Transitions and Flow Get organized, connect, explain

Get your paragraphs organized Just like the sequence of paragraph topics in your outline, you have to organize inside the paragraph as well. Use Time order, cause/effect, across society, small to large, etc. Put like things together instead of chopped up across the paragraph To do this, you have to skim over the paragraph from start to end and back to the top, and hold it in your mind. Study it as a whole and decide if that’s a logical order for your examples and ideas.

Connect to what came before Some transition words are useful, but don’t overuse, and use them right. List: Refer back to what you just said using demonstratives and pronouns. This kind of sentence looks like: “This _____ (name what you just discussed)” changes ____... or continues, or doesn’t apply, or contrasts, etc. then finish your sentence with the new idea you want to bring up.

Explain how everything relates Sometimes your writing is jumpy because you left things out. That’s why you outline—to see where the holes are, where you have a topic but no real examples, or missing explanations Every example and idea should work toward proving your thesis. If that’s strong and clear and you build on that in every paragraph, it will hold your paper together and you won’t have to worry about jumping around. Nothing builds coherence and flow like a clear focus on your purpose.

Try it With a partner, use all 3 of the approaches we covered to improve the rough paragraph I will give you: 1.Put it in order 2.Add links and transitions where needed 3.Explain how ideas relate I’ll put the list of transitions back up so you can see that.