The Traditional Transitional Problem

by , May 3, 2010

You're writing your MBA application essay and you've got a lot to say. You create an outline, flush out the ideas, fill in the blanks, and then sit back and marvel at how efficiently you've composed the first draft of your MBA essay.

But then during a read-through you're shocked to find how terribly choppy your essay sounds. "Didn't I create an outline and stay organized just so that this wouldn't happen?" you ask yourself.

You've run into the classic problem of weak transitions. You've got great ideas and they're rather organized, they just don't flow well from one idea to the next. In fact, come to think of it, your essay reads more like a detailed outline than it does a coherent essay.

How can you iron out the seams that separate your ideas to create an essay that flows?

First you need to fix your transitions. Transitional tools include words, phrases, or sentences that bind paragraphs together thematically. Jumping from one idea to the next will appear choppy; connecting them by comparing and contrasting or blending a theme will help unify your essay.

Here are some tips and examples to help you achieve smoother transitions in your MBA application essay (or in any writing that you may do in the future):

• When writing about an influential person, describe first what those person's attributes are and then how that person with those attributes inspired you to achieve some of your goals. For example, you could write something like, "Sarah's unique leadership style inspired me to change the way in which I managed my sales team." And then use that as a jumping off point to discuss your leadership initiatives.

• When writing an MBA essay on leadership, you may want to discuss some professional experiences and some community service experiences. To transition between those two ideas you'll need to connect them with the theme of leadership. You could do this by introducing the leadership skills used during your role as community leader in contrast to the role you had in the previously described professional leadership experience. For example: "The methods I used in leading my sales team were vastly different from those used to inspire the six-year-olds in my special needs church group."

• In the same way, you can connect two ideas with a unifying skill: "Later, I took what I had learned as an intern at XYZ Consulting to start my own consulting business."

• When transitioning from one idea or experience to the next, start by referring back to a critical word or image that you had used in an earlier experience and relate that to the current experience you're describing.

Related Accepted.com Writing Resources:

• Sample MBA Essays
• 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid in Your Application Essay, a free email course.
• "MBA Admissions: Application Essay Do's & Don'ts," a free article.
• "Recipe for Disaster: Application mistakes You Want to Avoid," a free article.
• "Ten Tips for Better Writing," a free article.