hi there welcome back to my channel learn academic English I'm Jenna and on this channel I teach
intermediate and advanced level lessons for people who want to take their English to the next level
in today's lesson I'm going to be talking about one way that you can improve your writing and
this is writing that can be used in both school and at your job so in today's video I'm going
to show you a variety of transitions that you can use to help take your writing up a level
but before we get started I wanted to let you know that I have a handout for you with all
of these transitions on it and you can use this handout to study at home all you have
to do is go to the description box below click the link and download it and then you can keep
it for yourself no strings attached it's free for you to use so let's go to the first group
of Transitions and this is just to show ideas now this is the most basic type of transition
that we use in our writing and usually we use the transitions first second next finally but there
are other transitions that you can use too you can use first of all or firstly secondly lastly
now notice that for all of these I have a comma after them that means that they are the type
of transition that goes at the beginning of a sentence followed by a comma another way that
you can show these ideas is to use the first and then is for example the first reason is
another reason is now what comes after is it could be a noun or it could be a clause for example
the first reason is cost or the first reason is that the cost is lower
another difference is the price or another difference is that the price is lower
okay another thing that you can do is use adverbial conjunctions to show the
next idea and these indicate that another idea is coming in addition also furthermore and more over
okay let's go to the next Group which is for indicating steps these could be the steps in
a process this might be for a process essay that you have to write in school it could be to give
directions to show employees or other people how to do something usually to show steps we say first
second third next then finally but there are other ways that you can show steps you can say to begin
or you can say the first step is the second step is the next step is the final step is
or you can use after that or following that so my recommendation would be that
you use a variety of these if you're giving steps in a process you might say to begin
and then for the next one you could say the second step is after that the next step is and finally
okay for the next group it is to conclude and we can use this at the end of a paragraph at
the end of an essay in our conclusion paragraph or at the end of a presentation we can say in
conclusion that's the most common one but we can also say in summary or to sum up or to conclude
and again notice that these go at the beginning of a sentence followed by a comma okay let's see
a few more types next let's see some transitions that you can use to give an example of course you
can say for example you can also say for instance which has exactly the same meaning you can also
say an example of this is an example of this is plus a noun or an example of this is that and
then a clause or you can say take something as an example maybe you were talking about people
who are introverted you could say take my sister as an example and then explain it if you would
like to know more about how to give examples you can see a video that I have all about how to use
for instance for example such as Etc and I will link that above but definitely for now you want
to make sure that you're using both of these to add a little bit more variety to your vocabulary
okay next let's look at how to talk about a result the most common way is probably therefore or as a
result but we can also say consequently as a consequence or thus again these are all
adverbial conjunctions so you can use them at the beginning of a sentence followed by a comma
there's one more word here that I did not add which is hence that word is very formal and it's
not used as often but it is used in the same way so if you want to use that one too you can if you
would like to know more about how to talk about effects I'll link a video for that above as well
okay let's go to the next part and this is about talking about differences this
is a very common thing that we do in writing you can of course say however or in contrast
now in contrast usually shows a very direct or obvious difference between two things for
example cats are independent in contrast dogs need a lot of human companionship
on the other hand on the other hand is similar to in contrast where it shows just a very direct
or a very obvious clear difference between two things we can also use on the contrary but on the
contrary is a little bit different on the contrary is in response to something that someone has said
for example if I say oh I have heard that he is a very unkind person I can say no on the contrary
he's actually very nice now when would we use this in writing this might be if you report something
that people have been saying and then you would respond that that is not true but this one would
not be very common but it is used in some specific situations when you want to show that what someone
has said is not true and you want to show the opposite or different idea okay the next ones
are nevertheless and nonetheless and these show a difference that is surprising for example cats
are very independent pets nevertheless they can feel lonely if left alone for too long
okay you can also say one difference is so you have been talking about two things and then
you want to show a difference one difference is that cats are more independent than dogs
and finally unlike something something unlike cats dogs need more human companionship
unlike dogs cats are more independent so don't forget to get that hand out again
just go to the description box below and click the link please leave a comment and
let me know what other transitions you can think of in these different categories or
let me know if you have any questions I hope to see you back here again soon take care