Flow describes the way that ideas, paragraphs, and sentences work together to create a cohesive piece of writing. A paper that has poor flow can be difficult for the reader to follow because of distracting structures or unclear connections. By improving flow, you can improve the overall readability of your writing.
Overall flow, also known as unity, describes the way that all the ideas and components of a piece of writing work together to accomplish the paper's goal (in most cases, prove the thesis).
To check that your writing has overall unity, make sure
A paragraph with good flow will be have a clear focus with clear connections between ideas within the paragraph and to the rest of the paper.
To ensure that your body paragraphs have effective flow, make sure
Cohesion describes how specific sentences and ideas are connected by tying ideas together and leading the reader from one idea to the next. There are various cohesive strategies and devices to help you improve this type of flow.
You can use sentence structure to improve flow. Using too many short, simple sentences in a row can cause your writing to feel choppy and provides fewer opportunities to show connections. On the other hand, too many long, compound or complex sentences can feel overwhelming to the reader. Your goal is to use a good variety of sentence lengths and structures.
To illustrate, read the following group of sentences out loud:
Many students experience homesickness. They may be away from home for the first time. Many students do not have coping strategies. As such, colleges should improve transition programming.
All of the sentences use simple sentence structure and are around the same length, which disrupts fluency and feels awkward for the reader. Also, without conjunctions that are used in compound and complex sentences, there are fewer connections being made between ideas.
Now compare to this group of sentences:
Many students experience homesickness. They may be away from home for the first time, so many students do not have coping strategies. As such, colleges should improve transition programming.
This example uses simple sentences and a compound sentence. Not only does it sound less choppy, the conjunction "so" shows a clearer cause/effect relationship between ideas.
Transition words and phrases are useful tools to help create cohesion in your writing. Here are some transition words and phrases that are commonly used in academic writing:
| Meaning | Function |
|---|---|
| to introduce an additional idea | Also, besides, furthermore, moreover, in addition, another (+ noun), an additional (+ noun) |
| to introduce an opposite idea | on the other hand, however, in contrast, instead, nevertheless, nonetheless, in spite of |
| to introduce a comparison | Similarly, likewise, also, too |
| to introduce an example | for example, for instance, to illustrate, |
| to emphasize | Indeed, another, even more, above all, indeed, more importantly, |
| to introduce a conclusion or summary | in conclusion, in summary, to conclude, to summarize, |
| to clarify chronological order | first (second, etc.), next, last, finally, first of all, meanwhile, after that, since then, previously, then, later, before, to begin, |
| to indicate order of importance | more/most importantly, above all, |
| to introduce an alternative | Otherwise, alternately, conversely, nevertheless, however, |
| to introduce a cause or reason | as a consequence of…, as a result of…, the effect of x on y is…, because of…, due to… |
| to introduce an effect or result | Accordingly, thus, as a result, therefore, as a consequence, consequently, |
| to introduce a concession | However, nonetheless, of course, |
| to introduce strong contrast | However, in contrast, in / by comparison, on the other hand, on the contrary, |
| to summarize or conclude | in summary, in brief, therefore, as a result, to sum up, in conclusion, altogether, as has been mentioned, |
Repeating key words helps tie together the flow of thoughts in an essay. Although repeating a few key words can be useful, don’t overdo it!
Using appropriate pronouns (he, she, it, you, they…) connects ideas while avoiding needless repetition. Check for pronoun/noun agreement to make sure you have used the correct pronoun.
Using demonstratives, or pointing words, like this, these, and those helps you refer back to concepts, ideas, research, etc. that you previously mentioned in your writing, allowing you to create more connections for your reader. Be sure to include a noun after the demonstrative so it is clear what you are referring to.
Example:
… because petting animals encourages the production of chemicals essential to brain function, like prolactin, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. These mood-stabilizing chemicals assist…