TiTi Tip #3: Word Up to my Transitional Words and Phrases
Usually, when it comes to explaining oneself and reiterating your claim through an entire essay, it is often falsely perceived that you have to use more words. And usually, if you add more words to that explanation, sometimes the main point is suffocated by all the rambling. This can easily be seen in writing as well! Here’s an example for you, let’s say that you were writing down a statement to the police explaining why your two best friends decided to get in a “WorldStar” worthy fight. You want to find a sentence to introduce the conflict and give just enough background so that the police aren’t completely lost. Here is the not-so-concise introduction sentence:
Even though Sally and Jessica ride the bus every morning together, Sally hates riding the bus with Jessica.
Although this isn’t a terrible sentence, it doesn’t have enough clarity regarding the situation and why it happened, which is ultimately what your audience( the po-po) is looking for. So in order to deliver our statement in a brief but comprehensive way, we are going to whip out a trusty dusty thing I like to call: Transition Phrases. Back in my prime, before UC Davis, when I was the best( a.k.a. Most-hated ) book writer of my classes, transition phrases were my best friends when it came to making sure that I was being more concise with my writing. Like magic, these words instantly put a normally 5-word statement and transformed it into a glorious 1-3 words. With these transition phrases, I was able to cut out all the extras and become CONCISE, getting straight to the main point of my work. So, let us apply the example Phrase, “Contrary to”, that I pulled from Robert Hartwell Fiske’s, Dictionary of Concise Writing: Thousands of alternatives to wordy phrases:
Contrary to Jessica, Sally does not enjoy the morning rides they take together on the bus because Jessica has been talking to Sally’s boyfriend.
Compared to the previous sentence, there is obviously a lot more information displayed rather than the fact that Sally doesn’t like to ride the bus with Jessica. Instead, the sentence now gives the reason WHY and it sets the basis for WHY the girls fought in the first place. See how just that simple phrase; “contrary to” substituted some unnecessary words and therefore gave way to more room for the actual purpose of writing the sentence, which is to inform the police why Sally and Jessica were fighting. So, the next time you are writing another statement to the police( Which I truly hope is not the case)or your chosen target audience, I have included a list of a few of my favorite, most useful transitional phrases from Fiske’s Diary:
According to/Accordingly
Considering the fact that
The extent to which
Despite the fact that
Being( as, as to how, that)
Evidence in support of
By comparison/ In relation to
In conclusion
And don’t trip chicken strips, these phrases can be used at the beginning, middle, or end of any sentence to make it more concise. Simply place it where it makes the most sense for your content!
TiTi Tip #4: Trust in Ti
Now, even though I hope we are all besties here on TiTi Talks, I know some of you could be questioning whether or not these tips even work. Yes I could tell you on and on, and I could even share some of my essays littered with red ink feedback from actual writing instructors, but even then, you would still have to try them for yourself to establish my author credibility. However, you are in luck because I have a friend who was a simple audience member like you all, and he decided to trust Ti and ultimately helped him improve one of his Final papers.
Finally, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you guys to Jalen. Jalen is a friend of mine from home who is an English major at Cal State East Bay, and he and I were discussing my project and laughing about the feedback we used to get from our teachers on papers when I decided to confide in him to put my TiTi Tips to work. For Jalen’s Final, he had to write an argumentative essay regarding the main themes of the book for the class. So, when I asked Jalen which one of my tips he resonated with the most, throughout his essay writing process, he informed me that TiTi Tip #2: Repeating Reiteration was the most helpful in keeping him on track with his overall claim. Jalen explained that this tip encouraged him to keep checking back in with his prompt, not only to make sure that he was keeping his claim consistent throughout his essay body, but also that it helped him to remember to state that claim differently, with different words, whenever and wherever he wanted to emphasize it. Now although the fact that he came to me for help was credible enough for me, I knew that wouldn’t be much real proof of how helpful these tips actually are, and then he called and informed me that one of the exact pieces of feedback from his instructor was that his work was very CONCISE. SEE, SEE, I told ya’ll it is very possible and if you want the same feedback and progress as Jalen, put your trust in the trusty tips of TiTi!