Does every sentence need a transition? No!

Posted on July 16, 2014 | Leave a comment

Is anything wrong with this paragraph?

Paragraph using obvious transition words.

Every sentence in the above paragraph begins with a transition word.  This is how many students are being taught to write, as if the reader cannot follow the sequence without reminder words at the beginning of each sentence.  In the above case, the words are obtrusive, calling attention to themselves, but they could be more glaring if the student had used “Secondly,” “Moreover,” “Furthermore,” “Additionally,” and “In conclusion.”

In student text books, transition words are listed by type:  chronological (first, next, then, later, finally), comparison (and, also, similarly, like, additionally), contrasting (however, but, rather, in contrast, although), and showing cause and effect (as a result, therefore, consequently).  Students are taught to use one of these transition words at the beginning of almost every sentence.  They are led to think they must use a single word or phrase that is not organic to the writing or they don’t have transitions.  Their writing becomes bloated with these needless, distracting words.

Is there a better way?  Yes!

Look back at my last paragraph which begins with “In student text books.”  Can you find a transition?  In the second sentence there is one transition word, the word “transitions” itself.  The first sentence mentions transition words, so when the second sentence repeats the word “transition,” that is a subtle yet useful connection to the information in the previous sentence.  The third sentence uses the word “transitions” again, as well as the word “they” to refer back to students in the previous sentence.  In the final sentence, “distracting words” refers back to “transitions.”  So as you can see, there are several transitions, but none calls attention to itself.  Rather, each does what transitions are supposed to do: subtly organize ideas to keep the reader following clearly.

How can students improve their use of transitions?

  • Teach the student not to start every sentence with an obvious transition word.  If the student must use transition words that are not organic to the writing, tell her to tuck them into sentences rather than highlighting them at the beginning of sentences.
  • If students frequently use beginning sentence transitions, ask the students to cut out half of them; then ask them to cut out half of the rest.
  • Ask students to eliminate most multisyllabic transitions.  “And,” “but,” “so,” and “since” do the job just as well as “additionally,” “however,” “therefore,” and “because” without drawing attention to themselves.  In general, the more syllables a transition has, the more obtrusive it is.
  • Most of the time, the student should repeat words, or use pronouns to refer back to words or ideas already mentioned.  Those repeated words or pronouns become organic transitions.

Compare the paragraph about rocks at the beginning of this blog with the same paragraph using more subtle transitions:

Repeating words and using pronouns as transitions.

Click on the graphic to see a comparison of the two paragraphs.

In our next blog, we will talk about using the prewriting organizer to write the first draft.

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The five sentence paragraph

Posted on July 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

Why the five sentence paragraph?  One reason is that teachers seem to think five sentences are long enough to explain a subtopic, but not too long.  One or two sentences seem skimpy, while seven or eight sentences might seem unduly long.  Five is just right.

Limiting students to five sentences straitjackets their writing.
Teachers also think 25 sentences give them sufficient material to judge the student’s writing skills.  In other words, twenty-five sentences meet the teachers’ need for evaluating student writing.

But I think limiting students to five sentences straitjackets their writing.  For example, I encourage students to use dialog to enliven their essay writing.  But when they find out that each time the dialog shifts from one person to another a new paragraph is needed, they freak out.  “But then I will have too many sentences.  And too many paragraphs!”

Sometimes students think up an excellent example that cannot be neatly stated in four sentences to follow the topic sentence of a body paragraph.  They tend to skip that example and settle on something less detailed and less good in order to limit their paragraph to five sentences.

When as a writing tutor I am working with students who know that their teacher demands five sentences per paragraph, I back off.  But when I am working with students who are writing to improve their skills, I encourage breaking this lockstep format.

Next we will discuss transitions.

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The five paragraph essay

Posted on June 25, 2014 | Leave a comment

I bet 99 out of 100 of my students have been told that every paragraph must contain five sentences, and that every essay must have five paragraphs.  This idea is so indoctrinated by teachers that students fear veering from it.  One of my best writing students composed an essay for which we thought up a single line zinger after the conclusion.  It was perfect—irreverent and definitely humorous.  She wouldn’t use it.  “I wouldn’t have five paragraphs anymore,” she told me.

Five paragraph essay structure.

Click on the graphic to enlarge it.

Why the five paragraph essay, anyway?

    • Formal logic is the tradition upon which essay writing is based, and that tradition goes back to ancient Greece.  In formal logic, premises lead to conclusions.  In five paragraph essays, the topic sentences of the three body paragraphs lead to believing the truth of the thesis, stated in the introduction and repeated in the conclusion.
    • Essay writing began in France in the 1500’s, not as a structure for writing as much as a structure for logical thinking and arguing.  Essays then were not confined to five paragraphs, and their purpose was to persuade with clear thinking.
    • In the 1800’s in the US, essays—then called themes—became increasingly standardized so that they could be reliably assessed.  An introductory paragraph introduces the general idea and ends with a thesis statement which includes the three main points supporting the thesis.   Three body paragraphs each begin with an idea supporting the thesis and then go on to bolster that support.   The last of those three body paragraphs sometimes defeats a counterargument.  The conclusion cements the argument and repeats the main points.
    • Standardized testing took hold in the US in the mid to late 1900’s, and with it came formulas for writing essays that could be easily graded.
    • Today the five paragraph essay dominates in schools, starting in elementary grades and continuing into high school.

