Basic and advanced techniques for doing paragraph transitions

By this time most of us should already be familiar with the English paragraph and could whip up one or several of them with great ease. The general concept for the paragraph that we normally follow is, of course, that it’s a collection of sentences that all relate to one main idea or topic and that have unity, coherence, and adequate development. This particularly applies to the typical expository paragraph, which starts with a controlling idea that the exposition then explains, develops, or supports with evidence.

As we all know, however, not all paragraphs need a topic sentence; they could simply be indicators of breathing or structural pauses in narratives, dialogues, and explanatory statements that are marked for the purpose by a new, usually indented line (digital word processing, of course, now provides a stylistic device to even get rid of indentions, as in this very exposition that you’re reading now). Either way, paragraphs no doubt serve as functional transitions from one set of thoughts to another, and this is where many people—whether beginning writers or professionals who just want to set their thoughts down clearly and logically—get confused as to precisely how transitions between paragraphs should be done.

In “Making Effective Paragraph Transitions,” a four-part essay that I wrote for my English-usage column in The Manila Times in early 2006, I extensively discussed the various techniques that a writer can use to effectively bridge a succeeding paragraph to the one preceding it—a process that I explained works in much the same way as logically bridging adjoining sentences in an exposition. In this week’s edition of the Forum, I am all four parts of that essay for the benefit of those who wish to gain much greater competence and confidence in the paragraphing craft. (September 22, 2013)

Making effective paragraph transitions

Part I – Basic forms of paragraph transitions

Contrary to what some people think, making effective paragraph transitions is really not that difficult. This is because most of the familiar devices we use for linking sentences can serve as transitional devices for paragraphs as well. For instance, such linking words as “besides,” “similarly,” “above all,” and “as a consequence” can effectively bridge a succeeding paragraph to the one preceding it in much the same way that they can bridge adjoining sentences. It’s true that some experienced writers make it part of their craft to minimize the use of these highly visible paragraph “hooks,” but to the beginning writer, they are indispensable for interlocking paragraphs into logical, cohesive, and meaningful compositions.

Choosing a paragraph transition is largely determined by which of the following major development tasks the new paragraph is intended to do: (1) amplify a point or add to it, (2) establish a causal relationship, (3) establish a temporal relationship, (4) present an example, (5) make an analogy, (6) provide an alternative, or (7) to concede a point. Once a choice is made, it becomes a simple matter to find a suitable paragraph transition from the very large body of conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases in the English language.

Before discussing the major types of task-oriented paragraph transitions, however, let us put things in better perspective by first looking into two of the most basic forms of paragraph transitions. One way is to simply repeat in the first sentence of a succeeding paragraph the same operative word used in the last sentence of its preceding paragraph, as the word “process” does in this excerpt from William Zinsser’s On Writing Well:

Ideally the relationship between a writer and an editor should be one of negotiation and trust…The process [underscoring mine], in short, is one in which the writer and the editor proceed through the manuscript together, finding for every problem the solution that best serves the finished article.
 It’s a process [underscoring mine] that can be done just as well over the phone as in person…

The other basic paragraph transition form is substituting a synonym or similar words for the chosen operative word. For instance, in the passage above, we can use the similar phrase “this kind of review” instead to begin the second paragraph: “This kind of review can be done just as well over the phone as in person…” This transition may not necessarily be better than the first one, but it has the advantage of giving more variety to the prose.

Now we are ready to discuss the task-oriented paragraph transitions.

Amplifying a point or adding to it. If we need to elaborate on an idea at some length, we can effect the transition to a succeeding paragraph by using whichever of the following transitional words and phrases is appropriate: “also,” “moreover,” “furthermore,” “in addition,” “similarly,” “another reason,” and “likewise.”

Establishing a causal relationship. When we want to discuss the result of something described in a preceding paragraph, we can achieve a logical transition by introducing the succeeding paragraph with any of the following transitional words or phrases: “so,” “as a result,” “therefore,” “consequently,” “then,” and “thus.”

Establishing a temporal relationship. This is the easiest paragraph transition to make. We can make the desired chronological order by simply using the following adverbs or adverbial phrases to introduce the succeeding paragraph: “as soon as,” “before,” “afterward,” “after,” “since,” “recently,” “eventually,” “subsequently,” “at the same time,” “next,” “then,” “until,” “last,” “later,” “earlier,” and “thereafter.”

Presenting an example. For this purpose, we can achieve a quick transition by using the following words or phrases to begin the succeeding paragraph: “for instance,” “for example,” “in particular,” “particularly,” “specifically,” and “to illustrate.”

