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academic writer: paragraphs: creating continuity by modified repetition
Creating continuity by modified repetition
How are paragraphs linked? Repetition can be important. Skilled writers make their writing 'stick together' - they create a sense of continuity - by repeating language items. Sometimes this is done by slightly modifying the item each time it occurs.
In the following example the subject is Wang Laboratories. Look at the clever way in which the writer achieves continuity, and yet avoids boring the reader by slightly modifying each reference to the company: Notice that this repetition is important both at the beginnings of paragraphs and inside each paragraph.
In some school textbooks you are taught to use the so-called connectors (however, although,etc.) to link your paragraphs. In reality, writers use a range of other, more subtle devices such as these to make their writing flow.
| Wang Laboratories of Lowell, Massachusetts began as a small family business. A maker of computers, Wang grew rapidly and had revenues of US$2.28
billion by 1984, and at one time employed 24,800 people in the Boston area. An Wang who
founded the company in 1951 was
born in Shanghai and emigrated to the US when he was 25. Wang
Laboratories was one of the great US high tech success
stories of the 1960’s. But when An Wang got ready to retire in the mid-80’s he
insisted on having his son Fred Wang take over the business. Fred was promoted over the heads of several more senior American
managers. This blatant nepotism prompted the departure of a number of senior American
managers. Wang Laboratories’subsequent fall was dramatic even by the standards of the unpredictable computer industry. The company posted its first loss the year after Fred Wang took over the business. 90% of its market capitalisation had disappeared within 4 years, and in 1992 it filed for bankruptcy. The elder Wang was finally forced to admit that his son couldn’t handle the job and had to fire him. The story of Wang Laboratories, although far removed from China itself, shows us a fundamental truth about Chinese business; despite the modern facade of Chinese business around the world, it continues to be based on family ties. The Chinese family provides the social capital to start up the business, but it also imposes a limitation, which prevents them evolving into lasting, large scale institutions. Wang’s failure illustrates other aspects of Chinese culture... |
Adapted from 'Trust' by Francis Fukuyama (p.69 ff)
Find out about other ways of writing paragraphs
Academic Writer 2000