Connecting Ideas

• Use additive transition words to connect ideas in your sentences. Additive transition words such as "similarly" and "equally" help you connect ideas. For example, you could say "Writing prose can be a formidable task to some, but giving speeches are similarly challenging to others." Or you might also say that "Work as a jockey is hard and equally dangerous compared to riding a horse for a rodeo competition."
  
  

Aiding Reader Progression

• Keep your book readers reading by writing stories that contain transition words that move the story along sequentially. Sequential transition words include "before," "next," "subsequently," "previously" and "afterward." The words "eventually," "after" and "then" are also sequential transition words that help your readers progress through your story. An example of a sequential transition sentence is as follows (notice these words: before and after) "Before you began reading this article, you may have assumed a transition word was unimportant, but after reading further, you then adopted the mindset that they're helpful."
  
  

Show Relationships

• Your sentence or paragraph may include supporting information that needs to be tied to your main idea in a story. Transition words help to show this relationship between the sentence or paragraph idea and the supporting information also contained in the sentence. An example of this can be seen in the following sentence: The article on the purposes of transition words was written because -- with "because" being the transition word -- her class needed to show they knew what the relationship between the main idea of the story was versus the supporting information within.
  
  

Significance

• Transition words have more than one function. Beyond connecting ideas, aiding reader progression or showing relationships within your sentences or paragraphs, they signal conflict -- the word "but" and the phrase "on the other hand" are conflict transition words -- or emphasize a point, such as the phrase "above all." Transition words show cause and effect, too, using such phrases as "due to" or "for this reason."