Along with power enhancers, writers also make use of devices that clarify their writing. These include transitional words and phrases. Look at the last sentence of Section 3. Do you see two phrases in that sentence that make the sentence easier to understand?

What if that sentence had been written this way: “Using these techniques incorrectly is going to cause confusion; it can be said that using analogy and antithesis might weaken your writing”? This version of the sentence makes sense, but adding “in fact” and “therefore” helps you feel what this sentence means and how it relates to the context of the paragraph.

Transitional words and phrases do the work that intonation does when you talk. These transitions also make clear how one part of the sentence, or one part of the essay, relates to the parts before and after it.

However, just as with the power enhancers of analogy and antithesis, transitions must be used correctly. For the following passages, see if you can choose the best transition from the list of choices to fill in the blanks. Click on the box in front of the transitional word or phrase you have selected to get a response.

1. ______ I like both the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but I don’t understand why they write songs about middle-age people with middle-age problems.

2. _________ several songs come to mind immediately: “Mother’s Little Helper,” “When I’m Sixty-Four,” “Taxman,” and “Nowhere Man.”

3. It’s not that I don’t like these songs; I just think it’s strange for the Beatles and the Stones to have written them when they were not middle aged. _________ it is as if they were writing for a time in the future when they would be middle aged.

4. ______ it almost seems like they were able to look ahead to their middle-aged years in a way that not many young people can.

5. ______ maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe they just thought it was sort of funny to write songs so unlike the teen angst songs about love and rebellion.

6. All the songs written by the Beatles and the Stones that have middle-aged subject matter are well known and well loved. ___________ it doesn’t make too much difference why they did this; we should just be glad they did.

Revision Time

1. Also; Therefore: I’m getting tired of constantly texting my friends. It just doesn’t ever seem that we come to a stopping point in our conversations. I’m spending too much money. I’m going to change the way my friends and I communicate.
   
   
2. To put it another way; And: E-mail is different because your message seems like a letter rather than a comment. An e-mail message is more like writing letters, and texting is more like talking.
   
   
3. By contrast; For instance: It is also much more likely that an e-mail will be several sentences long, even several paragraphs long. Today I got an e-mail from a friend in Wisconsin who told me about his new living situation, his new job, and his ideas for developing a website. Nobody would write all of that in a text.
   
   
4. Of course; So: I know that sometimes texting is exactly what you want. Before I go to pick up my friend every Sunday to play pool, I always text him that I’m on my way so when I get there he is ready to leave. I couldn’t do this by e-mail. I’m not going to completely stop texting.
   
   
5. But; On the other hand: I’m tired of texting so much, but I’m not going to give it up. I know that there are times when it seems to be taking up too much of my life. There are other times when, if I couldn’t do it, I would really miss it.
   
   
6. However; In fact:There are many ways to communicate besides texting. I might branch out even beyond e-mail. I might actually write a letter and send it to someone by regular mail.