Ask OASISEngaging Writing: Examples of Incorporating Transitions
Last updated: 4/21/2016
Visual: The words “Walden University Writing Center” and the Walden University Writing Center logo on a blank page of a notebook with a pencil. The slogan “Your writing, grammar, and APA experts” appears. The screen shifts to present the words “Engaging Writing” with the title “Examples of Incorporating Transitions” underneath.
Audio: Music plays.
Visual: The slide switches to one that is titled, “DO: Transitions.” In the upper right hand corner is a box with the words “No Clear Transitions” in it. Beneath is a sample paragraph from an essay, which the narrator reader.
Audio: So in this example paragraph there are no clear transitions.
I'm going to read it aloud, and I'd like you to follow along and really listen to how this sounds and the choppiness and the abruptness of these sentences.
"There's a problem within public schools today regarding meeting no child left behind, NCLB legislation. NCLB mandates that all children achieve benchmark levels for the subject areas of reading and mathematics. Standardized test scores typically do not reflect successful attainment. The cause is the traditional teaching practice toward a single approach to learning, instead of the differentiated introduction practice of teaching toward a variety of modalities. Tomlinson, 2001, page two. Traditional instruction has not worked at all for students. The focus of this study is to explore how teachers can best make use of differentiated instruction to help children learn."
So here is an example. This is actually fairly well written. The ideas seem clear, it seems like it's well-presented in that it's not confusing. The grammar is clear. But there's really no transition. So it's sort of list-like.
There's a problem within the schools. NCLB mandates there. Standardized test scores do not reflect this. The cause is this. Traditional instruction has not worked. So you can see, it kind of feels more like a list than a cohesive paragraph or cohesive group.
Visual: A new slide appears which is titled, “DO: Transitions.” In the upper right hand corner is a box with the words “Added Transitions. Types: Transitional phrases, punctuation, repeated key words” in it. There is a new sample paragraph, which the narrator reads.
Audio: So if we look at the next example, though, we’ve added a few transitions. And these help to combine the ideas, make the work flow a little and throw out the list-like feeling.
So we have, "within public schools there's a problem. Traditionally, NCLB mandates that all students—"Again, we have kind of a repeated word. "All students achieve benchmark levels. However, standardized test scores show that typically students do not achieve these benchmarks."
So again, we're repeating "benchmarks" now, too. "The cause for specific lack of achievement is the traditional teaching practice; thus far, traditional instruction has not worked for all students because of this lack of achievement."
So you can see, all of these ideas are kind of being put together. Their relationship is a little bit clearer with words like: "traditionally," "however," "thus far," "because of." And then you have these repeated words, "all students," "benchmarks," "lack of achievement."
So because these are all put together in this paragraph, as a reader, it's easier for me to follow. And I don’t feel like there is so much of an abrupt stop between each idea.
Visual: The words “Walden University Writing Center” and the Walden University Writing Center logo on a blank page of a notebook with a pencil. In the middle it reads, “Questions? E-mail writingsupport@mail.waldenu.edu.”