As we aspire to become effective writers, it is imperative that readers are able to smoothly navigate through the ideas. Without attention, though, readers will stumble from sentence to sentence and plod from paragraph to paragraph. They rely on the writer to facilitate the flow by including transition words and phrases that connect and show relationship. While a variety of transition words and phrases are available, each has a specific purpose and must be chosen carefully.
Thinking about standard, word, and idea transitions is important. Word and idea transitions are especially effective as you seek to connect the body paragraphs of your essay. Making connections between each reason and tying them all to the thesis will increase the effective of your evidence.
When selecting standard transitions, it is important to keep text structure in mind. How do the transition words in the following video relate to the key words we have been looking at when determining text structure? (Note: The anchor posters at the top of the post are categorized by purpose.)
The following video is related to revision in a testing situation; however, you can see how the process could be applied to revising your own writing.