The House That Jack Built With Effective Transitions

• Publication year: 2007
• Pages: 51
• Citation: Vol. 36 No. 1 Pg. 51

36 Colo.Law. 51 Colorado Lawyer 2007.

2007, January, Pg. 51. The House That Jack Built With Effective Transitions

The Colorado Lawyer
January 2007
Vol. 36, No. 1 [Page 51]

Columns
The Scrivener: Modern Legal Writing
The House That Jack Built With Effective Transitions
by K.K. DuVivier

(c) 2007 K.K. DuVivier

K.K. DuVivier is an Associate Professor and Director of the Lawyering Process Program at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT LEGAL WRITING?

K.K. DuVivier will be happy to address them through the Scrivener column. Send your questions to kkduvivier@law.du.edu or call her at (303) 871-6281

Constructing a paragraph is somewhat like constructing a house. Our sentences are like the boards that form the frame of our ideas. However, those boards may end up looking more like a pile of lumber than an actual building if we do not connect them in a logical way

Generic Transitions

Perhaps the most common way to join two wooden boards is with a foreign object - a metallic nail. In writing, the nails between two ideas are "generic transitions" - words or phrases we add solely for the purpose of signaling a transition from one sentence to the next.(fn1)

We should use generic transitions between sentences whenever our writing reflects a shift in our thoughts. For example, we can throw in a transition such as "also" to indicate a new, but similar, point; we can insert a transition such as "however" to indicate a contrary point. By including this one word in the sentence, we can help our readers smoothly transition from the ideas in the first sentence to the ideas in the second.

Be careful when adding a generic transition, however. Just as driving in a nail at the wrong angle may leave gaps between two boards, we also must be careful not to make our sentence construction wobbly by choosing the wrong transition word Instead of helping readers follow the flow of the analysis, an inappropriate transition can create confusion and lead readers astray. We do not want to start a sentence with "similarly" if our objective is to distinguish that sentence from the ideas in the previous sentence. Below is a sampling of some common generic transitions:

To add a new point: and, also, next, further

To indicate a difference: however, but, in contrast, alternatively

To indicate a similarity: also, like, as, similarly

To...