Making an analogy. By using such words as “also,” “likewise,” “similarly,” “in the same manner,” and “analogously,” we can make an effective transition to a succeeding paragraph that intends to make a comparison with what has been taken up in a preceding paragraph.

Providing an alternative. When alternatives to an idea presented in a preceding paragraph need to be discussed, we can introduce them in a succeeding paragraph by using the following transitional words: “however,” “in contrast,” “although,” “though,” “nevertheless,” “but,” “still,” “yet,” “alternatively,” and “on the other hand.”

Conceding a point. An effective strategy to demolish a contrary view is to quickly concede it in a paragraph introduced by such transitional words as “to be sure,” “no doubt,” “granted that,” “although,” and “it is true.” The rest of the paragraph can then present arguments to discredit the wisdom of that contrary view.

For more complex compositions such as essays and dissertations, however, we will usually need more sophisticated paragraph transitions than the conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases we have already taken up above. We will discuss them in detail in Part II of this essay.

Part II – Extrinsic and intrinsic paragraph transitions

Because of its nuts-and-bolts approach to the subject, Part I of this essay must have given the impression that making paragraph transitions is simply a mechanical procedure, a matter of just tacking on a familiar conjunctive adverb or transitional phrase between adjoining paragraphs. This, as we shall soon see, is not the case at all. It just so happens that conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases are the best starting point for discussing the subject, for they have a built-in and overt logic in them that can apply to a very wide range of situations. As we progress to the more complex types of compositions, however, we will need much less obtrusive and more elegant ways of bridging paragraphs into cohesive and meaningful compositions.

There are two general categories of transitions for bridging paragraphs: extrinsic or explicit transitions, and intrinsic or implicit transitions.

Extrinsic or explicit transitions primarily rely on such familiar introductory words as “however,” “therefore,” and “moreover” to show how an idea that will follow is related to the one preceding it. The various conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases that we already took up in the previous essay belong to this category.

Transitions of this type are very handy and give paragraphs very strong logical interlocks, but when overused, as in legal documents that employ long strings of “whereases,” “provided thats,” “therefores,” and “henceforths” to drive home a point, their prefabricated logic can become very distracting, annoying, and unsightly. This is why it is advisable to minimize their use in formal compositions. For academic essays and dissertations, in particular, the usual suggested limit is no more than one extrinsic transition for every paragraph and no more than three for every page.

Intrinsic or implicit transitions, on the other hand, make use of the natural progression or “flow” of the ideas themselves to link paragraphs logically. Instead of using the usual conjunctive adverbs or transitional phrases, they effect paragraph transitions through a semantic play on key words or ideas in the body of the exposition itself. A sentence that performs an intrinsic paragraph transition usually:

(1) repeats a key word or phrase used in the preceding paragraph and makes it the takeoff point for the succeeding paragraph, or else

(2) uses a synonym or words similar to that key word or phrase to do the transitional job. Part I of this essay already gave examples of this type of paragraph transition.

At this point, we will now complete the picture by adding the pronouns “this,” “that,” “these,” “those,” and “it” to the list of basic implicit transitional devices, for these pronouns can often bridge adjoining paragraphs as effectively while minimizing the distracting overuse of the same nouns in the composition.

To better understand how intrinsic paragraph transitions work, let’s assume that we have already written the following first paragraph for an essay:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.

Now how do we make an intrinsic transition to the next paragraph of this essay?

The task, of course, basically involves constructing an introductory sentence for that next paragraph. We will now look into the various intrinsic transition strategies for doing this, from the simplest to the more complex ones.

Strategy 1: Use a summary word for an operative idea used in the last sentence of the preceding paragraph.

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 The idea was at first totally out of the question to me. I was such in a hurry to get back to Manila because of an important prior engagement…

Strategy 2: Use the pronoun “this” for an operative idea in the last sentence of the preceding paragraph.

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 This was actually not a very easy decision to make. I had to be in Manila later that week for a business meeting…

Strategy 3: Use the pronoun “that” for an operative idea in the last sentence of the preceding paragraph.

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 That proved to be the most memorable part of our tour. Despite my misgivings…

Strategy 4: Use a more emphatic transition by using “that” to intensify an operative word or idea used in the preceding paragraph.

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 That decision had very serious and far-reaching consequences for me. I missed an important meeting in Manila and lost a major account…

Part III – “It,” “such,” and “there” as paragraph transitions

We have already looked into several extrinsic or implicit strategies for making a transition to a new paragraph from the one preceding it. All of these strategies begin the new paragraph with a sentence that either repeats a key word or phrase used in the preceding paragraph, or else substitutes a summary word or pronoun such as “this” or “that” for that key word or phrase. This time we will look into the use of the words “it,” “such,” and “there” as devices for similarly making such paragraph transitions. 

