Transitions

Organization

and

In both academic writing and professional writing, your goal is to convey information clearly and
concisely, if not to convert the reader to your way of thinking. Transitions help you to achieve
these goals by establishing logical connections between sentences, paragraphs, and sections of
your papers. In other words, transitions tell readers what to do with the information you present
to them. Whether single words, quick phrases, or full sentences, they function as signs that tell
readers how to think about, organize, and react to old and new ideas as they read through what
you have written.

Strategies for Using Effective Transitions:

Link your ideas in multiple ways Use transitions between your paragraphs and within

your paragraphs to create clear connections between ideas.

o Transition between paragraphs: A transition between paragraphs can be a word or
two (however, for example, similarly), a phrase, or a sentence. Transitions can be at
the end of the first paragraph, at the beginning of the second paragraph, or in both
places.
o Transitions within paragraphs: These act as cues by helping readers to anticipate
what is coming before they read it. Within paragraphs, transitions tend to be single
words or short phrases.

Avoid using pronouns like this to refer to an entire idea - its not always clear what idea
you intend to refer to. It is always good to make things explicit.
o Weaker transition: Even if this is wrong, it helped to teach the sneetches a valuable
lesson that it doesnt matter what a person look like on the outside.
o Stronger transition: Even if Mr. Slyvester McMonkey McBeans deception is wrong, it
helped to teach the sneetches a valuable lesson that it doesnt matter what a
person look like on the outside.

Transition with entire sentences Sometimes one word is not enough to link two ideas
together. At times an entire sentence is necessary to make a connection between subjects.
(sentences are bolded, words and phrases are italicized)
o Ex: The last time I was at Cobbs Comedy Club, I sat through a very average
comedian, but was later blown away by the headliner. As my friend and I left, we
discussed why these two comedians had such different effects on us. It wasnt the
quality of the jokes we agreed that they both had good material. However, the
delivery was completely different. The headlining comedian masterfully
transitioned from one topic to the next. The segments were often seemingly
unrelated, but we hardly noticed. What resulted was a fluid show from start to finish
that captured our attention the entire time. Thats the power of good transition
sentences and phrases. They are capable of taking your audience or reader from
one idea to the next without sounding disjointed or jerky. Transitions thread together
several different ideas to create one cohesive story. But its done in a subtle way,
and thats why good transitions are so difficult to master in our everyday writing
whether that be an essay, email, or cover letter.

Transitional Sentence Patterns

Explaining Quotations
In other words, X believes _________.
In making this comment, X argues that _________.
X is insisting that _________.
Xs point is that _________.
The essence of Xs argument is that _________.
Establishing Why Your Claims Matter
X matters/is important because _________.
Although X may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial in terms of todays concern over _________.
Ultimately, what is at stake here is _________.
These findings have important consequences for the broader domain of _________.
My discussion of X is in face addressing the larger matter of _________.
These conclusions/This discovery will have significant applications in _________ as well as
in _________.
Although X may seem of concern to only a small group of _________, it should in fact
concern anyone who cares about _________.
Transition Words and Phrases
See the additional Transitional word handout