How Sentence Signaling and Connectivity Enhances Your Writing Skills

Signaling is an effective technique that removes choppiness from your writing to make it fluent. It’s crucial that all your paragraphs end in a manner that the next paragraph doesn’t appear to be out-of-place.

Whenever a paragraph is disconnected from the preceding one, it gets difficult for the reader to understand the message you intend to convey. Each time your writing is unclear, the reader will either end up misunderstanding or deciding not to read further – both are undesirable outcomes.

Correctly signaled sentences keep the reader engaged & ensure they read till the end. The reader does not ever get confused by non-sequiturs or thrown off the track by fillers. Below are certain structures you can utilize to signal sentence flow:

• Coordinating & Subordinating Conjunctions

Connectives such as coordinating and subordinating conjunctions link phrases and sentences.

Examples: And, but, nor, for, so, yet, so that, after, before, although, unless, whenever, insofar as, since, because, why

• Overlap

Utilizing a word that comes at the end of the 1st sentence at the start of the 2nd sentence

• Relative Clauses

A dependent clause that starts with a relative pronoun (whose, who, whom, which or that,) or an adverb (why, when, or where)

• Demonstrative Pronouns

Pronouns such as “this”, “that”, “these”, and “those” help build cohesion between sentences.

Examples: that, these, this

Coordinating & Subordinating Conjunctions

This is what occurs when the writer almost entirely summarizes the idea of sentence 1 at the start of sentence 2 instead of utilizing the correct conjunction:

To effectively move forward, strategists must first target crucial areas that connect with both the national security & economy. To recognize a technological stride forward in sections significant to the national interest is an excellent way for developing countries to move closer to advanced nations without squandering scarce resources.

Surely, the reader will struggle to comprehend whether any new or nuanced information is given in the first part of sentence 2. The writer could have better signaled the outcome relationship between these two sentences by utilizing a subordinating conjunction to merge them:

To effectively move forward, crucial areas that connect with both the national security & economy have to be targeted, so that developing countries can move closer to advanced nations without squandering scarce resources.

Overlap

In this example, sentence 2 is totally disconnected from sentence 1.

People’s constant demand for material commodities is in conflict with the Spartan lifestyle advocated by communist leaders. Not even one citizen wishes to have less than their neighbors.

Bind these two sentences & bolster them by repeating the keywords – Spartan lifestyle. This type of repetition is known as Overlap.

 People’s constant demand for material commodities is in conflict with the Spartan lifestyle advocated by communist leaders. Spartan lifestyle is shunned by everyone.

Relative Clauses

Choppiness can also result when writers avoid utilizing relative clauses. Compare the next two examples.

There were 24 courses in the 3-year-degree program. They were completed ahead of schedule.

There were 24 courses in the 3-year-degree program, which were completed ahead of schedule.

By utilizing the relative clause in the 2nd example, you completely iron out the odd pause. Remember that it attaches to the “program” and not to the “courses.”

Demonstrative Pronouns

Now, let’s see how demonstrative pronouns highlight your point.

Academics say that Homo sapiens are a cultural occurrence defined by their usage of S&T that first appeared roughly 110,000 years ago.

Academics describe the Homo sapiens as a cultural occurrence defined by their usage of S&T. That would indicate S&T has been evolving for roughly 110,000 years.

This method brings the reader’s attention to the specific fact that the writer believes is deserving of examination in its own right.

In this focused article, we explored the grammatical structures you can employ to indicate connectivity in your writing. To reiterate, these structures are Overlap, Relative Clauses, Coordinating & Subordinating Conjunctions, and Demonstrative Pronouns. Utilizing them will make your writing fluent & engaging.

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