Valuing the Situation: A Referential Outcome for Top-level Structurers

Readers who attempt to process a text at various levels of critical thinking and memory, and to identify or create its key information, are halfway there in terms of acting on such intention. They also need to know what to do. It has been suggested from previous studies that one way to get both intentions and skill together and working well in terms of academic and workplace performance goals is by "top-level structuring." This strategy is a procedural action aimed at highlighting or fabricating the key element of structure when presenting or encountering an array of information, and using that key element (its "top-level structure") to transfer or transact what's important, what's eye-catching, what screams for attention. Some people do this naturally. Others have learned to do it following deliberate interventions. In either case, those who top-level structure appear to be great communicators - better at being smart, literate, lyrical, coherent, attentive and interpretative than they were before, or than those who do not yet have the strategy. Students who do it write better assignments and find textbooks friendlier than they had previously. Managers who do it become more communicative and believe their management style and its outcomes to be more effective. University students who do it have higher GPAs and are seen by themselves and others as smarter. In this presentation, an account is given of some of the top-level structuring terrain that has raised, tested, and supported the proposition of its effectiveness as an organisational strategy - across ages from early years to late seventies and eighties. A story using "theory of mind" will be spun to explain and predict its action.