrase, sentence, or short group of sentences that explains the purpose and contents of the paper?
• How does each section of the paper provide a brief summary of what was covered earlier in the paper?
• How does each section of the paper explain what will be covered in that section?
• How does the author use transitional words and phrases to guide readers through ideas (e.g. however, in addition, similarly, nevertheless, another, while, because, first, second, next, then etc.)?

WORKS CONSULTED

Clark, I. (2006). Writing the successful thesis and dissertation: Entering the conversation . Prentice Hall Press.

Davis, M., Davis, K. J., & Dunagan, M. (2012). Scientific papers and presentations . Academic press.

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Many types of writing follow some version of the basic shape described above. This shape is most obvious in the form of the traditional five-paragraph essay: a model for college writing in which the writer argues his or her viewpoint (thesis) on a topic and uses three reasons or subtopics to support that position. In the five-paragraph model, as illustrated below, the introductory paragraph mentions the three main points or subtopics, and each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence dealing with one of those main points.

SAMPLE ESSAY USING THE FIVE-PARAGRAPH MODEL

Remember, this is a very simplistic model. It presents a basic idea of essay organization and may certainly be helpful in learning to structure an argument, but it should not be followed religiously as an ideal form.

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Organizational Leadership: What It Is & Why It's Important

• 24 Jan 2023

Leadership is essential to organizations’ success, but many struggle to implement the right training. According to job search site Zippia , 83 percent of businesses believe it’s important to develop leaders at every level, but only five percent successfully do.

If you want to become an effective leader, here's an overview of what organizational leadership is, why it’s important, and how you can make an impact on your company.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Organizational Leadership?

Leadership is the ability to implement change by creating and communicating a vision to others. Organizational leadership is the qualities and skills required to run a company or one of its divisions. It’s greater in scale and scope than many other forms of leadership.

“Scale refers to the sheer size and magnitude of what you’re leading,” says Harvard Business School Professor Anthony Mayo in the online course Organizational Leadership , “how many people; how large a budget; and how many teams, locations, and operations you oversee. Scope refers to the range and diversity of what you’re responsible for—the range and diversity of the people, teams, business lines, locations, operations, and facilities you’re leading.”

Although leadership doesn't inherently require business acumen, it’s helpful for organizational leaders to have, so they can guide their organizations, drive innovation, and manage organizational change .

Organizational leaders must consider what’s happening outside and inside their businesses. They often don’t directly interact with everyone they lead—engaging in what’s known as capital “L” leadership.

The Capital "L" in Leadership

Many senior-level leaders hold capital "L" leadership roles. According to Organizational Leadership , those leaders no longer have direct contact with everyone in their organizations and must:

• Inspire and motivate their employees
• Lead their organizations into the future
• Anticipate and respond to internal and external threats
• Pursue opportunities that range from money makers to risky bets
• Handle crises quickly and assuredly

As your duties increase as a leader—overseeing or guiding those you don’t directly supervise—it's essential to learn how to communicate effectively and execute tasks. This is particularly important when considering the differences between organizational leadership and traditional management.

Organizational Leadership vs. Traditional Management

Leadership and management differ in several ways. At an organizational level, the two are highly intertwined but have three primary differences.

• Proximity to the team: Managers work closely with the individuals they oversee, whereas organizational leaders don't always have direct contact with those they lead.
• Scale: Like leadership, management is a broad term that can be big or small in scale, whereas organizational leadership involves managing larger populations.
• Role: Managers are hired for specific roles; organizational leaders oversee managers and ensure their companies’ visions are reflected in how they guide and align teams.

What Makes Organizational Leaders Effective?

Organizational leaders bring unique qualities, competencies, and practices to their roles. In Organizational Leadership , this is called a leadership constellation .

A leadership constellation includes:

• Qualities: The aspects of who you are as a person. They contribute to how others perceive you.
• Competencies: The skills and knowledge you've developed over time that enable you to fulfill responsibilities—either by yourself or by leading others.
• Practices: The routine actions you engage in to complete tasks, guide your team and organization, and enhance your and others’ skills.

According to Organizational Leadership , you can leverage these attributes in three ways:

• Leader as beacon: Creating and communicating a vision to your organization and embodying it in your conduct (i.e., leading by example)
• Leader as architect: Ensuring your organization can follow the direction you set, and creating value using the tools and resources at your disposal
• Leader as catalyst of change: Leading organizational change by encouraging and enabling it

To be an effective leader , strive to be proficient in each.

