How do I make my ideas flow in a paragraph?
“Flow” is a word used to describe the way a paragraph moves from idea to idea. This movement occurs both within the paragraph and between paragraphs. The best overall strategy to enhance flow within a paragraph is to show connections. A variety of simple techniques can help you to clarify those connections and thereby communicate your intended logic. Deliberate repetition of key words helps. Reiterating the focus of your analysis by repeating key words or synonyms for key words enhances the overall flow of the paragraph. In the following example, the repetition of the key words “Canadian,” “nation,” and “communication” allows for clear flow throughout the paragraph.

It’s perhaps not surprising that Marshall McLuhan, the most influential communications expert of the twentieth century, was a Canadian. As a nation, we have been preoccupied with forging communication links among a sparse, widespread population. The old Canadian one-dollar bill, with its line of telephone poles receding to the distant horizon, illustrates this preoccupation. Year after year we strive to maintain a national radio and television broadcasting system in the face of foreign competition. We have been aggressive in entering the international high technology market with our telecommunications equipment.

—Margot Northey, Impact: A Guide to Business Communication

While the deliberate repetition of a key word is a useful tool, you generally want to avoid repeating an entire idea. In particular, avoid ending a paragraph by making the same point you made in the topic sentence. This type of reiteration stalls or disrupts the development of ideas as well as the logical progression to the next paragraph. Strategic use of pronouns such as it, they, and this keeps the focus on the ideas announced at the beginning of the paragraph—as long as they are clearly linked to specific nouns. In the following example the antecedent is underlined and its corresponding pronoun is in bold.