Knowing Transitions

In the TTH 8:40 ESL class, Hye presented her slideshow on transitions. As a reference tool, students can look at her embedded slideshow below.

*Just ignore Slide 13 though ... any use of "I think" or "In my opinion" will set off red flags in my head.



The rest of the slides look fine and offer helpful words to transition between various ideas. They can be used within paragraphs or between one paragraph to the next (look at Slide 2 specifically for points on when to use transitions).

Also, some students like to set up the body paragraphs by writing "First," "Second," "Third," to start off each paragraph. If that is a habit, try to think of more creative transition words because those three words are often overused and signal a lack of creativity.

A variety of words makes an essay more interesting.