Transitions

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Defining Transitions

Transitions (found in bold in this paragraph) are functional words or word groups, even whole paragraphs, that connect and show relationships between ideas in a piece of writing. Moreover, they show on paper that writers are aware that a reader can't read their minds. Anything that does this job, then, is a transition—even if it is a punctuation mark, such as a dash, colon, or semicolon; if it connects or shows relationships, it is a transition.

Importance of Transitions

Transitions enhance clarity and create coherence; they tell a reader how ideas, para­graphs, and sentences relate to each other. Transitions also enhance the continuity of writing, creating a flow of ideas from paragraph to paragraph and from sentence to sentence.

Using Transitions

Transitions belong between:

• Sections (dividing the major ideas or topics of the writing)
• Paragraphs (dividing the minor ideas of the writing)
• Sentences (showing relationships between them)
• Parts of sentences (indicating how phrases connect)

Writing—especially non-fiction, as the example below shows—usually lacks clarity without transitions at these levels. While the purpose of this handout is to encourage transitions at all of these levels, the example and list of transitions below focus on the paragraph and sentence levels.

Examples of Transitions

The following paragraphs have the same information. The first, however, has no transitional words or phrases to give the reader an idea of how the individual facts fit together. Compare the two versions to see how much sense they make.

Without transitions: Experiments show that important tasks can be accomplished with a hand axe. Homo erectus possessed other tools suitable for some purposes. The hand axe was costly to produce in terms of time, labor, and skill, and required larger blocks of fine-grained, faultless stone. Flint and basalt are fine-grained, faultless stones. The hand axe presented a hazard.
With transitions (in bold): Experiments show that this important task can be accomplished with a hand axe. But Homo erectus possessed other tools suitable for that purpose. Compared with these, the hand axe was costly to produce in terms of time, labor, and skill, and required larger blocks of fine-grained, faultless stone, such as flint or basalt. The hand axe also presented a hazard.

This is an exaggerated example; most paragraphs don't need this many transitions. In fact, writing can become overdosed with transitions. But the original version of this paragraph (with transitions) is supposed to demonstrate why Homo erec­tus didn't use a hand axe. This purpose does not come across in the example without transitions, which seems like a series of factual statements that are unconnected. The transitional words and phrases in the second example, consequently, show how these factual state­ments fit together.

In the example with transitions,

                   

This connects the reader to whatever "task" was being discussed earlier in the text.
                    But lets the reader know that we are contrasting other tools with the hand ax.
                    Compared with these introduces a contrast between the hand ax and other tools.
                    Such as shows that flint and basalt are examples of a certain kind of stone.
                    Also indicates that the information in this sentence is additional.

Kinds of Transitions

The bold-face categories below are divided according to the function of each word or phrase. Also, since transitions are more of a way of thinking than a limited list of words, many other words not on this list can serve as transitions.

Addition	Similarity	Result	Summary
Also	Accordingly	And	Finally
Moreover	Also	As well	Generally
Next	Likewise	Besides	In brief
Too	Moreover	Accordingly	In conclusion
	Similarly	As a result	In other words
Chronology		Consequently	In short
After	Location	For this reason	In summary
Afterward	Above	So	On the whole
Before	Below	Then	That is
During	Beyond	Therefore	Therefore
Earlier	Farther	Thereupon	To sum up
Finally	Further	Thus
First	Here
Immediately	Nearby	Example	Difference
In the meantime	Opposite	For example	Although
Meanwhile	There	For instance	But
Next	To the left/right	In fact	However
Second	Under	Namely	In contrast
Simultaneously		Specifically	Nevertheless
Soon		Further	On the contrary
Still		Furthermore	On the other hand
Then		In addition	Yet
Third		Such as
When		To illustrate
While

D.A. Reese, Feb. 1993
Revised by Emilee Cook, Aug. 1999, 2005
Revised by Trent Williams, summer 2005