![]() Perhaps your paragraph has been long and complicated, and you’re loathe to add a new idea at the end. When the next topic sentence repeats that New information, the continuity created by this chain-linking helps readers to discern clearly how the paragraphs are building on one another in service of an argument. In sum, a wrap sentence reinforces Given information and also forward signals how that information is linked to New information in the following paragraph. ![]() If that’s not how paragraph 2 opens, coherence can suffer. However, the chain-link is not realized if the next paragraph opens with a sentence like: “Psychological and sociological theories have informed a large body of interprofessional collaboration work.” The reader is expecting the New information at the start of paragraph 2 to expand on the Given information at the end of paragraph 1: what “Systems theories” can do to break the research stasis. This would be the case if the next paragraph began with a topic sentence like: “Systems theories, with their ability to identify barriers that exist in micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-systems, would allow researchers to examine collaboration challenges in a comprehensive yet integrated manner”. The forward-signal only works to create a chain-link when the topic sentence of the next paragraph fulfils what was promised in the wrap. Then, having reinforced this as the main idea of the paragraph, the wrap can then forward signal what is to come – how systems theories could break the stasis. The wrap directs the reader to focus on the failure of research efforts. Perhaps they’ll settle on physician resistance or the failure of research efforts: if the writer is lucky they’ll guess correctly. What does the reader take with them as they leave this paragraph? Without a wrap, they might select any of the details provided. To break this stasis, a previously untapped but viable alternative has been proposed – systems theories. This stasis exists despite countless attempts to understand collaboration challenges by drawing on theories from psychology and sociology. Even with interventions from leadership, older non-collaborative practices have persisted. Physician resistance, in particular, has remained strong, which is not unexpected as medical doctors have historically been dominant in healthcare. Interprofessional collaboration is widely considered to be crucial for patient safety but fostering collaborative practice has largely remained an elusive goal. A topic sentence announces the main idea while a wrap sentence reinforces that main point and forward signals what is to come in the subsequent paragraph: Topic and wrap sentences are located at the beginning and end of a paragraph. This Writer’s Craft offers techniques to enhance inter-paragraph coherence more consciously so that readers don’t fall through the cracks between our paragraphs.įorward signaling can affect inter-paragraph coherence through the chain-linking of topic and wrap sentences. Readers may still end up having to infer how one paragraph is linked to the next, and when they can’t make those inferences (or they make them incorrectly) coherence suffers. Proximity isn’t always enough to signal to readers how paragraphs are building on one another to create a compelling argument. But we forget, or we struggle to master inter-paragraph coherence: the idea that paragraphs should be arranged so that our argument develops logically. This aspect of coherence received attention in an earlier Writer’s Craft. Most of us pay attention to intra-paragraph coherence: the idea that the sentences within a paragraph should logically develop a single idea. ![]() One important aspect of readability is paragraph coherence. ![]() All else being equal, readers will gravitate towards writing that requires less effort to process – that has better readability. Sending the right signals to help readers follow our argument is something we owe to ourselves as writers: after all, we move mountains to get published, so it’d be most dispiriting if our papers languish in the valley of the unread. I just tended to put related paragraphs in close proximity to each other. I wasn’t aware that my paragraphs were missing something essential (what, I wondered, is a “wrap”?), nor had I thought much about how readers get from one paragraph to the next. The margin comment said, “You tend not to wrap paragraphs – which is OK, as long as the next topic sentence backward signals and/or the relationship is self-evident”. A seismic tremor rocked my writing world this year when I received personalized feedback on my draft during a writing workshop. ![]()
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