It’s very rare to find people who recommend the same approach to writing research grants as I do, so I was delighted when an academic I met on a cycling holiday recommended I read The Pyramid Principle, by Barbara Minto. The book uses the pyramid as a metaphor for a way of presenting complex information. Minto’s pyramid approach is designed for writing consultancy reports but the recommendations are so similar to those in my magic formula that I have adopted the pyramid metaphor in my writing workshops.
The pyramid principle is based on the idea that a complex report is easier to read and assimilate if it is presented as a pyramid. The pyramid begins with the most important part of the report, the conclusion, which should be expressed in a single sentence. It is the point of the pyramid. The principal arguments that support the conclusion come next; they are like the bricks that support the top of the pyramid. Finally the data and subsidiary arguments that support each of the principal arguments follow; they are the base of the pyramid.
Minto’s justification for this ordering of information is that the arguments that support a point are easier to assimilate if the reader knows what point they support. Similarly, the data that support an argument are easier to assimilate when the reader knows the argument. Minto recommends that complex information should always be presented as pyramids.
I suspect that the writers of consultancy reports have a similar readership problem to that faced by the writers of grant applications. The report has to be accessible enough to appeal to generalist senior managers and have enough technical detail to survive nit-picking by experts. The pyramid structure allows the generalists to get what they need from the tops of the pyramids while the experts dive into the technical detail lower down the pyramids. So a pyramid structure would also work for grant applications.
Unsurprisingly, my magic formula for a case for support is a pyramid. The first sentence is a simplified case for support. The first paragraph or two expand this into a ten-sentence statement of the case in the form of the PIPPIN sentences. Then the PIPPIN sentences become the framework for the argument and detail that makes the case.
The sections of the case for support are hierarchies of pyramids. Each PIPPIN sentence opens a section of the case for support, followed by a paragraph composed of sentences stating the points that support it. Each of following paragraphs opens with one of these points, which is followed by the arguments or information that support the point. In this way each paragraph is also a miniature pyramid.
When I teach people to write a case for support I tell them to start by drafting the PIPPIN sentences and then to use each sentence as the starting point for a section, adding the supporting arguments and the paragraphs that make them, like the branches and twigs of a tree.
The difficulty with my approach, and I am sure it also applies to Minto’s, is that not everybody can do it. Some people find it impossible to draft the framework of their case for support before they start writing. Next week I will write about another book that takes a different approach and one which many people will find easier to follow, to produce a very similar result.