Transitional Words and Phrases to Make Your Writing flow

Strong transition words for essays are essential as they bind the reader with the content as the draft builds upon the subject's attributes. There will be a connectivity issue with the content reader without transition words.

Using transition words prevents the reader from swaying away from one paragraph or sentence to another without downloading the sense of the new information. Using transition phrases and paragraphs makes your writing easier to read and conveys the message more effectively.

Transition words effectively help to smoothen the interface of an article while making it easy to comprehend with logical connections between sentences and paragraphs in your essay.

What are transition words?

Transition words and phrases are a part of speech, and they are used to make coherent connections between ideas in a text. For example, you may be familiar with 'and', 'but', 'so' and 'because'.

The words are used to keep a logical, uninterrupted stream of thought and a seamless flow of paragraphs and sentences. The objective is to show your reader the connection between phrases, sentences, or paragraphs.

Using them helps your readers understand how your thoughts and ideas are related. But unfortunately, about 200 of them are in the English language.

What does Transition do?

A transition is a change in written or spoken thought from one idea to another that is accomplished through transition words or phrases. These transitions are usually placed at the beginning of sentences, independent clauses and paragraphs and thus establish a specific relationship between concepts or groups of ideas. Transitions increase your paper's coherence and make its logical development clear to readers.

The Purpose & Use of Transition Words and Phrases

Here are some of the most basic transitional word combinations that will help you join sentences. For example, words like 'and', 'but' and 'or' are some of the words that denote the usage of transitional words in a sentence.

Let's look at this sentence. This will assist you in understanding it better.

• She ran home. She reached there on time.
• She ran home and reached there on time.

As you can see in the example above, even this simple conjunction serves various purposes when you need to join sentences. In the first case, the sentence uses "and" as a transition word that similarly links two events. With examples like these, you can quickly learn what different transition words mean to help you choose the words that best make sense to you. Some other transition words are adverbs that describe how an action is performed or how it relates to another thought.

How to Use Transitional Paragraphs?

A transitional paragraph is a short passage explaining the relationship between two parts of an essay, often summarising the previous section to prepare for the following. Again, it helps the reader to follow your argument.

In general, transitional paragraphs are applicable in more extended essays or dissertations, especially those containing many independent chapters. Your reader may need a reminder of what you discussed so they can see how each section contributes to your overall argument.

Valid words and phrases for transition sentences

So what exactly turns regular sentences into transition sentences? Transition words.

Transition words and phrases are those road signs we mentioned earlier that guide the flow of your writing from one idea to another. The transition word you choose for a sentence is essential to your reader's ability to understand your writing. In many cases, similar sentences can have different meanings if they have different transition words. Here are quick examples of how word selection can turn an idea:

• We love to try out different local restaurants and explore new cuisines. Recently, we tried two new restaurants downtown.
• We love to try out different local restaurants and explore new cuisines. So, we tried out two new restaurants in town.
• We love to try out different local restaurants and explore new cuisines. Overall, we tried two new restaurants in town.

See how our example eating points changed dramatically by swapping transition words and phrases? Then, take a look at the most commonly used transition words and phrases for specific transitions:

Transition words and phrases to communicate similarities

• similarly
• also
• likewise
• just as
• in the same way

Transition words and phrases to express emphasis

• most importantly
• in fact
• because
• of course
• indeed
• to underscore this

Transition words and phrases to indicate cause and effect

• therefore
• thus
• because of 
• consequently

Transition words and phrases to denote the position

• above
• below
• beside
• under
• across from
• nearby
• far away
• adjacent

Transition words and phrases to illustrate a sequence

• first
• second
• third
• next
• last
• after that
• before you begin
• finally

Transition words and phrases to show examples

• specifically
• for example
• for instance
• to illustrate

Don't hesitate to connect with our experts to learn the skills to build content using transition words and phrases.