Avoid a vague start

Starting a paragraph by repeating what was previously said is one of redaction’s capital sins. It should be instantly condemned, with no right to appeal. It’s a vague, ambiguous idea with no support, especially when we take pleasure in the false certainty that the reader agrees with the interpretation of an object, conclusion or reasoning that, in the peak of our inspiration, we’ve given to the previous text.

And what’s the previous text? What’s that everything? You ask yourself these questions when you read the text... You have to go back, reread (sometimes rereading several paragraphs of pages), only to discover that we can’t really find that powerful, clear and wonderfully evident part, and I, as the reader, shouldn’t have overlooked it if I was actually paying attention (according to the author, of course).

Why do we do it? When we use the “From the above”, we’re also creating a logical relationship between two components: an event happens and has consequences, they’re intimately linked by a cause and effect relationship, or rather, an antecedent relationship. It’s vital for this relationship to exist before inserting a “from the above”, that in another way, wouldn’t be more than just an unfortunate filler.

Without a doubt, where we find this expression the most is in technical writing, essays, narratives... It’s rare to find it in literature, fiction and poetry, and if it is used, then it had better be used with such mastery that it brings out something unexpected.

In academic-didactic works, this is a really common bad habit, because of the nature of the texts: they’re expository works, many of them self-explanatory, whose main purpose is to teach whoever is there to learn. This is why redaction should be really important. The student needs clear, well-constructed texts, where there’s no place for ambiguity or doubt as a result of bad redaction. Expressions like “from the above” only contribute to create vague ideas, without the necessary definition that helps the reader recreate a clear, vivid and precise image of what he’s trying to learn.