Why Is Effective Organizational Leadership Important?

Leadership is vital in business. Organizational leaders assume an additional role because they often set the tone for the directions their companies—and sometimes even their industries—will take.

Here are four reasons why effective organizational leadership is important.

1. Motivates Team Members

Leaders play a critical role in employee engagement. According to Zippia , 69 percent of employees say they would work harder if their efforts were better recognized. This is an important statistic to consider if you struggle to retain talent or want to boost team performance .

Motivated, engaged employees can lead to higher productivity. A Gallup analysis of employee engagement data shows that highly engaged employees resulted in a 14 percent increase in productivity compared to those who were less engaged.

Leaders focus on improving team morale and their companies. Those at higher levels face the challenge of improving employees’ motivation without direct lines of contact.

According to Organizational Leadership , you can improve employee morale by:

• Hiring for leadership: If you’re involved in the recruiting process, ensure you hire effective leaders for management positions.
• Creating a positive company culture: If your company’s culture is positive and encouraging, your employees will likely be more motivated.
• Structuring effectively: For your organization to deliver value, its structures, systems, and processes must align with its people and culture.
• Openness to feedback: Even if you're not directly responsible for leading every employee, making yourself available to them can go a long way toward ensuring they feel valued.

Related: 6 Strategies for Engaging Your Employees

2. Promotes Problem-Solving and Decision-Making

Leadership requires a large degree of adaptability. Many problems require creative solutions , especially when their causes are hard to identify. As a leader, you’re responsible for helping others navigate difficult situations and making decisions that benefit your organization.

Even if you don't encounter most of your company’s daily high-level problems, you can be a role model for other employees and establish a structured approach to becoming a creative problem-solver .

3. Fosters Open Communication

Communication skills are essential for leaders. Poor communication in the workplace can lead to a host of problems , such as stress, project delays, and decreased morale.

Organizational Leadership offers four ways to foster open communication in your company, including:

• Providing information about what's going on in a way that encourages and enables employees to act
• Explaining your organization's direction in a logical manner that appeals to employees’ emotions
• Ensuring employees know how their everyday tasks connect to your organization's overarching mission
• Accomplishing tasks with individual employees and groups, virtually and in-person

Neglecting these actions can hinder your company’s success.

4. Allows Leaders to be Goal-Oriented

Organizational leaders typically set the direction for their company and enable others to follow it. According to Organizational Leadership , a good direction must be:

• Clear: An unclear direction can prevent others from supporting it. Ensure you convey your expectations so they can be met.
• Compelling: Make sure it's a direction people are willing and eager to follow.
• Concise: If others in your organization can't understand the direction, they won't follow it.

Once the path forward is clear, exciting, and accessible, it becomes much easier to set and achieve organizational goals.

Taking the First Step to Becoming an Organizational Leader

To be a successful leader, it's crucial to continuously develop your skills. Identify which leadership style resonates with you and seek opportunities to grow and adapt.

Whether you're already an organizational leader or hoping to become one, you can benefit from pursuing educational opportunities that enhance your leadership knowledge and abilities.

Ready to take the next step in your career? Consider enrolling in Organizational Leadership —one of our online leadership and management courses—to discover how to lead at scale. To learn more about what it takes to be an effective leader, download our free leadership e-book .

About the Author

Organizing Your Writing

Learning objectives.

• Understand how and why organizational techniques help writers and readers stay focused.
• Assess how and when to use chronological order to organize an essay.
• Recognize how and when to use order of importance to organize an essay.
• Determine how and when to use spatial order to organize an essay.

The method of organization you choose for your essay is just as important as its content. Without a clear organizational pattern, your reader could become confused and lose interest. The way you structure your essay helps your readers draw connections between the body and the thesis, and the structure also keeps you focused as you plan and write the essay. Choosing your organizational pattern before you outline ensures that each body paragraph works to support and develop your thesis.

This section covers three ways to organize body paragraphs:

• Chronological order
• Order of importance
• Spatial order

When you begin to draft your essay, your ideas may seem to flow from your mind in a seemingly random manner. Your readers, who bring to the table different backgrounds, viewpoints, and ideas, need you to clearly organize these ideas in order to help process and accept them.

