As any content writer would corroborate, being grammatically accurate is one of the most important features of good writing. In addition, in order to display a good piece of content writing, you need to adhere to as many grammatically correct concepts as you can. One of the most important concepts, when it comes to good content writing, is the correct usage of Transition words.
What is a transition word?
A transition word, simply is, a word or a set of words (a phrase) that aids the joining of two sentences to become one. Transition words are links that join sentences and paragraphs smoothly so that there is no evidently abrupt jump or break between ideas.
Quite often it so happens that we miss out on this important writing skill when we develop content like blogs or articles. Many of us engage in penning down randomly thought up sentences and string them up with conjunctions, thereby calling it an essay. The only reason such articles don’t score well in terms of engagement is because they lack transition words or phrases.
Transition words help in engagement and SEO. The art lies in applying the right transition word in the right place and not just merely knowing about them.
How to choose the most appropriate transition words?
Using basic transition words in your content would put your readers off to sleep simply because they have seen them used excessively, far too many times. Using those conventional transition words like “first”, “second”, etc would bring no flavour to your content writing. There is nothing grammatically incorrect about using them. However, they are dull and fail to hook the readers.
Subtle transitions are the best ways to continue the train of thought without any jarring or abrupt change. It has be just the right amount of subtle. Not too mild that one cannot even make out if there has been a transition word of phrase used, nor does it have to be too bold like, “the next thing I will be speaking about is…”
Switching from one thought to another needs to be natural. It is like having a conversation with a reader, the only difference being, you and the reader are not facing each other. One would just not jump topics while having a face-to-face conversation now, right? The same logic is applied while content writing too.
In case you are wondering which transition words would make your writing sound natural, then you have nothing to worry about as we enlist a few good transition words to help you:
- But
- Yet
- Nevertheless
- Still
- Instead
- Thus
- However
- Now
- Subsequently
- Now
- Later
- Therefore
- Meanwhile
When you try to use any of these words, appropriately so, your writing looks cleaner and the ideas you express seem more naturally put. The difference in writing with transition words and without them is quite noticeable.
How to use better transition words?
Now that you know of some good transition words that you can use, you may not want to stuff your piece with all the words that you learned. That is more likely the opposite of natural writing. That is counter productive to your cause here which is good writing.
However, the best way to get better at using transition words is the age old, fail-proof technique that has never yielded a bad result in the centuries of existence – practice. Did you notice just how wonderfully it allowed us to transition from one thought to another with the usage of “however”?
Quick tip to get transition words right
Major marketers recommend transition words as efficient. The technique is as simple and effective as it gets. Make it a two-step process. Create a rough draft that has all your ideas places in a crude manner. Later, you refine them by arranging them, polishing them by applying correct grammatical rules and using transition words wherever necessary.
Re-writing can be quite a hassle, we know but it is a necessity. Especially, when you want your writing to meet top-notch standards. Once you manage to accomplish this, the results will show you that your efforts indeed have paid off.
Transitioning your content writing from basic or simple to classy and polished is just a couple of well-placed transition words away.
