Transition Words

Transition Words

The best stylists become masters at artfully placing transition words in pivotal positions—i.e., places where the sentence or paragraph meaning "shifts" slightly. What follows is a handy list of common transition words and their functions. If you open sentences appropriately with these words it will help your writing to flow. One caveat though: Always keep the literal meaning of a transition word in mind as you use it—therefore, do not use "for example" unless you are introducing an example that links to the preceding information; do not use "nevertheless" unless you are offering a contrasting point. Note how this paragraph has required a minimal use of transition words; they should not be forced in where they do not belong. When you do use them, keep their broader functions (i.e., "causality," "emphasis," etc.) directly in mind.

Causality	Emphasis	Amplification
Accordingly	Above all	Again
Consequently	Certainly	Also
For this reason	Clearly	Apparently
Hence	Indeed	Besides
Therefore	In fact	Equally important
Thus	In short	Finally
	Obviously	First, Second, etc.
Intention	Of course	Further
For this purpose		In addition
In order to do this	Closure	Moreover
To this end	In conclusion
With this in mind	In sum	Detail
	On the whole	Especially
Location	To summarize	In particular
Beyond		In regard to
Here	Similarity	Namely
Nearby	Likewise	Specifically
Opposite	Similarly	To enumerate
Overlying (underlying)
There	Time	Comparison/Contrast
To the right (left)	Afterward	However
	At the same time	In contrast
Concession	Before	In relation to
At any rate	Earlier	Nevertheless
At least	Eventually	On the other hand
	In the meantime	Still
Example	Sometimes
For example	Later	Interpretation
For instance	Next	Fortunately
To demonstrate	Preceding this	Interestingly
To illustrate	Simultaneously	Significantly
	Soon	Surprisingly