A solid organizational pattern gives your ideas a path that you can follow as you develop your draft. Knowing how you will organize your paragraphs allows you to better express and analyze your thoughts. Planning the structure of your essay before you choose supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and targeted research.

Chronological Order

In Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?”, you learned that chronological arrangement has the following purposes:

• To explain the history of an event or a topic
• To tell a story or relate an experience
• To explain how to do or to make something
• To explain the steps in a process

Chronological order is mostly used in expository writing , which is a form of writing that narrates, describes, informs, or explains a process. When using chronological order, arrange the events in the order that they actually happened, or will happen if you are giving instructions. This method requires you to use words such as first , second , then , after that , later , and finally . These transition words guide you and your reader through the paper as you expand your thesis.

For example, if you are writing an essay about the history of the airline industry, you would begin with its conception and detail the essential timeline events up until present day. You would follow the chain of events using words such as first , then , next , and so on.

Writing at Work

Choose an accomplishment you have achieved in your life. The important moment could be in sports, schooling, or extracurricular activities. On your own sheet of paper, list the steps you took to reach your goal. Try to be as specific as possible with the steps you took. Pay attention to using transition words to focus your writing.

Keep in mind that chronological order is most appropriate for the following purposes:

• Writing essays containing heavy research
• Writing essays with the aim of listing, explaining, or narrating
• Writing essays that analyze literary works such as poems, plays, or books

When using chronological order, your introduction should indicate the information you will cover and in what order, and the introduction should also establish the relevance of the information. Your body paragraphs should then provide clear divisions or steps in chronology. You can divide your paragraphs by time (such as decades, wars, or other historical events) or by the same structure of the work you are examining (such as a line-by-line explication of a poem).

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that describes a process you are familiar with and can do well. Assume that your reader is unfamiliar with the procedure. Remember to use the chronological key words, such as first , second , then , and finally .

Order of Importance

Recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” that order of importance is best used for the following purposes:

• Persuading and convincing
• Ranking items by their importance, benefit, or significance
• Illustrating a situation, problem, or solution

Most essays move from the least to the most important point, and the paragraphs are arranged in an effort to build the essay’s strength. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to begin with your most important supporting point, such as in an essay that contains a thesis that is highly debatable. When writing a persuasive essay, it is best to begin with the most important point because it immediately captivates your readers and compels them to continue reading.

For example, if you were supporting your thesis that homework is detrimental to the education of high school students, you would want to present your most convincing argument first, and then move on to the less important points for your case.

Some key transitional words you should use with this method of organization are most importantly , almost as importantly , just as importantly , and finally .

On a separate sheet of paper, write a paragraph that discusses a passion of yours. Your passion could be music, a particular sport, filmmaking, and so on. Your paragraph should be built upon the reasons why you feel so strongly. Briefly discuss your reasons in the order of least to greatest importance.

Spatial Order

As stated in Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?”, spatial order is best used for the following purposes:

• Helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it
• Evoking a scene using the senses (sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound)
• Writing a descriptive essay

Spatial order means that you explain or describe objects as they are arranged around you in your space, for example in a bedroom. As the writer, you create a picture for your reader, and their perspective is the viewpoint from which you describe what is around you.

The view must move in an orderly, logical progression, giving the reader clear directional signals to follow from place to place. The key to using this method is to choose a specific starting point and then guide the reader to follow your eye as it moves in an orderly trajectory from your starting point.

Pay attention to the following student’s description of her bedroom and how she guides the reader through the viewing process, foot by foot.

Click Image to Enlarge

The paragraph incorporates two objectives you have learned in this chapter: using an implied topic sentence and applying spatial order. Often in a descriptive essay, the two work together.

The following are possible transition words to include when using spatial order:

• Just to the left or just to the right
• On the left or on the right
• Across from
• A little further down
• To the south, to the east, and so on
• A few yards away
• Turning left or turning right

Key Takeaways

• The way you organize your body paragraphs ensures you and your readers stay focused on and draw connections to, your thesis statement.
• A strong organizational pattern allows you to articulate, analyze, and clarify your thoughts.
• Planning the organizational structure for your essay before you begin to search for supporting evidence helps you conduct more effective and directed research.
• Chronological order is most commonly used in expository writing. It is useful for explaining the history of your subject, for telling a story, or for explaining a process.
• Order of importance is most appropriate in a persuasion paper as well as for essays in which you rank things, people, or events by their significance.
• Spatial order describes things as they are arranged in space and is best for helping readers visualize something as you want them to see it; it creates a dominant impression.
• Successful Writing. Authored by : Anonymous. Provided by : Anonymous. Located at : http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/successful-writing/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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6.14: Essay Organization

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Learning Objectives

• Examine the basic organization of traditional essays

Although college essays can offer ideas in many ways, one standard structure for expository essays is to offer the main idea or assertion early in the essay, and then offer categories of support.

