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How to Write a Good Transition Sentence a la Shmoop.

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

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

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

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So how do you write good transition sentences?

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

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

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killers without some sort of tradition.

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

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that logic.

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

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on this train.

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

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the tracks.

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

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

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

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good transitions to get your essays back on track.

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

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paragraphs together.

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

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next one.

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Experiment with both and see where it feels right.

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

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or “in the same way.”

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

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

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however.

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

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

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

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additionally, also, in addition, and furthermore.

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

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you go into your kick-butt closing paragraph.

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

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

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Sometimes all you need is a next or a however.

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Sometimes you can compare with words like also and likewise.

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Or contrast with words like but and nevertheless.

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

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Finally…

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…that’s a good transition word, too…

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

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Sometimes the small words are the best…

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

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