Situation/Problem/Solution/Outcome
Thought in our culture is organised, usually quite unconsciously, on the above pattern. Stories are organised in this way, and so is academic language.
Stories
If you watch soap operas on television, you will see that the episodes are organised in this Problem/Solution pattern. Each episode ends with the problem unresolved, so that you have to watch the next episode to find out what solution is found.
Traditional stories and detective fiction are also organised in this way. For example:
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Situation: In a famous detective story the wrong person has been tried for the murder of her lover by poisoning him with arsenic. The detective believes that the poison was administered by the victim's cousin at a meal which he and the victim shared. |
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Problem: Since other people consumed, without ill effect, everything that the victim ate, the cousin could not have committed the murder. |
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Solution: The detective found out that the cousin had dosed himself with, at first, very small and then ever larger quantities of arsenic, so as to immunise himself to the effects of the poison. Then he shared with the victim an omelette to which he had added a lethal dose of arsenic. The victim died, but the murderer suffered no ill effects. The detective set the murderer a trap which revealed the truth. |
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Outcome: The murderer was arrested and hanged. The innocent person was released. |
