26 / Basics of Good Writing
Spatial order presents topics as they appear in space: left to right, top to bottom,
front to back. Useful transitional phrases in a left-to-right spatial order would
include:
At the far left...
Next to that...
Near the center...
Just right of center...
At the far right...Chronological order presents topics as they appear in time. Useful transitions
include:
Yesterday...
Late last evening...
This morning...
An hour ago...
Now...Orders of importance present topics in one of three ways:
from most to least important
from least to most important
from second most, through least important, to most importantUseful transitional phrases include:
One important idea...
Less important but equally interesting...
Another important factor...
Most importantly...Select the order you think best. If necessary, rearrange your thesis sentence to reflect
this order. For instance, you may have written a thesis sentence arranged chronologi-
cally, from winter to spring to summer, like this:
The refuge attracts a wide variety of visitors during hunting season, fishing
season, and bird-watching season.You may decide, however, that you can write more effectively if you describe visitors
according to what brings most of them to the refuge. So you rewrite the thesis sen-
tence like this, arranging your subtopics from the least to the most popular reasons
for visiting:
The refuge attracts visitors during bird-watching and hunting seasons, but
most of all during fishing season.