How to paraphrase betterusing sentence openers and transitions

Sentence openers and transitions are words or phrases that help you improve the links between the ideas in your written work. Adept paraphrasers frequently make use of transitions, sentence openers, and other writing techniques to paraphrase quickly, accurately, and using sharp, clear sentences. 

Paraphrasing services can help you to ensure your writing is unique, coherent, and reads smoothly. However, using a paraphrasing service is not a substitute for learning about the fundamentals of paraphrasing. Knowing the basics of paraphrasing can also help you evaluate the quality of other paraphrasers’ work.

Therefore, this article covers one of the most important techniques for paraphrasing a sentence effectively: namely, using sentence openers and transitions.

 

What are sentence openers and transitions?

A sentence starter is a special type of transition. So, first, let’s define what a transition is.

A transition, also known as a transition word or transition phrase, is a word or phrase that indicates how two or more ideas in your writing are related.For example, the word afterwardsfunctions as a transition in the following sentence:

“The drivers turned the bend quickly and, afterwards, started to race.”

A sentence starter (or sentence opener)is a specific type of transition that begins a sentence. Interestingly, most transitions are sentence starters. To give an example, notice how the same word afterwards from the previous example is here used as a sentence starter – not a transition:

“Afterwards, I felt a huge sense of relief.”

Importantly, most transition words work and flow much better as sentence starters. For example, consider the following rewritten version of the previous sentence, where the transition word interestingly is used instead – and more naturally – as a sentence starter:

“Most transition words, interestingly, work and flow much better as sentence starters.”

 

How are sentence openers and transitions useful for paraphrasers?

Simply put, paraphrasing is much easier if you have three essential tools available:

·         A thesaurus (or Google)

·         A dictionary (or Google)

·         A transition list (ideally created by you)

The reason why the first two tools are essential when paraphrasing is fairly clear. A thesaurus helps you find synonyms for common (and less common) words and phrases, while a dictionary provides a useful elaboration of the meaning of specific words and phrases.

The value of a transition list is less obvious. For this reason, it is usually only professional paraphrasers – those individuals who provide proofreading services – who use transition lists and create their own. However, transition lists are just as crucial for paraphrasing better, especially if you’re spent for time.

Transition lists are simply long lists of transition words; having immediate access to these, just as you do to synonyms when using a thesaurus, eases the process of rewriting and paraphrasing a document.

The fact that using transition words and sentence starters – by definition – will change the structure of the original sentence is also a key reason why they are valuable in the process of providing a paraphrasing service.