Transition Words & Phrases

Transitions are words used to show how ideas relate to one another.

Cause/Effect: The author links one action to another.

To this end	Hence	Accordingly	Thus
Then	So	Consequently	As a result
For this reason	Due to	On account of	This led to
Because	Since	If….	Then….
For this purpose	Therefore	Thereupon	Accordingly

Compare/Contrast: The author states how Idea 1 is the same as or different from Idea 2.

In like manner	Likewise	As well as	Similarly
The difference between	As opposed to	versus (vs.)	On the other hand
After all	However	And	Yet
Although	Yet	But	Again
Also	In the same way	Likewise	Once more
Similarly	But	Despite	Even though
In contrast	In spite of	Instead	Nevertheless
Nonetheless	Notwithstanding	On the contrary	On the other hand
Regardless	Still	Though

Problem/Solution: The author poses a problem. Get ready to see if a solution is provided!

One reason for that…	A problem	The difficulty	Sadly...
Unfortunately	A solution	At last…

Question/Answer: The author has posed a question. See if there’s also an answer!

How	When	What	Where
Why	Who	How many	The best estimate
It could be that	One may conclude

Sequence: The author is trying to put things in order?

Most Important	Until	For instance/example	Another
In fact	Also	When	Before/After
Next/Then	Not long after	Finally	Lastly
On (date)	At (time)	Again	And
And then	Besides	First...second...third	Furthermore
At last	Moreover	Still

Time: The author shows when things happened in relation to each other?

After a bit	After a few days	After a while	Afterward
As long as	As soon as	At last, at length	At that time
Before	Earlier	Immediately	In the meantime
In the past	Lately	Later	Meanwhile
Now	Presently	Shortly	Simultaneously
Since	So far	Soon	Then
Thereafter	Until	When

Examples: The author gives examples to illustrate a main point that s/he is trying to make.

After all	Even	For example	For instance
Indeed	In fact	Of course	Specifically
Such as	The following example	To illustrate

Place: The author shows where things are in relation to each other.

Above	Adjacent to	Below	Beyond
Closer to	Elsewhere	Far	Farther on
Here	Near	Nearby	Opposite to
There	To the left	To the right	Under

Concession: The author gives credit to the arguments of others. This is usually done to set up the opportunity to raise a counterpoint to the argument.

Although it is true that	Granted that	I admit that	It may appear that
Naturally	Of course

Summary, Repetition, or Conclusion: The author is attempting to summarize a line of thought before going on to something else or attempting to remind the reader of earlier points before bringing the writing to a close.

As has been noted	As I have said	As we have seen	As mentioned earlier
In any event	In conclusion	In other words	In short
On the whole	Therefore	To summarize