Two comments that supervisors often write on doctoral texts are (1) “add link” and (2) lacks flow”. But what do these comments actually mean? In this post I’m going to provide a couple of very basic pointers to flow and linking for any reader who isn’t sure what these terms are about. I’m not going to give you an elaborate technical explanation but offer one strategy that you can use if you get this supervisory feedback.

Flow simply means that the reader can go from one sentence to another, and from one paragraph to another, without being particularly aware of the writing – they can concentrate on interpreting what is written. They don’t have to stop to figure out what’s going on. They don’t have to re-read the text or struggle to see the way that ideas are connected.  They can focus on what’s being said.

The term linking is related to flow but means something more particular. Linking refers to a bridge between ideas. An academic argument provides links that help the reader see how the evidence is building up. If a text lacks linking, the reader will experience a gap between one sentence and another, or one paragraph and another, or one section and another. The reader notices the text is clunky, a boomy road rather than a smooth one. Another term that is sometimes used for linking is transition – academic writers provide smooth transitions between argument moves.

So what can a writer do to see if their work is lacking in flow and/or linking?  Well attending to flow and linking is not about providing a road map. A roadmap is often necessary in academic writing, but it won’t address flow and linking. Flow and linking are primarily about set-up.

Flow is about how you set the reader up for what’s coming next – and you do this through paying attention to the way you construct sentences and paragraphs. Let’s start with sentences.

Sentences

A very rough and ready flow strategy is to make one sentence set up the next. That is, make the information you provide in one sentence lead on to the information in the next. You can often achieve flow by beginning each sentence with information that is already familiar to the reader and concluding the sentence with information that is new.

Here’s a random example from a book I happen to be reading at the moment. You can see the pattern of new information in one sentence becoming familiar information in the next.

 There are a growing number of projects and collaborations between sciences, the social sciences and critical design practice. Communities from the science and social sciences are looking to critical design practice and see potential for its application in an ambivalent zone between emerging science and material culture.

As readers move through these two sentences they experience continuity; both sentences talk about the sciences, social sciences and critical design practice. The first sentence establishes their connection, the second explains why that connection exists. The first sentence sets up the new information in the second.

Here’s another example:

Here we encounter another major structural division that is constitutive of capitalist society: that between polity and economy. With this division comes the institutional differentiation of public from private power, of political from economic coercion.

The first sentence establishes that there is a particular structural division, the second says more about it. The idea of structural division is being developed through the sentence after sentence additions.

If you look through any piece of academic writing you will see this pattern repeated. It’s not the only way to make your prose flow of course, but building information across sentences is a helpful start to achieving flow.

Now there are exceptions to the rough and ready flow strategy. And this goes to linkage and to paragraphs.

Paragraphs

There is a lot of advice around which says that you have to finish a paragraph with a sentence that summarises what has gone before and gives information which you pick up at the start of the next paragraph. Sometimes people say that this is the way that two paragraphs shake hands.

Here’s an example of a summary sentence which leads onto the next paragraph. I’ve had to give you more than the ending and beginning in this and the next examples as it makes it easier to see what is going on.

Grammarly has offered a cloud-based writing assistant since 2009 that has come to be widely used within universities, proving particularly popular with international students writing in a second language. It offers suggestions about grammar, syntax, style and tone which contribute to more effective written communication. Interestingly, the term ‘AI’ features 12 times on their home page on the day I am writing whereas a record of the home page from 1 February 2020 does not use this term even once (Grammarly 2020). This highlights how companies are gravitating towards the language of ‘generative artificial intelligence’ at this crucial moment in the commercial development of the technology. 

Once we start to look at software in these terms, we begin to see AI everywhere. Consider the autocorrection which has been a routine feature of mobile phones for years, increasing the speed and accuracy with which users can type on a small keyboard by offering (and making) potential corrections in the process….

The first paragraph is about the growth in the use of AI. There’s an example which is generalised in the sentence at the end of the first paragraph. This is a kind of summary sentence which sets up the  next paragraph. The next paragraph provides more evidence about the spread of AI and the first sentence of the second paragraph signals that there is a case for AI ubiquity. You can see in the highlighted words the continuity of topic between the two paragraphs. The reader is led through a developing argument by the logical sequencing of information, made evident in the sentence syntax.

However, my reading of academic writing is that there are diverse ways for paragraphs to shake hands. (The word ‘however’ here signals that I am about to modify what I have just said. ‘However’ is a different kind of linking/transition which I’ll deal with in another post.) I often see set-ups at the end of paragraphs that are not exactly summaries – they are more like an important summit in the paragraph, it’s where all the sentences have been leading. In fact you could see the example above in just that way. The first paragraph summit leads on to the next paragraph where the information in the summit is elaborated. Here is another example of a summit set up.

From my general observation of graduate writing, these (metadiscourse) patterns fall into two basic categories. One, you may be avoiding some kinds of metadiscourse because you believe—or have been explicitly told—that they may violate the norms of academic writing. As we have discussed, some academic writers avoid the first person or affective language that could signal their attitudes or how they wish readers to see the text. Two, you may be underusing some kinds of metadiscourse because you are uncomfortable with the work of signaling structure, linkages, or stance. 

To signal structure, you require an understanding of your own texts; as I will discuss in the next chapter, many academic writers struggle to explain the structure of their own text adequately because they do not yet understand it themselves. To signal linkages, you need to see the value of showing clear transitions and explanations etc

In this example the first paragraph is about metadiscourse and its use – or lack of use – in relation to structure, linkages or stance. The last sentence is a statement of a problem and this leads on to the next paragraph which gives detail. The second paragraph develops the argument about why people don’t deal with structure linkage or stance. But it doesn’t even have an opening ‘topic sentence’. Yet it’s not “wrong”. There is no real problem with flow or with the development of argument as the end of the first paragraph adequately sets up the next- although paragraph purists may disagree. But I reckon that most readers will not feel they are falling off a cliff when they read this example.

Here is a third example of a last paragraph sentence which sets up the next paragraph.

During my “autobiography years, I looked for the opposite model, a study 4×4 capable of navigating my bush and my deserts. That’s why I was fascinated by Michael Leuris and the poetic weaving of a writing without end. At first I tried, like him, to construct great tapestries of ideas and words, But it wasn’t me. I was meant to work in fragments. Yet another byway leading me back to the diary.

How I detested the poor diary! That’s how it is often defined, in fact: by a series of insults strung together. You tell it what’s what. You don’t explore margins or limits. Just reel off its deadly sins. …

This example is in a different style of academic writing. It’s a first person narrative account of how the writer came to use a diary genre in their academic work. But again, there is no problem of flow between the two paragraphs – for me anyway. The narrative arc is maintained because the first paragraph set-up leads onto the next.

I hope these examples help to make my point.  Which is:

The idea of setting up is helpful when you are composing a draft. You can focus on how to set up your argument. But the set-up can be an even greater help when you are revising and looking particularly for flow and linking. You can read sentences and paragraphs asking yourself whether and how well you have set the reader up to follow the idea(s) you are working with. You can look closely at how you have constructed sentences and paragraphs. And if your supervisor tracks changes your text with ‘needs link’ or ‘lacks flow’ you know what to do. You go to the ways you have set the reader up to follow your ideas, information and argument from one bit of text to the next.

And just as an aside, I reckon the idea of setting up for the reader to follow the idea is much more helpful than looking at lists of transition words. You can use all of the transition words in the world but if you don’t pay attention to setting up the reader up to follow an idea from one sentence to the next, or one paragraph to the next, your work may well still lack flow and/or need links.