One way to think about this standard structure is to compare it to a courtroom argument in a television drama. The lawyer asserts, “My client is not guilty.” Then the lawyer provides different reasons for lack of guilt: no physical evidence placing the client at the crime scene, client had no motive for the crime, and more.

In writing terms, the assertion is the thesis sentence , and the different reasons are the topic sentences . Consider this following example:

• Topic Sentence (reason) #1: Workers need to learn how to deal with change.
• Topic Sentence (reason) #2: Because of dealing with such a rapidly changing work environment, 21st-century workers need to learn how to learn.
• Topic Sentence (reason) #3: Most of all, in order to negotiate rapid change and learning, workers in the 21st century need good communication skills.

As you can see, the supporting ideas in an essay develop out of the main assertion or argument in the thesis sentence.

Essay Organization

The structural organization of an essay will vary, depending on the type of writing task you’ve been assigned, but they generally follow this basic structure:

Introduction

The introduction introduces the reader to the topic. We’ve all heard that first impressions are important. This is very true in writing as well. The goal is to engage the readers, hook them so they want to read on. Sometimes this involves giving an example, telling a story or narrative, asking a question, or building up the situation. The introduction should almost always include the thesis statement.

Body Paragraphs

The body of the essay is separated into paragraphs. Each paragraph usually covers a single claim or argues a single point, expanding on what was introduced in the thesis statement. For example, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, the two main causes of schizophrenia are genetic and environmental. Thus, if you were writing about the causes of schizophrenia, then you would have a body paragraph on genetic causes of schizophrenia and a body paragraph on the environmental causes.

A body paragraph usually includes the following:

• Topic sentence that identifies the topic for the paragraph
• Several sentences that describe and support the topic sentence

• Remember that information from outside sources should be placed in the middle of the paragraph and not at the beginning or the end of the paragraph so that you have time to introduce and explain the outside content
• Quotation marks placed around any information taken verbatim (word for word) from the source
• Summary sentence(s) that draws conclusions from the evidence
• Transitions or bridge sentences between paragraphs.
• Draw final conclusions from the key points and evidence provided in the paper;
• For example, if you began with a story, draw final conclusions from that story; If you began with a question(s), refer back to the question(s) and be sure to provide the answer(s).

Step through this presentation to review the main components of an essay, then see if you can correctly organize the essay below.

Contributors and Attributions

• Revision and Adaptation. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Writing an Essay. Provided by : QUT Cite Write. Located at : http://www.citewrite.qut.edu.au/write/essay.jsp . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of Choosing Paragraph Patterns. Authored by : GrinnPidgeon. Located at : flic.kr/p/a9oiLS. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Essay Structure. Authored by : Marianne Botos, Lynn McClelland, Stephanie Polliard, Pamela Osback . Located at : https://pvccenglish.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/eng-101-inside-pages-proof2-no-pro.pdf . Project : Horse of a Different Color: English Composition and Rhetoric . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Traditional Structure. Provided by : Excelsior OWL. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/writing-process/essay-writing/essay-writing-traditional-structure-activity/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of writing in the sand. Authored by : Michitogo. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : pixabay.com/photos/the-end-sand-end-beach-text-1544913/. License : Other . License Terms : pixabay.com/service/terms/#license

Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour Essay

Introduction.

The environment of doing business is constantly undergoing major transformations. A significant number of managers have discovered that their role in the workplace is becoming more complex due to the increase in the duties available and tasks that require prompt outcomes.

Because of these complexities, a number of different fields of study have sprung up to address the ever-changing demands of the workforce. Among these, the study of organizational behaviour has been vital over the years in enhancing the management style of different organizations. This paper discusses the importance of studying organizational behaviour.

A working definition of organizational behaviour is “the systematic study of the nature of organizations: how they begin, grow, and develop, and their effect on individual members, constituent groups, other organizations, and larger institutions” (Kelly & Kelly, 1998, p.5).