To illustrate how these words work as transitional devices, we will use the same prototype first paragraph that we used in the previous column, as follows:

“As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.” 

Strategy 5:  Use the anticipatory pronoun “it,” otherwise known as the expletive “it,” to begin the new paragraph. We know, of course, that many teachers of writing frown on this usage, claiming that it seriously robs sentences of their vigor. As the two examples below will show, however, this device can be very efficient as a paragraph transition: 

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 It was past midnight at our Boracay cottage when my friend suddenly sprung the Palawan idea on me…

or:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 It was farthest from my mind that my friend would even think of a Palawan trip just when we were ready to fly to Manila…

It’s true, however, that too many expletives in a composition can be very distracting, so we must use this paragraph transition device very sparingly.
 
Strategy 6: Use the pronoun “such” in the first sentence of the new paragraph to echo an operative idea in the preceding paragraph.

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.

Such was what happened to my best-laid plans after my friend chanced upon a Palawan tour brochure…

We must take note, though, that some grammarians find this use of “such” as a noun semantically objectionable. They would rather use “such” as an adjective or adverb to make such transitions:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.

Such a radical departure from our travel plans was very unpalatable, but my friend was so headstrong about it…

or:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 Such was my consternation about the Palawan idea that I actually considered going back to Manila without my friend…

Strategy 7. Use the pronoun “there” in the first sentence of the new paragraph to introduce the new idea that will be developed. See how effective this transitional device can be in effecting shifts in time, place, scene, or subject:
 As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.

There was a time when I would summarily reject unplanned trips like that…

or:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 There was a very compelling reason why I didn’t want to make that Palawan trip, but my friend would hear nothing of it…

For the same reasons that they shun the expletive “it,” however, many teachers of writing strongly caution against this usage, arguing that it encourages lazy writing. Thus, as a rule for short compositions, more than one paragraph beginning with “there” would probably be too much.

We will now go to another type of paragraph transition, one that exhibits both extrinsic and intrinsic properties. The most common transitional devices of this type are the prepositional phrases used to begin the first sentence of paragraphs that set off events by order of occurrence, or to indicate changes in position, location, or point of view. Typically, these prepositional phrases are introduced by a preposition, but unlike such usual stock transitional words or phrases as “before,” “after,” and “as a result,” they carry specific information about the subject being discussed.

Some examples:

Prepositional phrases serving as paragraph transitions marking the sequence of events: “At 8:00 in the morning…”, “By noon…”, “At 6:00 in the evening…”

Prepositional phrases serving as paragraph transitions marking changes in position:  “At sea level…”, “Below sea level…”, “Above sea level…”

Prepositional phrases serving as paragraph transitions marking changes in location: “In Manila…”, “In Rome…”, “In London…”

Prepositional phrases serving as paragraph transitions marking changes of point of view in the same composition: “As a private citizen…”, “As a professional…”, “As a public official…”

To conclude our discussions on paragraph transitions, we will take up in Part IV the so-called “deep-hook” paragraph transitions—the type that blends so effortlessly and so unobtrusively with the developing prose that we hardly notice that the transition is there at all.

Part IV – Deep-hook paragraph transitions

We will now discuss “deep-hook” paragraph transitions—the type that subtly works out its bridging logic by making itself an intrinsic part of the idea being developed. Unlike the usual conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases such as “but,” “however,” and “as a result,” deep-hook paragraph transitions don’t call attention to themselves. They do their job so unobtrusively that readers hardly notice they are there at all.

To show what they are and how they work, we will use the same prototype first paragraph that we used to illustrate the other types of paragraph transitions:

“As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.”

Strategy 8:  Use the last word or phrase of the preceding paragraph as the first word or phrase of the next paragraph, then make it the takeoff point for developing another idea. This is the simplest of the deep-hook paragraph transitions and is most effective when limited to two or three words, such as “Palawan” in this example:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan. 
 
An unplanned trip to Palawan was farthest from my mind at the time because I was so in a hurry to get back to Manila...

When it uses too many words, this type of paragraph transition may still work but it tends to be repetitive and clunky.

Strategy 9: Use an earlier word or phrase in the last sentence of the preceding paragraph as the first word or phrase of the next paragraph, then make it the takeoff point for developing another idea.

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 
Our tour guide had apparently spared no effort in foisting the outrageous idea on my friend’s impressionable mind...

Strategy 10: As the next paragraph’s takeoff point for developing another idea, use a word or phrase in a sentence other than the last sentence of the preceding paragraph. To establish its logic, however, this type of paragraph transition usually needs a multiple hook—perhaps two or more operative words or phrases from the preceding paragraph:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 That my friend should specifically insist on Palawan after already visiting several vacation resorts in the Visayas was terribly upsetting to me...

