Ladder of Abstraction: Moving Up the Ladder

1. Answer “Why is this important?”
   Give the deeper meaning behind the concrete facts and data.
2. Provide the big picture.
   Explain the context and orient your audience.
3. Reveal patterns and relationships.
   Help your audience see how the ideas connect — both to other ideas and their lives.
4. Draw diagrams.
   Help your audience form mental models of processes, objects, etc.
5. Use appropriate charts.
   Go beyond pure data to show trends.
6. Reveal the lesson.
   Follow every story or case study with the key insights.
7. Draw inferences.
   Apply sound logic to generalize from particular cases.
8. Summarize into principles and guidelines.
   Help the audience learn from your experience by providing principles they can use.
9. Appeal to shared ideals.
   Draw connections between your message and the ideals held by your audience, such as justice, truth, liberty, or freedom.

S. I. Hayakawa and Tom Barrett, Medium.com