The study of organizational behaviour scrutinizes the various types of employees in all kinds of diverse circumstances. The study seeks to benefit those in managerial and supervisory positions in a number of ways. It is important in all the different aspects of the organization. Organizational behaviour aims to understand the human behaviour in an organization and how its association with the organization.

Many of us, at some point in our working life, might have said, “I do not feel like going to my place of work today,” or “I dislike my work, I am disgusted with the job I am doing.” However, these utterances have little to do with the person saying them, his or her place of work or the job he or she is doing.

Poor management of organizational behavior is likely to be the cause of this problem! A good manager should be able to study workers to ensure that their positions in the organization are satisfying. As an example, if a manager has a worker who is young, timid, and softly spoken, he or she should not attempt to give the worker the task of collecting debts.

As an alternative, the manager should consider placing the worker in a less stressful situation such as the customer care position, which would go well with the worker’s nature in addition to assisting her or him develop self-confidence in tackling the various issues of the customers.

Workers in high spirits with their positions and the different issues they have to tackle make them to be more productive in undertaking their duties. This attribute is beneficial to the progress of the organization as well as enabling the workforce to be contented with their roles.

The best method of knowing if an employee is uncomfortable in various circumstances is by observing their body language. An example of the lack of a good relationship between the employee and the manager occurs when a manager is standing too close or if the employee is feeling uneasy with the presence of the manager behind him or her.

An employee can even lose his or her train of thought when having a conversation with the manager. These examples illustrate the benefits of a good organizational behavior since it can prevent this from taking place.

In the business environment, it is essential that the manager is able to motivate the workers, first by example. The manager or the supervisor ought to be self-motivating. When an individual has the capability of being self-motivating, it becomes uncomplicated to pass this trait to others.

An individual with good leadership qualities, who has the capability of inspiring others, can play a vital role in the success of any organization. Sometimes it becomes difficult when a manager is indolent and does not posses motivation skills. Currently, when one goes to apply for a position in any organization, a question always arises whether the job seeker has any skills in management.

This can be attributed to the fact that many organizations these days are searching for applicants who posses leadership qualities together with the desired level of educational attainment. It raises the concern that not everyone, either learned or experienced in the job, possesses management qualities. The study of organizational behaviour equips the learners with the important skills in leadership.

In a situation when a well-inspired individual controls the business enterprise, it depicts the aim of the organization and its ultimate success. When the manager maintains punctuality to the place of work in order to get things started on time, he or she sets a good example to the people under her or him.

This attribute is most of the times past automatically to the subordinates. No one can be heard saying, “I do not feel like going to my place of work today,” since there is no person who intends to be left behind when things are done in a definite way. No worker would like to stray away from the norms of the group. A motivated manager is of essence to the ultimate success of the business environment.

When employees make efforts to strike the right balance between their lives at home with their lives at the place of work, a number of them often are stressed and worked up. This may lead to increased cases of absenteeism and decrease in the level of productivity. Having a career is different from having a life.

Since most organizations have employees who are married, it is important to ensure that they have occasions when they can be outside the place of work and spend some quality time with their families. Griffin and Moorhead (2002, p.182) have proved that recognizing the needs of the employees outside work is an important aspect of realizing their dedication when undertaking various duties.

The manager of an organization must ensure that the workers are doing a commendable work. Achievement of this is by making the workers realize that their input in the organization is important, not just to be salaried at the end of the month. The quality of the work usually disintegrates when employees fail to recognize the value of their input in the organization.

A good manager has to encourage the workers that the place of work forms their second home and that they add value to the success of the organization. Individuals most of the time react better to a surrounding where their emotional well-being is properly taken care of. Rewards ought to be given to the most motivated employees to act as an encouragement to them.

Work performance is instrumental to the ultimate realization of an organization’s corporate goals. This task, which requires sound management principles to accomplish, is got through studying organizational behaviour.

Organizations are very important in the society since most of the activities we participate in mostly take place within the context of an organization. Studying organizational behaviour requires one to relate its connection with such areas as corporate responsibility and internal control systems.

Understanding these areas enables one to come to terms with a good organizational behavior and ways of maintaining it in the place of work. In addition, this makes one to be aware of the potential risks that may arise when a business falls short of its set standards. Understanding this aspect is essential in preventing a misfortune such as financial crisis from taking place.

