The art of segue involves moving a conversation or topic’s scope to wider or narrower or even different subjects without losing coherence. We are naturally good at segues in our daily conversations.
Next time, observe how your friends segue from one topic to another. They are sporadic and randomly emerge from ‘top of the mind’ worries.
A person talking excessively about money is likely facing the stresses of managing money.
A person talking excessively about weight loss is likely struggling to lose weight.
A person talking down on another political party or ideology has a secret wonderment or even appreciation at how the ‘out-group’ tribe or ideology has gained such a mass following.
A person feeling like an outsider based on their most prominent ‘identity’ will share their lack of belonging or narrate incidents of injustice to that one identity.
Our subconscious is often laid out in interesting mishmash of consciousnesses through MBA essays.
Here are 5 Strategies to Create Interesting Segues
2) Refer to the Previous Paragraph – Directly or Indirectly
1) Abrupt Segues
The best segues move the Essay from a hobby narrative to a career narrative. It could be structured as a logical progression – the most cliched form or introduced at an unexpected moment (random) to force the reader to pay attention to your story.
This unexpected transition will always look abrupt. There won’t be any connections in segues except for the theme.
Segues need a smooth transition. But if the goal is to pay attention to your story, abrupt transitions force the reviewer to read the essays.
Most of my brainstorming with clients while editing essays is on segues. Applicants with limited background in writing find such segues unnatural. I often explain why these random transitions are essential to hook the reader to the W-pattern - a concept that I have explained elaborately in F1GMAT’s Winning MBA Essay Guide.
There are other ways to smoothen the theme of the transition by using personality traits, identity, life experiences, origin of values, or by introducing a person.
2) Refer to the Previous Paragraph – Directly or Indirectly
I assumed that the technique is common knowledge but in MBA Essay Editing, I began to notice applicants missing this obvious connection.
Directly referring to the previous paragraph with words like “experience,” “trauma,” “tragedy,” or “setback” should be the last option. But I have seen clients spending an inordinate amount of time, working on the transition between paragraphs that they lose touch with the question asked or the overall impact of the story. Use such fillers for the first draft. After finishing the essay, start working on the paragraph transition. This is a better use of your time than getting lost in a few elements of your essay.
The school knows that you are not a professional writer. Such small transgressions are forgiven if your overall story is impactful.
Indirect Reference: The indirect reference to the previous paragraph is a learned skill. The first line in the segue that leads to the theme of the second paragraph would have no direct reference, but as you, the applicant, expand on a topic, theme, or initiative, the admissions team will connect the dots.
The best essays, movies, or branding messages are never sequential or literal. There is always a gap that forces the audience, reader, or viewer to connect the dots. They feel rewarded for solving the puzzle.
The gap should be minimal.
Too wide a gap can lead to disinterest in your story.
Processing fluency is a factor that you should consider while editing your resume and essays or even guiding supervisors with guideline documents.
3) Introduce Paragraph Gap
If you use the technique poorly, the essay will look disjointed.
In this technique, the first paragraph will have a mention of an initiative or an event, but the second paragraph will logically lead to a new topic or theme. But in the third paragraph, you are introducing the theme from the first paragraph back or quoting the event as if the third paragraph is the segue to the first paragraph. This is an art form and needs a lot of practice. So don’t use this unless you have extensive blogging or writing experience.
The paragraph gap in MBA Essays is a technique to bring back the attention of the reader to your personal brand right at the time when the reviewer loses interest in the story – mostly by the end of the 2nd paragraph in a 3-5 paragraph essay.
4) Current Mood of the Nation
In a polarized society, this strategy might backfire if you don’t care about using this segue technique.
In liberal and centrist colleges – which accounts for most top US Business Schools, taking a risk by highlighting ‘one incident’ from a recent news cycle is an excellent way to let the reviewer in their 30s or 40s or some in their 50s care for causes that they also care deeply about.
Just narrating ambitions or goals or entry into an industry can look mundane if the segue has no connection with current events.
The best examples I have read were during the extremely charged-up news cycle around ‘George Floyd’s’ death.
The risk here is that your competitors will also start using this strategy, by quoting a current event and connect with their volunteering or extra-curricular initiatives.
Use controversial events only as a segue and not as a central theme to avoid trivializing sensitive issues.
Remember when a multi-millionaire actress sang ‘Imagine’ in her cozy bungalow while people were losing jobs from restricted mobility?
Avoid such PR plunder by using care in introducing sensitive topics.
Narratives on the conflict in the Middle East are likely to be in MBA Essays. These segues are relevant only if your identity is closely related to those affected by conflicts and wars. Or you have a long track record (3+ years) of serving in a non-profit that has helped those affected by such wars.
5) Best Segues – Organic Feel
The best segues have an organic feel.
I have yet to write a good Sample MBA Essay for F1GMAT’s Essay Guides that were structured like a computer program. That is the fun of writing.
Unlike analytical exercise of due diligence in banking or designing a technology or an analyst function, writing is an opportunity to truly free yourself of any rules.
Internalize these rules and then write freely.
