SECTION Three -- Organizing Papers: Signals of Transition

Sometimes the connections are in the material, and the movement from one part to another seems entirely natural and necessary. More often they’re in your insight into the subject, your approach to it, your analysis of it. You make the connections, and in composing your paper you must be sure they come clear to your readers. At the structural breaks where one stage of a discussion ends and another begins, you should consider using explicit transitions, bridges that will carry your reader from one topic to the next.

Explicit Signals

In themselves, explicit transitions seldom advance a discussion. They signal relationships, establish connections. Often they comment directly on the structure of the essay, as in this passage, where the first paragraph looks back and the second ahead:

Such are the four basic processes by which air carries its moisture aloft. They can work alone or together to produce an infinite variety of cloud forms and combinations.

Now suppose we spend two or three days observing the sky during the approach and passage of a typical warm front. This means we start with a cold air mass around us. The air behind the front is comparatively warm. What kinds of clouds do we see as the boundary between cold and warm air approaches? — Richard M. Romin, Natural History

The machinery of transition is also visible in the following key paragraph, which comes exactly in the middle of the article. The first sentence summarizes the discussion to this point; the last forecasts what’s to come:

These, then, are the negative effects of the scientific literature I have observed in the course of teaching scientific writing. I am glad to say that there are also definite positive findings. The most striking observation is that by teaching writing you can actually strengthen students’ ability not only to write but also to read more attentively and to think more logically and rigorously.

—F. Peter Woodford, Science

Paragraphs like these announce their function directly. Other transitional paragraphs are less obvious; only in con text can they be seen to be gathering up and pushing on.

Because transitional paragraphs have some of the imperative force of a police officer directing traffic, they should be used only to mark major turns in a discussion. In short papers their function can be performed by single sentences, which gather up less material and usually provide gentler guidance. The transitional sentence normally comes either at the beginning or at the end of a paragraph. It signals a shift from one idea to another, indicates that the discussion is to take a new turn, or marks a digression from the main thread:

A word, finally, about the isolation of our colleges, particularly those not attached to great universities.—Henry Steele Commager, Saturday Review

But this is only part of the truth.

—Charles A. Siepman, New York Times Magazine

Before I try to look into the future, I would like to present a debit and credit sheet on mankind.—C. L. Stebbins, Saturday Review While in no way central to his development as an artist, Tennessee Williams’ career as a shoe salesman is worth recalling at this point.

Transition can be provided by a question:

In contrast, what are our hopes for the United States?

—Alvin C. Eurich, Reforming American Education

A question like this one structures the discussion very clearly. Although it doesn’t disclose precisely what the writer’s position on the new topic is, it does promise an answer. Used sparingly, the question is a good transitional device. Overused, it quickly becomes tiresome (as does any other transitional device). Misused — as when the ques tion doesn’t rise naturally out of the discussion—it’s clumsy and distracting.

Most transitional paragraphs and some transitional sentences are like road signs: they tell readers where they’re going and perhaps where they’ve been. Other transitions indicate connections readers must make and relationships they must perceive if they’re to follow the discussion. A good many words and phrases perform this function, among them however, moreover, therefore, on the contrary, on the other hand, likewise, consequently, incidentally, as a result, nevertheless, in the first place, in short. The function of such transitional words and phrases in achieving coherence will be discussed in some detail in the next section.

Explicit transitions serve you well when they point out connections that your readers wouldn’t otherwise perceive. If you use too few, your writing will seem disconnected, and readers may fail to see relationships you count on their recognizing. But if you use too many, you’ll weigh your writing down, slow its movement, and make the machinery of expression seem to take precedence over what’s being expressed. When the direction of your paper is clear and the order of its parts readily apparent, announcing in the form of the authoritarian “First it’s important to consider. . .“ or the chatty “Now let’s ex amine.. .“ is wasteful and sometimes annoying; and too many however’s and therefore’s create a lumbering effect.

Implicit Signals

A skillful writer uses explicit transitions where he needs them — especially to mark a sharp turn in the discussion and to relate paragraphs in which the ideas aren’t obviously consecutive. The skillful writer also knows the value of less obvious means of establishing continuity. Instead of standing outside his material and pointing readers in the right direction, he makes the language of the discussion do the work. These lexical means include repeating or echoing key words and phrases. A phrase at the beginning of a paragraph (“The notion that busing could be a ‘remedy’ for official school segregation was encouraged by. . .“) may allude to a use of remedy three paragraphs earlier. Or, in moving from one paragraph to another, the writer may carry over a key word or synonym that echoes the idea. Here a slight variation (“undignified”—”lack of dignity”) accomplishes the transition:

And the statement becomes undignified—if not, indeed, slanderous.

The lack of dignity in such statements is not in the words, nor in the dictionaries that list them, but in the hostility that deliberately seeks this tone of expression.

— Bergen Evans, Atlantic

Organic transitions — those that depend on meaning — bind a discussion together without stopping its flow. These lexical means of establishing continuity, as well as such grammatical means as the use of pronouns and parallel constructions, will be discussed in the next section.

-- For Analysis and Writing:

1. Identify the major transitional devices (phrases, sentences, paragraphs) in the article by Rowsome.

2. Identify the transitional paragraphs and sentences in three articles of 2000 words or more in current magazines. (Turn in either the magazines or photocopies of the articles.) If one article has a much higher proportion of these overt signals than the other two, what accounts for the difference—the subject matter? the writer’s purpose? the audience? Do you find any relation between the use of transitional devices and the general strategy (announcing or disclosing)?

In one of the articles identify the words and phrases that serve as explicit transitions from paragraph to paragraph. What devices other than explicit transitions are used at the beginnings and ends of paragraphs to establish continuity?

3. Review “So Much Going On”. Identify the transitional sentences and paragraphs. Suggest sentences and paragraphs that would provide more explicit transitions.

PREV. | NEXT

top of page   Home   Similar Articles