Introduction

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13

Cueing the Reader

Readers need guidance. To guide readers through a piece of writing, a writer can provide five basic kinds of cues, or signals:

  1. Thesis and forecasting statements, to orient readers to ideas and organization
  2. Paragraphing, to group related ideas and details
  3. Cohesive devices, to connect ideas to one another and bring about clarity
  4. Transitions, to signal relationships or shifts in meaning
  5. Headings and subheadings, to group related paragraphs and help readers locate specific information quickly

This chapter illustrates how each of these cueing strategies works.