Here are sample combinations for the exercises on page one: Building and Connecting Sentences with Transitional Words and Phrases. Keep in mind that in most cases more than one effective combination is possible.
- To be self-centered does not mean to disregard the worth of other people. In fact, most psychologists would probably accept the position that we are all self-centered.
- The differences in math performance between boys and girls cannot be attributed simply to differences in innate ability. Still, if one were to ask the children themselves, they would probably disagree.
- We do not seek solitude. In fact, if we find ourselves alone for once we flick a switch and invite the whole world in through the TV or Internet.
- Little girls, of course, don't take toy guns out of their hip pockets and say "Pow, pow" to all their neighbors and friends like average well-adjusted little boys. However, if we gave little girls the six-shooters, we would soon have double the body count.
(Anne Roiphe, "Confessions of a Female Chauvinist Sow") - We know very little about pain and what we don't know makes it hurt all the more. Indeed, no form of illiteracy in the United States is so widespread or costly as ignorance about pain.
(Norman Cousins, "Pain Is Not the Ultimate Enemy") - We drove the wagon close to a corner post, twisted the end of the wire around it one foot above the ground, and stapled it fast. Next, we drove along the line of posts for about 200 yards, unreeling wire on the ground behind us.
(John Fischer, "Barbed Wire") - The historical sciences have made us very conscious of our past, and of the world as a machine generating successive events out of foregoing ones. For this reason, some scholars tend to look totally backward in their interpretation of the human future.
(Loren Eiseley, The Unexpected Universe) - Rewriting is something that most writers find they have to do to discover what they have to say and how to say it. There are, however, a few writers who do little formal rewriting because they have the capacity and experience to create and review a large number of invisible drafts in their minds before they approach the page.
(Donald M. Murray, "The Maker's Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts")
