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 known, 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?

• If multiple facts, gentle introduction or a list?

• 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”)

Arguments

• Use the definite existential when you want to sound like a hard-nosed realist pointing to an obvious fact your opponent simply forgot to mention. It minimizes stylistic drama and emphasizes the raw weight of reality.

• Use the pseudo-cleft when you want to explicitly indict your opponent’s methodology. It is a more aggressive ideological weapon because it structures the sentence so that the opponent’s ignorance becomes the literal subject of the clause.