The diagrams above illustrate an essential feature of a problem solution. This is the indentation of subproblems. The provides a logical structure to the solution. The indentation process is used in a large number of areas for effective communication. Outlines, indexes, tables of contents, bulleted charts, and computer programming are a few example.
Indentation serves to break a problem into smaller parts in coherent manner.
There has been a massive amount of research, mainly by the interview method, showing that students use the spaghetti approach to organizing a problem solution. This is a natural consequence of the emphasis on the spaghetti approach in early training in arithmetic and algebra.