: Re: What is the most effective way to transition from one paragraph to the next? I desire to know how to transition smoothly from one paragraph to another in the body text, but there are a number

@Candy753

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If you always transition from one paragraph to the next in the same way, your writing will feel formulaic and boring. If you're writing a 5 paragraph essay and your teacher has given you clear instructions, by all means follow them, but for longer academic pieces (which can be dozens or occasionally hundreds of pages long) always transitioning in the same way may not work.

The key to a good transition is that each paragraph follows logically from the preceding one, just as each sentence follows logically from the preceding sentence. If the order of your paragraphs is well-planned and you have enough time to address all points, you may not need bridge sentences at all. When the topic for a paragraph is not automatically obvious from the preceding one, where to place a bridge sentence depends on why you chose this paragraph order. Is the new paragraph a counter argument to the preceding one? Then the opening sentence should make clear the opposition to the previous paragraph and this will serve as transition and likely also topic sentence. Is the new paragraph an answer to a question posed by the preceding one? Then the preceding paragraph needs to make clear that there is an open question or the new paragraph must point out the hole in the logic of the preceding one. If the new paragraph carries the weight of the transition, then the first sentence pointing out the problem may serve as bridge and a separate topic sentence may show the solution, or you may spend the entire paragraph talking about the hole in logic and the paragraph after addressing that hole.

Transitions require co-ordination from both sides. Once you have your transition written, read it. Read the preceding paragraph and the new paragraph. If the second paragraph does not seem to flow logically from the first, figure out where the flow breaks down and fix that. The fix may require adding a new sentence to close a gap, modifying an existing sentence to make the direction you are going clearer, or even reordering your paragraphs entirely.

Ultimately, Jason Bassford is mostly right. Transitioning between paragraphs is not significantly different than transitioning between sentences, the unit if writing is simply longer.

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