A number of managers-to-be are not concerned of the significance of organizational behaviour and its meaning to them as future leaders in different organizations. The study of organizational behaviour focuses on the attitudes and the behaviours of the current workforce and strives to get the best methods of leading and sufficiently transforming them. This study assists future managers to have an increased understanding of their role and the people they oversee, which enables them to pursue a successful career in management.

The duties of managers usually involve working hand in hand with other individuals in the workplace therefore the learning of “people skills” is a vital and important resource. The study of organizational behavior assists in developing these “people skills” and enables managers and supervisors to be more efficient in undertaking their duties. Managers are endowed with humanistic task to give the workers duties that are challenging and which offers them the contentment they aspire to have (Robbins, 1994, p.2).

An important aspect of realizing a good organizational behaviour is to institute the correct career processes for career advancement of the employees. This aspect is vital in retaining the most experienced workforce. Any job that an employee has strived to accomplish within the set standards ought to be recognized and rewarded accordingly by the leadership.

Doing this makes the employees to work even harder in realizing the set targets as they have tangible incentives when they accomplish particular tasks well. The success of the organization depends on the treatment accorded to the employees towards their career advancement. Managers ought to realize and give workers what they may require. They reciprocate this by delivering quality service to their employers.

Many organizations are concerned about whether or not their workers are satisfied with their employment. Satisfied workers are generally more productive on the job. Employee dissatisfaction is capable of bringing the whole organization back to zero. It is within the mandate of an organization to institute candid ways of achieving employee satisfaction.

Work performance relates directly to job satisfaction. Presently, a number of organizations are having problems with retaining their workforce. Many of the workers enter a company with little experience and they leave the organizational after they have gained useful skills in the job. This often increases the expenses of the organization, as they have to re-train other people to undertake the same work.

The leadership of an organization should study the level of satisfaction of the employees as failure to do this makes them search for better opportunities that may crop in. In spite of the salary that the employees take home, if the employees are not satisfied with their current employment, leaving in search of greener pastures becomes the next resort. By studying organizational behaviour, the student learns vital skills in making the employees happy in the place of work, hence limiting their exit.

Another important ingredient to the success of any organization is communication. Effective communication is the key to optimal day-to-day running of an organization. A manager or supervisor has to adhere to good communication skills when addressing his or her subordinates. Undertaking various tasks requires efficient communication.

Communication involves keeping the workers conversant with the activities taking place behind the scenes in addition to rendering a listening ear to their needs. As stated earlier in the paper, workers generally respond well to an environment that cares for their emotions.

Most of the people in leadership positions tend to posses an autocratic management style and rewards tend to be based upon individual contributions, the prevailing culture within many organizations is the antithesis of teamwork (Wilson, 2001, p. 136).

Establishing team-based organizations is aimed at creating an empowered decision making process, flatten hierarchies and create collaborative work environment as a way of facilitating the development of a more adaptive and flexible set-up of the organization. The manager of an organization plays a vital role in fostering the culture of teamwork in the organization.

Employees are not to be treated as moneymaking machines. It is high time managers come to terms with the fact that employees are fundamental to the success of an organization. For that reason, organizational behaviour turns into the very culture that any business enterprise draws its practices.

The running of a business experiences a significant progress in its development when a good organizational behaviour is enacted. In summary, organizational behaviour is vital to any business, and if it is not present, rampant confusion sets in.

Griffin, R. & Moorhead, G., 2010. Organizational Behaviour: Managing People and Organizations. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Kelly, J. & Kelly, L., 1998. An existential-systems approach to managing organizations. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Robbins, P., 1994. Essentials of Organizational Behavior. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.

Wilson, E., 2001. Organizational behaviour reassessed: the impact of gender . London: Sage Publication.

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IvyPanda. (2024, February 29). Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-studying-organizational-behaviour/

"Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour." IvyPanda , 29 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-studying-organizational-behaviour/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour'. 29 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-studying-organizational-behaviour/.

1. IvyPanda . "Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-studying-organizational-behaviour/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Importance of Studying Organizational Behaviour." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-studying-organizational-behaviour/.

