The Pyramid Principle
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15 min

The Pyramid Principle

by Barbara Minto

Brief Summary

The Pyramid Principle offers valuable insights into expressing your thoughts clearly using the pyramid structure. The author's advice will help present ideas in a way that makes them completely understandable to the reader.

Key points

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Key idea 1 of 10

Usually, when writing a certain piece of work, we draw a general picture in our heads of how it should look. There are some ideas, but we need to structure them. People hope the necessary thoughts will come to mind during the process. But everything happens the other way around. Our written presentations without a concrete plan often lead to a complete mess.

We are accustomed to organizing a variety of things. However, it would seem that these things create absolute chaos. Our brain itself tries to make order from completely different, random things. Let's recall the ancient Greeks, who gazed at the night sky and imagined the shapes of animals formed by distant stars. They did not consider them random points.

When receiving new information, our brain strives to give it a structured appearance. So, when we read books, we determine a specific order for what we read. It can be embodied in a pyramid. This form presents information from top to bottom. In general, any point of view and summation in the pyramid is always well-argued. Therefore, any statement entails an explanation. It will always be easier for the person to perceive information in the form of a pyramid. After all, this is how all things are structured and logically laid out.

For example, “There was no interaction with the audience at all. The room was too small. The presentation could not be seen from the last row. This training was the worst of those I have attended." This information does not have a logical order or a clear structure. The main thought and understanding of what is happening is transferred to the end. People's diverse backgrounds and perspectives often lead them to interpret groupings differently than you intended, sometimes seeing no connection at all.

First, it is worth summarizing the main information and then giving arguments and explanations. This is precisely how the pyramid structure works. Everything should be described "from top to bottom." If our story were written according to this structure, it would be perceived more clearly: “This training was the worst of those I have attended: the room was too small, the presentation was almost invisible to those sitting in the back rows, and there was no interaction with the audience." It is essential to present information in a clear, structured format, such as a pyramid.

01
Outline your thoughts in the form of a pyramid
02
Group similar thoughts and support them with a conclusion
03
Deduction helps to draw correct conclusions from all previous statements
04
Induction provides the ability to summarize similar statements correctly
05
Visualize the problems using the logical tree method
06
Use recommendations to form the correct structure and receive the desired results
07
Your introduction will help the reader learn about the main ideas
08
The structure of the pyramid appears clearer with the use of headings
09
Make specific transitions between sections
10
Final summary

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