HBR Guide to Better Business Writing (HBR Guide Series)

Chapter 13

Be a stickler for continuity

Smooth writing consists of a sequence of well-joined sentences and paragraphs, not a mere collection of them. This smooth sequencing requires good planning and skill in handling transitions, or links that help readers follow your train of thought.

Watch how a good writer on business ethics, Manuel G. Velasquez, does it with a series of paragraph openers (the links are indicated here by italics):

A Series of Paragraph Openers from Manuel G. Velasquez’s Business Ethics (2011)

1. How well does a free monopoly market succeed in achieving the moral values that characterize perfectly competitive free markets? Not well.
2. The most obvious failure of monopoly markets lies in the high prices they enable the monopolist ...