Here, the multiple hooks are “friend,” “several vacation resorts,” and “Visayas” from the second sentence of our prototype first paragraph, and “Palawan” from its last sentence.

Strategy 11: Use an “idea hook,” one that distills into a single phrase an idea expressed in the preceding paragraph, then use it as takeoff point for developing the next paragraph. This is the subtlest and most sophisticated form of paragraph transition of all, and its skillful use in compositions often indicates how good a writer has become in the writing craft.

Here are two idea hooks for a paragraph that will follow our prototype first paragraph:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 Giving in to my friend’s utterly capricious idea upset all of my well-laid plans for the remainder of that month...

or:

As a traveler, I am a stickler for schedules and will adamantly resist any change in my itinerary, no matter how attractive that change might be. This was my cardinal rule until I accompanied a longtime friend from Paris on a five-day visit to several vacation resorts in Luzon and the Visayas, and for which Boracay Island was to be our final stop. At the last minute, however, on her insistence and egged on by our tour guide, I reluctantly broke my own rule and agreed to join her on an unplanned trip to Palawan.
 That spur-of-the-moment decision led to an experience so delightful that I vowed never again to so doggedly take the well-beaten path in my travels...

In practice, however, deep-hook paragraph transitions should not be used to the total exclusion of the conventional conjunctive adverbs and transitional phrases. In fact, compositions that use a wide variety of paragraph transitions flow better and are generally more readable than those that use only one type.

This ends the four-part essay on “Making Effective Paragraph Transitions.” I hope that the discussion has clarified whatever lingering doubts you might have had about how to properly bridge paragraphs in your expositions.

Are the last words of a sentence really the most emphatic?

In his original 1918 edition of The Elements of Style (that was long before E. B. White came up with a chapter on style that made him a co-author of the book), William Strunk, Jr. came up with this perplexing prescription in his discussion of the principles of exposition:

“The proper place for the word, or group of words, which the writer desires to make most prominent is usually the end of the sentence…The word or group of words entitled to this position of prominence is usually the logical predicate, that is, the new element in the sentence…”

Strunk gave the following example to illustrate his point:

The modifying phrase at the tail-end of the sentence: “This steel is principally used for making razors, because of its hardness.”

The logical predicate at the tail-end of the sentence: “Because of its hardness, this steel is principally used in making razors.”

To writers steeped heavily in the journalistic writing tradition, this prescription obviously seems counterintuitive at the outset. Almost to a man or woman, they would say that to give the most prominence to a word or group or words, it should be positioned right at the beginning of the sentence—like a good news lead should, as in this example from a recent front-page lead story of the Philippine Inquirer:

“President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has declared a state of calamity in Mindanao, a move that will allow cities, towns and provinces on the island to release 5 percent of their budgets so they can quickly procure generators to address the acute power shortage.”

Few would hazard submitting to their editor that same lead sentence constructed this way:

“A state of calamity in Mindanao has been declared by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a move that will allow cities, towns and provinces on the island to release 5 percent of their budgets so they can quickly procure generators to address the acute power shortage.”

In his book, Strunk conceded that a subject coming first in its sentence may be emphatic—as in the case of the noun form “President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo” in the sentence above—but hardly by virtue of its position in the sentence alone. Indeed, apart from the journalistic tradition of preferring the active voice to the passive voice, the newsworthiness of the noun form (the subject or the doer of the action) normally merits its placement up front in the sentence over and above other factors in composition.

So far, so good.

But then Strunk made the surprising corollary that “any element in the sentence, other than the subject, becomes emphatic when placed first.” He gave the following inverted sentence to prove his point:

“Deceit or treachery he could never forgive.”

On close inspection, we find that this construction indeed gives strong emphasis to the “deceit or treachery,” as opposed to this normal sentence order for that statement:

“He could never forgive deceit or treachery.”

But Strunk then emphasized that as a rule, the subject of a sentence must take the position of the predicate to receive special emphasis. He offered the following sentence as an example:

“Through the middle of the valley flowed a winding stream.”

The normal construction for that sentence is, of course, this:

“A winding stream flowed through the middle of the valley.”

The first version of the statement, which puts “a winding stream” at the tail-end of the sentence, is evidently more emphatic than the second, which puts “a winding stream” at the front of the sentence.

For his final words on the subject, however, Strunk made the following provocative—and as I already said, perplexing—prescription:

“The principle that the proper place for what is to be made most prominent is the end applies equally to the words of a sentence, to the sentences of a paragraph, and to the paragraphs of a composition.”

