THE OLD-TO-NEW WRITING STRATEGY
Move from OLD to NEW information.​
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Do not begin a sentence with NEW information.
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Instead, begin your sentence with words that refer to OLD information mentioned in the previous sentence(s).
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Keep your NEW information for the second half of your sentence.
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For example:
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The cast of Firefly, a space western TV series, returned in the film Serenity. In this film, (old) a fanatical assassin hunts one of the crew of the ship Serenity: River Tam, a seventeen year old psychic (new). River has intuited (old) one of the government’s oldest secrets: an experiment that cost the lives of an entire planet (new).
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Below is a sentence that is not clear because it moves from new information to old:
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Lately, most movies I’ve seen have been merely second-rate entertainment, but occasionally, some have worthwhile themes. The rapid disappearance of the Indian culture (new) is the topic of a recent movie (old) I saw.
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In this example, the writer has skipped abruptly from movies to vanishing Indian culture. To make the transition more clear, reverse the information in the last sentence:
A recent movie I saw (old) talked about the rapid disappearance of the Indian culture (new).
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