when writing an essay the connections between your ideas are clear in your head but those connections may not be as clear for your readers to help your readers better understand how your ideas relate to one another you'll need to use transitions in this video you'll learn all about three ways to transition between paragraphs and sentences let's start first what are transitions transitions are words phrases and sentences that connect one idea to another they help us bridge ideas and eliminate confusion for readers without clear transitions writing becomes choppy and doesn't show the relationship between sentences and paragraphs let's take a look at different types of transitions the first way to transition between ideas is to use transitional words or phrases to add to an idea and smoothly flow from the previous sentence you can use transition words like also in addition moreover furthermore or besides or you can use the correlative conjunction not only but also notice that a comma is used after the transition words and for the correlative conjunction a comma is used to separate the two clauses for ideas with cause and effect relationships you can use accordingly consequently as a result therefore so or subsequently in order to contrast ideas use transitions like although however on the one hand on the other hand regardless despite or in contrast keep in mind that transitions like although despite or regardless are subordinate conjunctions so the comma goes after the clause rather than the word when you compare ideas use transitions like similarly both in the same way likewise or the phrase just as so do here are some examples of comparison transition words and phrases take note of the punctuation and notice how all of the transition words are used differently next when proving your point with an example use for instance for example specifically or to illustrate in order to elaborate or clarify a point use in other words or as explained finally to show your ideas are related by time or sequence use transitions like first second meanwhile then while next or finally here are some examples of transition words and phrases take note of the punctuation and notice how all of the transition words are used differently besides transition words you can use pointing words to repeat ideas and connect them pointing words include this that these or those in the following example you can see how this refers to the idea in the previous sentence if you use this strategy be sure that your pointing word clearly refers to a specific idea in the previous sentence and is not easily confused with other parts of your argument lastly in addition to transition words and pointing words you can repeat key words or ideas concisely when you repeat the idea of a previous paragraph it helps your audience see the connection to the current paragraph for instance here is an outline of an essay on how to cook in the first paragraph i discussed the importance of reading a lot of recipes in the second paragraph i discuss practicing common cooking techniques in order to connect them the first sentence of my second paragraph starts with a transitional phrase and repeats the idea from the first paragraph using different words it's important to repeat ideas without the exact wording to avoid monotony so to summarize you can connect your ideas with transition words or phrases pointing words like this or that and repeating key ideas from previous paragraphs using these transition strategies will help your readers to follow your ideas and understand how they're all related to your overall point congrats now you know all about transitions please like and subscribe for more content happy writing