2 Repeating or restating key words
Repeating or restating the important words in a paragraph binds the sentences together and keeps the paragraph's topic uppermost in readers' minds. In the next example, notice how the circled words relate the sentences and stress the important ideas of the paragraph:
Having listened to both (Chinesejand (English, I also tend to be suspicious of any (comparisons ibetween the two:'languages. Typically, one language—that of the person doing the icomparing-^is often used as the standard, the benchmark for a logical form of expression. And so the language'being compared is always in danger of being judged deficient or superfluous, simplistic or unnecessarily complex, melodious or cacophonous. English speakers point out that Chinese is extremely difficult because it relies on variations in tone barely discernible to the human ear. By the same token, Chineseispeakers tell me (Englishes extremely difficult because it is inconsistent, a language of too many broken rules, of Mickey Mice and Donald Ducks.
—Amy Tan, "The Language of Discretion"
This paragraph links sentences through their structure, loo, because the subject of each one picks up on key words used earlier:
Sentence 7: Having listened to both■Chinese.'and(English,;! tend to be
suspicious of any comparisons between the two.languages. Sentence 2: Typically, one (language;. . . Sentence 3: And so the language . . . Sentence 4: English speakers;. . . Sentence 5: Chinese speakers). . .
In many incoherent paragraphs, such as the one on mummification on page 78, each sentence subject introduces a topic new to the paragraph so that readers have trouble following the thread. (See pp. 386-87 for more on linking sentences through their subjects.)