1. The Writer’s Powerful Tool
Transitions
The Writer’s Powerful Tool
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Easier Than Life
Transitions between high school and college or between life at home with one’s parents and life in an independent setting can cause problems for some individuals.
Fortunately, transitions for the writer are far less complicated. But they are immensely important. Transitions aid clear, coherent, and effective writing.
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Types of Transitions
Transitions come between ideas or within them.
Transitions may lead from one sentence to the next or from one paragraph to the next. Transitions even lead from one chapter to the next.
See the next slides for examples of effective use of transitions both between and within ideas.
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4. Transitions Between Sentences
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet “How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways” begins with a question. But rather than merely asking a rhetorical question, she actually answers, or at least attempts to respond to, her question. First she tells us that her strategy will be to “count” the ways she loves. Then she goes on to make a list of eight distinct ways of loving.
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5. Transitions Between Paragraphs
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet begins with a question. But rather than merely asking a rhetorical question, she actually answers, or at least attempts to respond to, her question. First she tells us that her strategy will be to “count” the ways she loves. Then she goes on to make a list of eight distinct ways of loving.
But rather than merely name as one might make out a grocery list—butter, eggs, carrots, etc.—Browning elaborates on each of the ways she loves
And finally, in the second-to-last line, she tops the list with her most important hope, which is that she will find salvation with her beloved after death
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6. Transitions Within Sentences
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet begins with a question. Rather than merely asking a rhetorical question, though, she actually answers her question. She tells us first that her strategy will be to “count” the ways she loves. She goes on, then, to make a list of eight distinct ways of loving.
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7. Transitions Within Paragraphs
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet begins with a question. But rather than merely asking a rhetorical question, she actually answers, or at least attempts to respond to, her question. First she tells us that her strategy will be to “count” the ways she loves. Then she goes on to make a list of eight distinct ways of loving.
Browning elaborates on each of the ways she loves, rather than merely listing as one writes out the groceries one needs—butter, eggs, carrots, etc. Instead, she
She goes on to top the list with her most important hope, which is that she will find salvation with her beloved after death
The sonnet, in sum, is a categorization of a person’s relationship to a beloved, including her assumption of a spiritual union in the afterlife.
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8. The Logic of Transitions
Choose transitions wisely, for they have the power to direct (or misdirect) your reader’s thinking.
Confusing: Frost begins “Out, Out –” with an image of sound— the “snarl” of the saw. For example, he goes immediately to an image of both sight and touch as the saw “made dust” and “dropped” the wood.
Better: Frost begins “Out, Out –” with an image of sound—the “snarl” of the saw. Then he goes immediately to an image of both sight and touch, for the saw “made dust” and “dropped” the wood.
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Directing Thought
Transitions take your reader by the hand and tell him or her how to follow your thinking.
In the third and fourth lines, the speaker shows us where the saw is located—in a rural area near “five mountain ranges.” In addition, the speaker identifies the time of day with “Under the sunset.” After that, though, he introduces an ominous feeling by repeating “snarled and rattled” twice, warning us of something terrible to come.
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10. Traffic Signals: Stop or Yield
Like stoplights and yield signs, transitions tell us when we should slow down and observe a change in affairs or when we can speed ahead into new territory.
Transition as Stop Sign:
The poem begins with an innocent account of work being done as “the buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard.” But in contrast to those benign opening words, the repetition of those same words “snarled and rattled” just six lines later and repeated twice in one line, conveys danger. The words take on a negative connotation, and the sounds of the saw become insistent and disconcerting.
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11. The Transition to Yield
Transition as Yield Sign:
The poem begins with an innocent account of work being done as “the buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard.” The image, indeed, takes on additional significance as he uses those same words “snarled and rattled” just six lines later, repeated twice in one line. Frost then expands the image of the saw by telling us that sometimes it “ran light” but that at other times it “had to bear a load.” He seems to be suggesting here that there are alternatives to what eventually happens in the poem.
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Which to Choose?
Which is better, the stop sign or the yield sign?
It depends on where you are going.
In the examples of the previous two slides, the writer of the “stop sign” transition, “But in contrast to those benign opening words,” wants to emphasize the difference between the simple sounds expressed in the poem’s opening image and the way those sounds become threatening later in the poem. The writer wants us to think, “Hey, wait. Something different is going on here than I originally thought.”
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Or?
But the writer of the “yield sign” transition, “The image, indeed, takes on additional significance as,” wants to emphasize the way Frost builds coherence in his poem by repeating ideas and images. This writer wants us to say, “Oh, okay. I see that there is unity in this poem because of the repetition.”
The first writer wants to emphasize the way the tone changes in the poem.
The second writer wants to emphasize the way the poem coheres.
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Side by Side
The poem begins with an innocent account of work being done as “the buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard.” But in contrast to those benign opening words, the repetition of those same words “snarled and rattled,” coming just six lines later and repeated twice in one line, conveys danger. The words take on a negative connotation, and the sounds of the saw become insistent and disconcerting.
The poem begins with an innocent account of work being done as “the buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard.” The image, indeed, takes on additional significance as he uses those same words “snarled and rattled” just six lines later, repeated twice in one line. Frost then expands the image of the saw by telling us that sometimes it “ran light” but that at other times it “had to bear a load.” He seems to be suggesting here that there are alternatives to what eventually happens in the poem.
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15. Transitions to Indicate Place
Use transitions to help the reader see the physical placement of the ideas or images you are discussing.
Behind the saw are “Five mountain ranges,” providing an image of remoteness but also of importance.
Out in the yard beside the boy stands his sister “in her apron” to call the workers in to eat.
There, near his sister and the others, the boy holds “up the hand.”
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16. Transitions to Indicate Purpose
Use transitions to indicate purpose.
Frost uses the word “supper” rather than “dinner” to convey the simple nature of these rural people. To that end as well he calls attention to the sister’s “apron” and to the fact that the wood will be used in a country “stove” rather than in a more suburban “fireplace” or “hearth.”
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17. Transition to Emphasize
Use transitions to emphasize your points.
The line “the buzz saw snarled and rattled” carries a negative connotation as the sounds of the saw become insistent and disconcerting. Indeed, the tone becomes consistently threatening as the speaker confesses, “I wish they might have said.” In fact, Frost even gives the saw an evil personification, suggesting it has malevolent intentions as it “seemed to leap” onto the boy’s hand.
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18. Transitions to Indicate Time
Use transitions to indicate how the story unfolds in time.
The story begins with an aural image of a buzz saw. Later, though, the imagery becomes visual, as in “Under the sunset” and “His sister stood beside them in her apron.” When the boy’s hand has met the saw, the imagery is tactile and kinesthetic as the saw “leaped out.” But when the doctor arrives, the imagery is once again aural with the boy’s plaintive cry, “Don’t let him cut my hand off –.”
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19. Transitions to Indicate Causal Relationships
Use transitions to show causal relationships.
Frost uses the word “supper” rather than “dinner” to convey the simple nature of these rural people. To that end as well he calls attention to the sister’s “apron” and to the fact that the wood will be used in a country “stove” rather than in a more suburban “fireplace” or “hearth.” Consequently, then, the setting is reinforced by the diction describing the characters, leading to a unified narrative of rural people—their work, their tragedy, and their endurance beyond it.
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In Sum
Ideas, organization, and evidence are powerful tools for the writer of exposition or argument, literary or otherwise. But few tools in the writer’s workbox are as influential as transitions. They guide, unify, show direction, relate, and emphasize. Don’t take them lightly, and don’t hesitate to use them plentifully.
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