Connecting Sections

Ensuring a clean transition between sections is a two-step process.

The first step is, obviously, to make sure that your subject matter flows smoothly between the sections. This will look different for each text, but you can choose from several arrangements:

• Chronology: which section happened before the others?
• Alphabet: a, b, c, d, etc.
• Most important to least important: a common arrangement
• Least important to most important: a less-common arrangement, but it’s very effective if you can use rhetoric or some such device to carry the reader through to the end of the text (where your last section should come off like the grand finale of fireworks).

The second step is to identify the sections. You can:

• Use headings and subheadings (titles which identify each section)
• Use blank space (usually double space, which if you’re text is already double-spaces will mean four lines)
• Use some illustration or decorative shape. The universally accepted section-separator is ***. It’s recommended that you center the illustration or decorative shape in the middle of the text.
• Use bullets (but only if you have a) very few points and b) your format lends itself to the use of bullets)

After you’ve organized your sections, you’ll need to make sure they are properly introduced and concluded so they read smoothly. See Connecting Sentences and Connecting Paragraphs for some ideas.