Transition Words In An Essay

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been taught that it’s a sin to start a sentence with “and” or “but.” And being the rebel writer I am, I love to break this rule (Transitions are meant to guide your reader through your essay from idea to idea and section to section.

Consequently, there’s this tendency to spell everything out. Now that you know why transition words are important and how to use them correctly, let’s take a look at 97 transition words for essays.

It’s also important that you present them in a logical order.

After all, we can only focus on one idea at a time. They allow us, as writers, to seamlessly move from one idea to the next.

On the macro level (sections and paragraphs), we often use whole paragraphs or sentences to transition from one idea to the next.

However, on the micro level (between and within sentences), we use transition words.

They also let us do so in a way that’s almost imperceptible to the reader.

Let’s take this quote as an example: In this quote, we see the speaker uses the transition word “but” to shift from the difficulty related to life transitions to the positives that can come from them.

It flows so well that you don’t even notice the word.

In contrast, imagine if she said, “Times of transition are strenuous.