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Importance of Organization

The mission statement of an organization is a valuable tool that helps to understand the future of an organization. It is vital for a Firm to have a mission statement due to a variety of reasons as demonstrated in this paper. First, the mission statement usually highlights the direction the company is taking. It reminds the team in the company the sole reason why the organization does exist. Secondly, the mission focuses on the future of the organization. It explains to the organization team the actions that they may establish today to help in securing a prosperous future. Thirdly, the mission provides a framework for the organizational decision-making by setting essential boundaries that enable the leaders to delegate responsibilities to the team (Dyer & Dyer, 2013). It is a framework that the helps the management to make proper decisions.  Further, the mission of an organization facilitates the evaluation and improvement of various organizational activities.

Importance of team members knowing their roles in a team 

Team members in an organization work collectively towards the common goals. It is crucial for every member of a team to understand their responsibilities so that the management can match workers skills with the job requirements. As such, this will assist in the creation of a balanced team. Secondly, when every member of the team understands their duties, there will be cohesiveness among all the workers and hence lead to a mutual commitment, collective work, coordination, and cooperation ((Dyer & Dyer, 2013). Finally, the team members will be able to achieve their objectives when they understand their roles. Workers who have a common purpose such as effectiveness in service delivery and achievement of growth will help the organization to achieve its goals.

Is competition within a team a good or bad thing?

Competition within a team does not mean not trusting each other. Competition within an organization if done in the right spirit, it brings an atmosphere of excellence. Competition within groups helps in increasing productivity. Team members work hard to meet the set target by their leaders; hence, productivity is increased. Competition within teams also improves efficiency. In an attempt to be productive, team members find efficient ways in the process of working (Dyer & Dyer, 2013). However, competition within team members makes them focus more on themselves and not the employer; it can cause stress and can create conflict within the group.

Importance of setting short- and long-term goals when planning a meeting regarding conflicts

It is important to establish long-term and short-term goals when preparing for a conflict-meeting. Long-term goals will help in shaping the overall direction of managing the conflict. Long-term goals will reflect how a misunderstanding will conform to the mission of the organization. Short-term goals will help in to understand how well to resolve a dispute. Setting short-term goals will assist in establishing the action plan of the long-term goals (Dyer & Dyer, 2013). Examples include the conflict between employers and employees and conflict between team members and team leaders.

Unhealthy Agreement

Unhealthy agreement occurs when two groups of people or teams pretend to have agreed on something, but they have not determined the issues that lead to poor decisions. An unhealthy agreement may affect teamwork negatively.

Significant for leaders to understand how to resolve conflict and avoid unhealthy agreements

It is vital for leaders to resolve disputes and avoid unhealthy agreements because conflicts usually reduce the effectiveness of a team and its productivity. When leaders get in and deal with the conflicts and unhealthy agreements, cohesiveness, and efficacy will be promoted. Secondly, when leaders understand how to solve a conflict, they will be promoting creativity and intensity among team members. In turn, leaders will encourage members to work together, bring better ideas and innovations in the organizations (Dyer & Dyer, 2013). Finally, when leaders learn how to solve conflicts, they will be able to encourage their team members to tolerate each other, understand the sources of conflict and always make the best decisions for the sake of their teams.

Dyer, W. G., & Dyer, J. H. (2013). Team building: Proven strategies for improving the team Performance. John Wiley & Sons.

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6 Common Leadership Styles — and How to Decide Which to Use When

• Rebecca Knight

Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances call for different approaches.

Research suggests that the most effective leaders adapt their style to different circumstances — be it a change in setting, a shift in organizational dynamics, or a turn in the business cycle. But what if you feel like you’re not equipped to take on a new and different leadership style — let alone more than one? In this article, the author outlines the six leadership styles Daniel Goleman first introduced in his 2000 HBR article, “Leadership That Gets Results,” and explains when to use each one. The good news is that personality is not destiny. Even if you’re naturally introverted or you tend to be driven by data and analysis rather than emotion, you can still learn how to adapt different leadership styles to organize, motivate, and direct your team.

Much has been written about common leadership styles and how to identify the right style for you, whether it’s transactional or transformational, bureaucratic or laissez-faire. But according to Daniel Goleman, a psychologist best known for his work on emotional intelligence, “Being a great leader means recognizing that different circumstances may call for different approaches.”

• RK Rebecca Knight is a journalist who writes about all things related to the changing nature of careers and the workplace. Her essays and reported stories have been featured in The Boston Globe, Business Insider, The New York Times, BBC, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was shortlisted as a Reuters Institute Fellow at Oxford University in 2023. Earlier in her career, she spent a decade as an editor and reporter at the Financial Times in New York, London, and Boston.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

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Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.