But why five paragraphs?  Why not four or six or seven?  I think it is the Western World’s preference for the number three.  Take away the introduction and conclusion and that leaves three body paragraphs for the essay.  Three has long served as an important number in western thinking, starting in the Catholic religion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The number three is important in many fairy tales such as “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” “The Three Little Pigs,” and “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.”  Even Abraham Lincoln enshrined the number three with the phrase “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

This approach to essay writing requires that the writers know their thesis (that is, the conclusion of the logical argument) before they begin writing.  As a result, students are taught to brainstorm and to write outlines of their thinking before writing their first drafts.  These prewriting strategies help students to see the scope of the issue (brainstorming) and to narrow it down to its most important arguments (outlining).

Is this five paragraph structure good? 

On the one hand, students have a pattern to follow which limits the number of paragraphs within which to explain their arguments.  It requires conciseness and clarity, two qualities of good writing.

On the other hand, students are forced to conform their thoughts to a somewhat arbitrary pattern.  What if students have three excellent points to make, not two?  What if there are two excellent counterarguments that need to be defeated?  Oh well.

Next we will look at transitions.

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Write the first draft skipping lines or double spacing.

Posted on June 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

Since most of the improvement in writing comes in revising, it is important for students to leave room in their first drafts for revising. For that reason, I recommend that:With a first draft, leave spaces between lines and keep a one inch margin all around.

  • Students should write on every other line of notebook paper if writing by hand, or they should double space if composing on the computer. That additional space between lines allows room to insert changes and still be able to read the text. For students who are not used to skipping lines, I print tiny X’s in the left margin of every other line to remind the students to skip lines. Most students are not used to writing this way, and they forget. If so, let them finish the line they are on and then skip the next line. Once they have revised, they will understand the need for all this white space.
  • Students should write on one side of the paper only. This way, as they start a new page, they can look back at the last few sentences they have written without flipping the paper back and forth. Rereading as they write is important for continuity. It also allows room on the back of the paper for major revisions later on, including adding whole paragraphs. Another plus is that by placing the words just written above and almost touching an empty page of notebook paper, the student does not perceive an empty page, and he finds it easier to pick up the thread.
  • Students should leave one inch margins on each side of notebook paper and on the computer. The margins allow for more revision space and for other kinds of analyzing, which I will explain in a later blog.
  • Students should write darkly so that the writing can be easily read. If they use pen, they should use dark blue or black ink for easy reading and because colored pencils or inks will be used in the revising process.
  • Students should use clear handwriting. If I cannot read a student’s handwriting, I stop the student immediately and ask him to fix the poor handwriting until it is legible. Poor handwriting is usually nothing more than a lazy habit. Insist on good handwriting if the student wants your help. If the student is using a computer, insist on a simple, easy-to-read typeface.
  • What about perfectionists? Some students will not tolerate mistakes and will insist on starting over if they forget to skip a line or if an erasure leaves too dark a smudge. I encourage students to get used to messy first drafts because when we revise, the copy will become much more messy. I show new students copies of other students’ work to prove my point. But some students will come to a standstill unless they are allowed to start over. Sometimes I allow a student to cut off the imperfect part, paste the good part to a clean paper, and continue on. Other times, I allow one start-over and that is it. But for a few students, any limit on starting over can leave them in tears.  Perhaps a serious talk about perfectionism is in order, showing how perfectionism slows a student and ultimately leads to lower grades. In my experience, many perfectionists are gifted students for whom perfectionism becomes an obsession unless it is checked early.

Next we will talk about composing the first draft.

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What are some types of essay introductions that hook the reader?

Posted on June 11, 2014 | Leave a comment

Teachers have drummed into students’ heads that essay introductions need hooks. But all too often, the hooks students write wouldn’t snare a minnow. What kinds of hooks work? Let’s take the topic, “When I lost a tooth,” and look at some hooks that would make the reader want to continue reading.

Anecdote: (a story from the news, history, family, or personal experience):

My Grandpa says he doesn’t remember when his first tooth fell out, but he remembers when his last one did. It was after he cracked a walnut with his teeth, and a tooth broke apart. He had to go to Dr. Taylor’s office to have the rest of the tooth pulled out. Grandpa says that was the most expensive walnut he ever ate.

Analogy/comparison: (This introduction hooks better if the two items being compared seem not to be related)

A tooth is like a baby’s diaper. We don’t think much about either of them when they are working fine. But if they are falling out or falling off, that’s all we can think of!

Dialog: (Use quotation marks. Each time a different person talks, start a new paragraph.)

“Hey, Mom, how much did the tooth fairy bring when your teeth fell out?”
“A nickel a tooth.”
“A nickel a tooth! That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“Didn’t they invent quarters back then?”

Irony/humor:

Every six or seven-year-old kid loses teeth. Why, there must be millions of kids all over the world right now who can’t eat corn on the cob.

Statistics:

When I was in first grade, every single kid lost a tooth, and most of us lost more than one. Billy Ellingham was the champion though. He lost seven teeth that year. I remember because we kept track with a bar graph on the bulletin board.

Startling claim:

Suppose you brush your teeth for a minute in the morning and a minute in the evening every day this year. That’s 730 minutes, or more than 12 hours standing in front of a sink brushing and spitting.

Compelling question:

Did you know that when a shark’ tooth falls out, the shark can grow a new tooth as many times as it needs to?

Generalization:

My Grandma calls my teeth my pearly whites.

Next we’ll look at some of the mechanics of writing a first draft that make revising easier.

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