3.6 Apply Techniques F3, F4 and F5 to improve flow between linked paragraphs
As you’ve seen in Steps 3.3, 3.4 and 3.5, Techniques F3, F4 and F5 only apply to text that’s linked. For example, when a concept in one sentence is re-mentioned in the next sentence.
Techniques F3, F4 and F5 also apply to paragraphs that are linked. That is, when a concept in one paragraph is re-mentioned in the next paragraph.
One way to indicate that a new paragraph is re-mentioning a concept from the previous paragraph is to use a linking word at the start of the paragraph. Example linking words are listed below.
- Addition (e.g., In addition to, additionally)
- Although
- Consequently
- Conversely
- For example
- Further (e.g., furthermore, further to…)
- However
- Indeed
- Moreover
- Nonetheless
- Similarly
- Therefore
- Thus
Authors of research papers sometimes use a linking word to start a new paragraph, without explicitly stating the link with the previous paragraph.
Thus, we hypothesize that…
While the linking word tells the reader that the new paragraph has some kind of connection with the previous paragraph, it doesn’t tell the reader exactly what the connection is.
The trouble with this approach is that if the reader happens to look away from the text or otherwise lose concentration before reading the paragraph, they’ll have to re-read the previous paragraph to remember what the linking word is referring to.
A solution to this is to either merge the two paragraphs together (because readers are less likely to take a break from reading within a paragraph), or to add extra words around the linking word to explicitly tell the reader what the connection is.
Let’s look at a published example on the next page.
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