Terrible Transitions
In an op-ed piece prompted by the Ontario government’s threatened invocation of the Charter’s ‘notwithstanding’ clause (s 33), Professor Lissa Paul of Brock University mused about the prevalence of similar ‘useless adverbs’ in student writing: ‘”Notwithstanding” and the Transition Word Epidemic’, Globe & Mail, 21 September 2018.
Wise words. The ‘infestation’ of so-called ‘transition words’ in undergraduate essays is also a weakness found in legal writing, which is replete with adverbs ‘feigning the existence of non-existent connections’.
Odds are, if you’re using words like additionally, furthermore, moreover and nevertheless to connect sentences, paragraphs or sections of your piece, you’re labouring to establish a logical or rhetorical connection that may well be absent.
It is more effective to create the connection organically, through the (judicious) repetition of a central concept or term. Think about building your argument rather than hitching disparate elements together with so-called transitional adverbs, which may signal the opposite of what you intend.
Start the discussion!