ClearTips: Powerful paragraphs

Signal what's to come

Conjunctions and transitional phrases join paragraphs by signaling reversals, continuations, and restatements.

Some of this hand-wringing is disingenuous. Many trade group lobbyists are privately crowing over having outflanked the Administration and the Democratic leadership; the National Federation of Independent Business Inc. (NFIB) send journalists reprints of a U.S. News & World Report article touting the small-business lobby's routing of reform legislation.
     Nor should the lobbyist's somber demeanor be confused with regret. Most health care industry groups supported only narrow reform proposals of their own design and they clearly preferred inaction to any plan that threatened their members' livelihoods.
     But the aftermath of the health care reform battle is unfolding like a bad mystery novel. The victim had dozens of enemies, but now that he's dead, all of them are finding something nice to say about him—and working hard on their alibis. Opinion polls show the public still clamoring for some type of reform, and no group wants to be the target of wrath for this year's inaction.
     And gloating isn't a good way to win friends and influence people on Capitol Hill. House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman John D. Dinglee, D-Mich., has promised to hold extensive hearings into the operations of the insurance industry next year—giving a hint of the strained relationships left in the wake of this year's battle.

The best laid plans for the European Union's single currency may yet go astray, but at least the blueprint is on the table. On May 31 the European Commission released its ideas for economic and monetary union (EMU), and proposed a publicity blitz to gain popular support for a three-phase program: the decision to launch the single currency and identify the countries qualified to use it; the "irrevocable" fixing, within a deadline of the following 12 months, of the parities of those countries' currencies; and, within a deadline of three years after that, the transition to the single currency, with its coins and notes introduced "over a few weeks at the most".
     In other words, read the Maastricht treaty, which gives starting dates for EMU of 1997 at the earliest and January 1st 1999 at the latest, add a year and then another three, and by 2003 Europeans will be emptying their pockets of marks and francs and filling them with a new Euro-currency.

Though many writers avoid opening a paragraph with a conjunction, as the writer of the second example does, these words are ideal transitional words—they are clear and direct, and tell readers what to expect next.

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