Now that’s really a harder proposition to fathom.

At about this time in 2004, I wrote an essay in my column in The Manila Times in an attempt to make sense of this puzzling prescription by Strunk. I’m sure that this prescription still perplexes many serious students of English composition, so I am now posting that essay in the Forum in slightly modified form to help clarify the matter.

I am aware, though, that some of the points discussed in my essay remain debatable or controversial, so I would welcome all comments for and against the positions I have taken.

Which words pack the most wallop

One basic principle in writing more powerful sentences, as prescribed by William Strunk, Jr. in his book The Elements of Style, is this: the last words of the sentence are the most emphatic. In keeping with this prescription, I think that one way to give the strongest emphasis to our most important idea is to maneuver it toward the tail end of the sentence. In this manner, we can assure our main ideas of a prime position where they can get remembered best.

Take a look at this sentence that violates that rule: “One characteristic that I detest in Candidate X is his irritating presumption that we can read his mind by not speaking at all even if he absolutely has to.”

Although we can perfectly understand that sentence, we can see that it’s a bit mixed up in its construction. And notice that eight words into the sentence, the opening phrase “one characteristic that I detest in Candidate X” has not yet formed a complete idea; worse, the ending phrase “even if he absolutely has to” trails off into a dangle. The result? The most important idea has been shunted into the phrase “his irritating presumption that we can read his mind by not speaking at all,” which in turn got buried between a strong but insubstantial phrase and a dangling phrase.

In contrast, we can easily unleash the main ideas of that sentence by putting them in prime positions—namely at or near its beginning or, best of all, at or near the end: “Candidate X remains silent even when he absolutely must speak out, irritatingly presuming that we can read his mind; this is something I really detest in the guy.” This version immediately zeroes on the subject, clearly pinpoints his weakness, then demolishes him with a powerful clause—“this is something I really detest in the guy”—at the strategic end-position of the sentence. The ideas at the front and end flanks of the sentence—at the end flank most of all—now command our undivided attention. And this construction yields still another bonus: it gives the sentence the natural flow and rhythm of speech.

It should be obvious by now that the final building blocks for emphatic sentences are the words we use to end them. Aside from ensuring that they are in prime positions in the sentence, however, we must also be conscious of the kind of the words we are using. Indeed, to choose those words wisely, we first need a clear appreciation of the relative semantic strengths of the various parts of speech in the English language. Their hierarchy of strength, from the weakest to the strongest, is as follows: prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, and nouns.

That the prepositions and conjunctions are low on the semantic totem pole is evident in our day-to-day experience; newspaper headlines, for instance, routinely eliminate prepositions and conjunctions and yet are able to retain the core message of the full statements. To be sure, prepositions and conjunctions smoothen the linkages between ideas and make language more elegant, but when push comes to shove they are actually dispensable.

This is why it’s not a very good idea to end sentences with a preposition or conjunction, as our previous sample sentence did when it ended itself with the preposition “to”: “One characteristic that I detest in Candidate X is his irritating presumption that we can read his mind by not speaking at all even if he absolutely has to.” Remember that old caveat against dangling prepositions? It doubtless took root from the fact that prepositions like “to” and “with” are such weak words for ending sentences.

Adverbs, in turn, are generally unhealthy to prose when they are used to end sentences; this is particularly true with “the bad, old adverbs” ending in –ly, like “ecstatically” and “fantastically.” Worse, sentences that end with them are often not only emasculated but embarrassing: “They embraced and kissed each other genuinely and affectionately.” Adjectives as endings fare much better than adverbs, but are still rather icky: “Their embrace and kiss were genuine and affectionate.”

In contrast, verbs as endings are a vast improvement over prepositions, conjunctions, and adverbs, as we can see in this sentence: “With genuine affection, they embraced and kissed.” But nouns as endings are the most emphatic and most euphonic of them all: “They embraced and kissed with genuine affection.”

Also, we normally condemn the nominalization of verbs because they often rob verbs of their strength and sinew. From the stylistic standpoint, however, verbs-turned-into-nouns often make the best sentence endings, laden as they are with the valuable tagging information that resides in nouns and the action of the verbs that congealed in them. Compare the following two sentences, the first ending with verb phrases and the second with those same verbs turned into nouns:

Ending with verbs: “When all is said and done, our prime objective is to totally control and dominate the seas.”

Ending with nouns: “When all is said and done, our prime objective is to exercise total control and dominion over the seas.”

There should be little doubt as to which of the two sentences packs the stronger wallop.

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, March 10, 2004, © 2004 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. Revised and updated March 12, 2010. All rights reserved.

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