How to Shape Sentences to Emphasize Important Ideas:

• Who are the actors? name them.
• What actions are they performing? Name them.

Managing the Flow of Information:

• Writers need to strike a balance between principles of local clarity or directness and cohesion.
• The key is to choose a path that helps the reader organize separate sentences into a single unified whole.

Some Rules for Writing Clear Sentences:

• At the beginning of the sentence, place ideas already implied, discussed or concepts familiar to reader
• At the end of the sentence, place the newest, most surprising, or significant information--what you want to emphasize or expand on.

Beginning Well:

• Connect each new sentence to the preceding one: use transitional words (and, but, therefore, except for)
• Help the reader evaluate the information (fortunately, significantly, perhaps)
• Locate the action in time & place (then, later, before, in Europe)
• Announce the topic of the sentence

Topics: Psychological Subjects of Sentences (what the sentence is about)

 Topics control how readers read sentences: the cumulative effect of the sequence of topics is most important.
 

 Keep Topics Visible
 

Managing Topics for Flow

• Use passives to replace long subjects containing new information with a short subject that locates the reader in a familiar context.
• Switch subjects & complements.
• Turn a long subject into an introductory clause.

The point is to enable the reader to see the connections.

 This guide is based on Joseph Williamsºs chapter "Cohesion," in Style:Toward Clarity and Grace (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 45-65.