Hello everyone:

Today’s blog covers the overuse of introductory phrases. These little jewels  can add excitement to your writing but having too many of them is….dreadful.  Here are some examples:

Throughout this time, I have been abcezy.

Along with my entire family, I have done thus and such.

With this steady rhythm, it is possible to …..

With this unique workforce, I find that….

There were 15 sentences in the student’s first three paragraphs of the paper and 11 of them started with either an introductory word or phrase. That is way too many.

To combat this, flip the sentence. Oops- that was an introductory phrase. It could be written without the phrase as:

Flip the sentence in order to combat this.

I don’t mean that you cannot ever write them, but use them like salt: sparingly. I have other blogs on this topic, if you are still struggling with the idea.

Best,

Dr. Sheri