Making words count

Readers expect to be told at the beginning of a sentence who or what they are going to be reading about; and they also expect to be told something about that subject. Leading readers to the end of the sentence only to give them an empty expression will leave them dissatisfied. Compare these two sentences taken from Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference. Clearly, the second sentence is more informative, and more satisfying.

A career in transportation management offers many things.

A career in transportation management offers many rewards.

(Hacker, 1992, p. 76)

Yet general nouns, such as things and issues, can prove useful when, in fact, a general word is needed. In an essay about an historical uprising, for example, you might expect a description of people's suffering and then a follow-up paragraph along the lines of: "The hardships the people had suffered led to them to revolt." Those hardships have already been described and so a general noun will do at the beginning of the sentence. The reader's interest can move on to the new item: revolt. (See also previous section on nominalizations.)

Defining terms

It is a good idea to let your reader know how you will be using key terms, particularly if different schools of thought use the term differently. Notice how the authors of this paper on advances in augmented reality let their readers know how they are using a key term:

What is augmented reality? An AR system supplements the real world with virtual (computer-generated) objects that appear to coexist in the same space as the real world. While many researchers broaden the definition of AR beyond this vision, we define an AR system to have the following properties:

- - combines real and virtual objects in a real environment;
  - runs interactively, and in real time; and
  - registers (aligns) real and virtual objects with each other.

(Azuma et al, 2001.)

Stating the function of a paragraph

The paragraph you are working on often has a particular function, such as comparing X and Y, or exemplifying a point you have made. Rather than having your readers work out the paragraph's function for themselves, you might let them know your purpose from the outset. For example:

- In a comparison of the results from the present study and those from previous studies, ...
- A good example of Bauhaus architecture is ...