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Writing a Good Transition Sentence 5388 Views


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Description:

Transitioning smoothly from one sentence to the next can be tough. With a little bit of our help, your teacher will be calling you Mr. or Ms. Suave in no time.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:08

How to Write a Good Transition Sentence a la Shmoop.

00:12

You can’t go from the highway to… anywhere else… without an exit ramp.

00:17

You can’t get from one classroom to another without going down a hallway.

00:20

And you can’t go from one point to another in an essay without a transition.

00:26

So how do you write good transition sentences?

00:30

Transition sentences exist to guide your reader from one idea to the next.

00:35

You don’t want to jump from talking about Violet Beauregard to talking about serial

00:39

killers without some sort of tradition.

00:42

Unless your reader really hates Willy Wonka, or blueberries, they are not going to follow

00:46

that logic.

00:48

If an essay represents your train of thought, each of the paragraphs are different cars

00:52

on this train.

00:53

They need to be hooked together by a strong transition, or one of them is going to jump

00:57

the tracks.

00:58

And if that’s the dining car, it’s going to make a huge mess.

01:02

Think of the feedback you’ve received from your teacher and peers.

01:05

If they’ve called your work choppy or disjointed or hard to follow, you might just need a few

01:10

good transitions to get your essays back on track.

01:14

The first thing to try is to simply use transition words such as next and however to link your

01:18

paragraphs together.

01:25

Your transition sentence can come at the end of a paragraph, or at the beginning of the

01:29

next one.

01:30

Experiment with both and see where it feels right.

01:33

If your ideas are similar, you can link them together with phrases like “also,” “likewise,”

01:39

or “in the same way.”

01:51

In much the same way… but a little different… sometimes you need to contrast things.

01:56

When contrasting, you can use linking words and phrases like but, yet, nevertheless, and

02:02

however.

02:03

However… hey, look what we just did… if you’re listing things, like detailed characteristics

02:08

of the different cars in a descriptive essay about trains, transitions come in handy, too.

02:13

Here are a few good transitions to use when providing additional support to your thesis:

02:19

additionally, also, in addition, and furthermore.

02:23

Furthermore, there are times when you need to emphasize a point. Perhaps right before

02:28

you go into your kick-butt closing paragraph.

02:30

Good, emphatic transitions include indeed, in fact, truly, and, of course, of course.

02:38

Of course… whoa, did it again… there is no set way to transition between paragraphs.

02:45

Sometimes all you need is a next or a however.

02:47

Sometimes you can compare with words like also and likewise.

02:51

Or contrast with words like but and nevertheless.

02:55

Or emphasize your point with indeed, in fact, and of course.

03:02

Finally…

03:07

…that’s a good transition word, too…

03:14

…never underestimate the power of a well-placed and.

03:18

Sometimes the small words are the best…

03:20

…especially when you’re trying to stop a runaway train.

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