All right, let's talk about the analysis section. First of all, keep it to one argument per paragraph. Even if your paragraph only has two sentences, that's fine. But try to let the organization, your paragraph structure, help the reader visually understand what you're doing. Use the KISS principle, Keep It Simple Stupid. K-I-S-S and I'm not saying anybody here is stupid. What I'm saying is it's just a way of get to the point. Keep it nice and short and simple and that will help get your point across. As I said before, the way to show your structure, show your thinking is the key. Focus on those opening sentences at each paragraph. Have them state what the argument is, and then go and prove it. Don't try, in an argument section especially, to lead your reader through and have them conclude something at the end. This is a much better structure. When you do it the other way, I call it backing into the argument. You kind of put your conclusion of that paragraph at the very end. Try to avoid that. And so you have your opening sentence and then the remaining sentences of a specific paragraph provides the reader the evidence. Prove that that first opening sentence is correct, that it is valid, that it's a valid argument. All right so what did I do for my analysis? My goal was to convince the President of the United States, POTUS, that Guantanamo, GITMO, couldn't be closed during his term of office. To do that, that's against where he wanted to go, but I wanted to identify, explain that. I wanted to identify possible ways that he could still close Guantanamo, but explain to him what those problems were. And then finally, I didn't want to throw up my hands and say there's nothing you can do Mr. President, tough luck. I wanted to provide proposals at the end that he could maybe advance, so he could make progress on his ultimate goal of closing Guantanamo. So those are my strategic themes in this section. Okay, so here is my Guantanamo memo, the analysis section. Let's look at some of the opening sentences. In my first sentence, I had my big conclusion for the whole memo. Under the current conditions, it will not be possible to close the GITMO facility during your term. It's a short sentence, it's direct, it's simple, the meaning is totally unambiguous. [COUGH] Next paragraph, I say the other options for dealing with these detainees are unrealistic. And I spend the rest of the second and the third paragraph explaining why that's true. I look at two other options, one releasing prisoners, which is not realistic, and another, essentially having the President unilaterally order that these Guantanamo detainees be housed inside the United States. Now, go to the fourth paragraph. Progress could be made however, with respect to the 80 detainees that have been cleared for release. So you can see here, now is my third strategic goal of providing a couple of ideas about how progress could be made. And that's when I spend the rest of my analysis section doing. So clear paragraph structure. It lays out the core elements of my argument. And then the supporting sentences, not the first sentences, but the supporting sentences are the guts, the defense, the substantive material to help prove that my opening sentences, where I make my arguments, are indeed correct. Okay, and now it's time to go back and do the really hard thing which is to create your Executive Summary. Again remember, you want to have a couple sentences here. So if they are the only ones that the decision-maker reads, you are getting your point across. So here's my GITMO memo summary. I say to the President the first thing he reads this memo explains why the Administration has been unable to close the detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay and why it's likely impossible to close the facility during your term. I have in one sentence, I've totally synthesized the core elements of my memo. I haven't explained why, I believe this, but I have explained what my conclusions are. Then I take one more sentence and I say, progress can be made in reducing the detainee population by energizing diplomatic efforts to transfer detainees that the intelligence has cleared for release to other countries. It is a bit of a long sentence, but I'm explaining my other big substantive proposal how the President can make progress on his goal. So if he reads this memo, he'll say, that Chancer thinks, or Susan Rice in this instance thinks, I can't close Guantanamo, but here's something I could do to make progress. And he will have gotten the basic gist of what the memo says without reading it. If he does go on to read it, he comes in reading the factual section, reading the argument section, knowing already that this is my core conclusion. It's going to help the reader make it through and make sense of the rest of the memo.
