3.3: 3.3 Connecting New Ideas-Transitional Words and Phrases
- Page ID
- 170505
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As the staircase in the house takes you from the first floor to the second floor, transitional words and phrases show the connections or relationships between sentences and paragraphs and help your writing flow smoothly from one idea to the next.
The Flow
A paragraph flows when ideas are organized logically and sentences move smoothly from one to the next. Transitional words and phrases help your writing flow by signaling to readers what’s coming in the next sentence. In the paragraph below, the topic sentence and transitional words and phrases are underlined.
Some companies court the public by mentioning environmental problems and pointing out that they do not contribute to these problems. (Topic Sentence) For example, the natural gas industry often presents natural gas as a good alternative to coal. However, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the drilling and extraction of natural gas from wells and transporting it through pipelines leaks methane, a major cause of global warming (“Environmental Impacts”). Yet leaks are rarely mentioned by the industry. By taking credit for problems they don’t cause and being silent on the ones they do, companies present a favorable environmental image that often obscures the truth.
The page titled 21.2: Paragraphs and Transitions is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by OpenStax via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.
In what follows, we’ve included a list of frequently used transitional words and phrases that can help you establish how your various ideas relate to each other. We’ve divided these words and phrases into categories based on the common kinds of relationships writers establish between ideas.
Two recommendations:
Use these transitions strategically by making sure that the word or phrase you’re choosing matches the logic of the relationship you’re emphasizing or the connection you’re making. All of these words and phrases have different meanings, nuances, and connotations, so before using a particular transitional word in your paper, be sure you understand its meaning and usage completely, and be sure that it’s the right match for your paper’s logic.
Use these transitional words and phrases sparingly because if you use too many of them, your readers might feel like you are over explaining connections that are already clear.
Categories of Transition Words and Phrases
Transitions to help establish some of the most common kinds of relationships. See the link below.
Table of Transitions with Relationships and Exercises
Exercises
Using a paragraph that you create from one of the following topics, include transitional words and/or phrases that will connect the ideas together in your paragraph.
Choose one of the following topics: 1) Relationships 2) Gender 3) Stereotypes 4) New Technology 5) Pizza 6) Social Media.
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