{"id":2195,"date":"2015-09-10T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2015-09-10T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2195"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:45:18","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:45:18","slug":"how-to-use-transitions-in-your-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/how-to-use-transitions-in-your-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use Transitions In Your Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nOver the years, I\u2019ve taught quite a few writing classes, both in TOEFL Writing and general academic composition. I always make it clear to my students that transitions<\/a> are very important. Without transitional words, your writing style can seem very choppy. Additionally, the relationship between the ideas in your essay can seem very unclear.<\/p>\n

The biggest mistake a student can make with transitions in TOEFL Writing is to simply not have any transitions. Fortunately, this mistake is not too common. English learners and TOEFL prep students are usually already aware that transitions are important and that they should be using them.<\/p>\n

But there is another mistake that is almost as bad as not using transitions\u2014and is much more common. Far too many students simply put a single transition word at the beginning of each paragraph. Often, that single transition word is very simple and non-descriptive, simply giving a number to each paragraph\/part of the essay. (Words like \u201cfirst,\u201d \u201csecond,\u201d \u201cfinally,\u201d etc…) These weak transitions make the ideas in an essay seem like a numbered list rather than coherent parts of a larger message.<\/p>\n

To see how these kinds of overly simple transition words can be improved on, let\u2019s look at an introductory paragraph to a TOEFL Independent Writing question:<\/p>\n