New information

Things to consider

  • If your goal is to make a reader reel from an assertion, or to to build a complex, persuasive worldview piece by piece?

  • Where to introduce a topic, and where it becomes “given”?

  • What is the background, what is the foreground?

  • What is already know, what is new?

  • Fluid processing, or restarting the conversation?

  • Explicit or sneaking in?

  • Single fact or several? If several, how are they related? Explain or let the reader figure it out?

  • Pre-supposition, or ask the reader to evaluate a predication?

  • Where, or if, anticipation is built? By surprise? Early? End-weight?

Examples

[What the public genuinely desires] |Given| is [intellectual honesty] |New|. (pseudo-cleft, ramp up anticipation)

Behind the podium |Given| stood [the true mastermind of the operation] |New|. (subject-dependent inversion, fronting PP as link to prev discourse, end focus “reveals”)