8) Understanding Transitional Language
Transitions help tell readers how ideas connect. Writers use transitions to clarify the relationship between concepts, allowing the reader to better understand how the author’s points build upon each other in a meaningful manner. Without transitional thinking, the writer risks leaving the reader with a paper that functions little better than a bloated list of thoughts.
When forming effective and natural transitions, a writer benefits from a logically planned and carefully executed paper. To some extent, this type of purposeful writing will allow transitions to begin materializing as an organic result of a consciously constructed piece—rather than requiring the writer to forcefully retrofit connective language between sections of an otherwise complete draft.
For example, if composing an informative essay about learning to water ski, a writer may reasonably decide to organize the main body of the essay in a series of chronological steps. This structural decision largely determines the type of transitional language that the writer will use—in this case, all phrases that relate various positions and conditions with terms of relative order and time.
With this topic and structure in mind, the writer might transition from a paragraph that explains the skier’s initial posture in the water to a paragraph that explains the skier’s technique for pulling out of the water. This transition may take the shape of a sentence at the end of the paragraph about posture:
After the skier adopts this seated position and the driver straightens the rope, the skier can signal for the driver to push forward the throttle.
The writer may then complete this transition by pairing the above sentence with a related thought at the beginning of the next paragraph, the paragraph about pulling out of the water:
As the boat accelerates and the skier feels the resistance of the skyward-pointing skis pushing against the water, the skier should initially maintain his or her compact posture.
Just as the paper’s structure suggests, these transitions use elements of relative time like “after” and “as” to help clarifying the connection between the different thoughts in the informative essay. In this way, the reader will know more than just a list of steps for water skiing. The reader will also understand how these steps relate to each other.
When writing about other subjects that lend themselves to other structures, the types of transitions will change because the relationships between the ideas will also change.
To show a transition between separate evidence working toward the same conclusion, consider using adverbs such as furthermore and moreover.
To show a transition between cause and effect, consider using adverbs such as consequently and therefore.
To show a transition from a general concept to a specific application of that concept, consider using prepositional phrases such as for example and for instance.
To show a transition from evidence to resulting analysis, consider verbs such as suggests and indicates.
Thoughts, Revised & Refined 