Transitions

Overview

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The Old-To-New Principle

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The need to transition

At the sentence level, transition sentences help readers follow a writer’s train of thought as they progress through a text. Writers should remember that the audience can’t read their minds—writers have to spell it out for their readers. This “spelling it out” can get especially tricky when writers transition from one idea—one paragraph—to the next.

Oftentimes, this change from one topic to another will feel abrupt because the change makes sense to only the writer. The problem is that the reader gets left behind, trying to make sense of why the topic changed. Transitions are the solution to this problem—if a writer can use language to transition from one idea to the next, the reader is not left guessing how the two ideas connect to each other. Thus, transitions at the beginning of new paragraphs (or even at the end of old paragraphs) help the reader follow the organization of the writing as the writer wants them to.

One technique: Old-to-New

One way to have successful transitions, regardless of subject matter, is by following the old-new principle (See Joseph Williams Style). This principle states that old information should be presented before new information.

"Old-to-New Transition Style (bolded)
Writing is fun. (red text)
Because writing is fun (red text), I enjoy writing essays (purple text).
Writing essays (purple text) helps me learn (green text).
I learn (green text) so I can help people (blue text).
I help people (blue text) by serving them (orange text).
I serve them (orange text) with my writing."

(One note about the diagram: mature syntax usually isn't so short or choppy—this diagram only illustrates the Old-to-New concept.)

Examples

Let’s say you’re writing a paper about Dr. Seuss. You just finished a paragraph about his early life and now you want to talk about his career as an author. It could be a little jarring to your audience to write for the last sentence of your paragraph something like, “Because he was a good student, Thomas liked school,” and then for the first sentence of your new paragraph something like, “Dr. Seuss wrote many whimsical books that speak to children in all ages of time.”

Look at them together:

"Because he was a good student, Thomas liked school. Dr. Seuss wrote many whimsical books that speak to children in all ages of time."

Yes, both these sentences have to do with Thomas Giesel, aka Dr. Seuss. But jumping from one aspect of his life to the next with no warning leaves the reader with a funny taste in their mouth—it’s hard to digest that kind of writing.

Let’s try to smooth over that transition using the old-to-new principle. Remember, we’ll mention the old information first, then introduce the new information second:

. . . Because he was a good student, Thomas liked school. [<< Old info.]

Perhaps Thomas’s proclivity for words in school is what made him such a good writer as an adult, when he, as Dr. Seuss, went on to write [New info. >>] many whimsical books that speak to children in all ages of time . . .

We can see where the old and new information is, so let’s break down that transition sentence.

Perhaps Thomas’s proclivity for words in school [<< old info.] [new info. >>] is what made him such a good writer as an adult, when he became Dr. Seuss.

Above we see that this transition sentence starts with old information—that Thomas was good in school—and ends with new information about him as a writer. Because this transition sentence ends with new information, the writer can now develop that new information in the rest of the paragraph without worrying that their reader feels funny about the new topic.

Transitions

Transitions are words and phrases that connect and show relationships between ideas.

The need to transition

One technique: Old-to-New

Examples

For more info, check these out!