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Hello this is Ha from Academic Skills. Today I'm going to talk about ways to
connect ideas in your academic writing.
Academic writing is usually about
identifying and developing a position on an academic topic through evidence and
analysis.
But having a list of ideas to support your position is not enough,
you need to glue them together into a coherent flow.
This video explains why
connecting ideas in academic writing is crucial for getting your message across
and how you can do it effectively.
First, think about a book or article on any
topic that you've enjoyed reading. What do you remember about it?
Most of the time we enjoy and remember readings
where all the details stick well
together to develop a clear central idea or story.
So if you want your reader to enjoy and remember your writing
you too need to find ways to link ideas effectively.
Connecting ideas in your writing not only helps you to make a
good impression on your reader,
it also helps you to communicate your argument coherently and cohesively.
Now, think about how the book or article you've
enjoyed reading glues ideas together to make its point.
If possible have a look at it and
try to identify what it is that links ideas so well.
You can also use a reading you've had a hard time
understanding to analyze what's missing for you.
The three components to a well connected piece of writing
content relevance, structure and development, and linking language.
In order to connect ideas in your writing
you first need to make sure all the content you write is
relevant to your topic.
No linking technique can connect
inherently unrelated ideas.
Use your critical thinking to decide
which ideas make logical sense in your writing and which ideas should be left out.
To make it easier, write down your argument or central message on the topic,
also called the thesis statement, on a separate piece of paper
then assess whether every sentence in your writing
contributes to this thesis statement.
You should also put the thesis statement in the introduction of your writing, to help
your reader to understand the main point you're making.
So the first thing to do
to connect ideas in your writing is to establish a central message to which all
ideas can be linked back.
After deciding on relevant contents, it's time to devise
a sensible structure for them.
Ideas can only be connected verbally when they are
topic relevant and ordered in a way that shows progression of the argument.
It takes time and hard work to determine an effective structure for your writing.
There are three levels or structure you need to work at.
Whole text, paragraphs and sentences.
At the whole text level, make sure you lead with a thesis
statement stating the main points you're making and end with a conclusion
reinforcing the main point.
At the paragraph level, state a smaller idea
that supports the main point in a topic sentence,
then elaborated through evidence and analysis.
At the sentence level, information should be ordered so
that old information precedes new information.
This is how readers can be prepared to understand the new information.
In this example notice that
the second sentence begins with short-term memory, which was already
introduced in the first sentence, it then adds a new
comment about what shorter memory is.
Similarly the second part of this
sentence begins with the phrase this information which was introduced earlier
then adds a new comment on what happens to it.
This sequencing helps connect ideas within and between sentences.
If you put new information before old information
the reader will be confused, as the flow of ideas will be disrupted.
So, we've learned that to connect ideas in writing
we need content relevance and structured
information at whole text, paragraph and sentence levels.
This example comes from
a much bigger piece of writing on the topic, public aesthetic preferences and
efficient water use in urban parks.
How is the writing connected to the topic?
How are sentences in a paragraph linked together?
Pause the video to think about this.
In this example in terms of content, all the sentences are relevant to the
topic through the repetition of key words.
That is, they talk about either
efficient water use in urban parks
or public aesthetic preferences
in an effort to balance these.
In terms of structure,
the first paragraph goes from
the main idea in the topic sentence,
to specific evidence and analysis,
to an evaluation of the current approach,
which leads to the main argument of the writing.
This progression shows a structural connection between ideas.
Also notice how old information, which is usually a reference to a previous
sentence, precedes new information from a sentence to the next.
This creates a sense of continuity and flow.
You may also find that there's a certain type of language
that clearly shows connections between ideas both
within and between sentences.
This linking language involves referring
backward to previously mentioned information using words such as 'this'.
You can use other words to refer backwards in your writing.
Linking language also helps you to link forward, flagging new information for the reader.
Phrases such as, the following, as follows, below and next, help make a
smooth transition from one point to another.
Here are some examples using these phrases.
Apart from linking backward and forward, there are other types of connection
between ideas and linking words for them.
For example,
and is to add information,
however is to show contrast,
therefore is to show cause and effect,
although is to qualify
and while is to signal concurrency.
Can you list some more linking words?
It's important to use linking words carefully.
You can confuse your reader
and weaken your argument if you use a linking word that doesn't
match the relationship between the ideas you're trying to connect.
Linking language can also include repeated or parallel grammatical structures,
which emphasize that the ideas being expressed have the same level of importance.
This is an example of parallel structures.
Notice that the same grammatical
structure is used after not only and but also, to imply that these impacts are of
equal importance.
While some repetition is necessary to connecting ideas in your writing,
excessive repetition leads to ineffective writing.
Consider using
synonyms and categories to solve this problem.
Such as in these examples.
In the first example, ban is a synonym of prohibit
and in the second example, fruit is the category of banana.
When linking different paragraphs, you can use linking
phrases such as these.
You can also look back before you move forward,
by referring back to the previous paragraph,
such as in this example.
It's always important to make paragraphs part of a coherent whole text.
They mustn't be isolated units,
unrelated to the whole piece.
I've talked about three ways to connect ideas in writing,
through content relevance,
through structure and development
and through linking language.
You should aim to have all of these elements in your writing.
You can learn from good writing models,
but it's also important to practice using a variety of ways to connect ideas in your own writing.
For more tips and resources, search for Academic Skills Unimelb.
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