Using Transitions For Writing an Essay

Using Transitions For Writing an EssayWhen starting a new essay, using transitions to mark the different sections is something that many writers forget. I was shocked when I realized just how often my writing appeared 'wrong' without transition. Here are some tips to help you write an essay:* How often have you seen a student who is trying to write an essay with no proper transitions? I was once reading about this at one of my colleges and it left me thinking 'wow'. Let's discuss the problem. There are two things that lead to an essay looking like a 'we've seen this before' one being the lack of transitions and the other being a writer lacking confidence in his or her own abilities.* A transition is defined as a point where two or more words are moving from one place to another. Let's use the example of writing a three-paragraph essay with two paragraphs written in paragraph composition. One paragraph written in an essay style with two paragraphs written in a very different type of e ssay, such as diary style, or even one paragraph written in a vocabulary style.* An essay, as a rule, starts with a transition. In the example, we would start with a sentence saying something like 'He was the kind of guy who made things happen'. In this case, we would need a transition, for example 'who was the kind of guy who makes things happen'?* So why does a transition need to be used at all? Because when writing an essay, it is not uncommon for the student to lose their train of thought and you will find them staring at the paper looking rather puzzled. When reading a written piece like this, we see the student looking down at their paper then suddenly they are looking up. The transition here is in the transitions of sentences in the second paragraph.* If this sounds familiar to you, then this can be described as 'losing your train of thought' which, in a way, is a symptom of the writer lacking confidence in his or her abilities. This can cause you to write long papers because you are unsure of the points you want to make in your essay. Instead of waiting for the words to come to you, why not take control of the writing process by introducing transitional phrases into your essays?* A good rule of thumb for writing essays is to have paragraphs written one after the other. This works out well for students because they will need to move around between each section of the essay. You will want to keep the transition short because you don't want to go too long without a transition. Keep your sentences to less than five words, which again is considered a transitional phrase.* As a student, I was once asking myself why I was not writing any essays on this subject. One day I decided to do some research on writing essay and wow, the result was just as surprised as I was.