Are you about to learn the fundamentals of English writing or enhance your skills in writing? One of the vital segments to improve the flow, coherence, and clarity is knowing how to start a sentence.
The words or phrases called sentence starters are to set the tone and clarity of the rest of the sentence. They introduce what the next part of the sentence is about, so the reader can predict what to expect further. Typically they are separated by commas.
The list of sentence starters for college essays is available on different websites. However, knowing which ones, when, and how to use them is not always apparent. Sentence starters facilitate the reading process by smoothing abrupt transitions and preparing the reader for the main subject of interest.
This blog explains when and how to use them and then delivers specific categories and examples of sentence starters you can use in your writing.
Undoubtedly, your writing can be disorganized, confusing, incoherent, and hard to read without sentence starters. However, using them too much can overwhelm your reader too. Therefore, we would like to clarify the cases where a sentence starter works soundest:
Note that opening phrases aren’t necessary for all the statements. It’s not rocket science to figure out when to avoid them. If you’re on the fence about deciding whether to use or avoid them, try rereading certain lines of your essay and see how they bond. If your sentences flow together pleasingly, you don’t need sentence starters. If something appears crude, jarring, or simply insufficient, try adding one to see if it supports.
Below you’ll find examples of sentence starters relevant to specific categories.
Introduction or topic sentence starters are like the starters of an entire essay — they introduce a meaningful paragraph that is readable and expectable for the reader.
Varying your sentence openers prevents your writing from sounding repetitive, making a text more pleasing to your audience. Therefore, having examples of introduction sentence starters before you while reviewing your paper would be beneficial.
As the central part of an essay, body paragraphs may encompass myriad statements and thoughts. So let’s take a close look at the types of opening phrases depending on what they express.
Sentence openers compare or contrast information contained within the sentence with the information stated in the previous sentence. Some words and phrases in this class include “Yet,” “While this is the case,” “In comparison,” “On the other hand,” “In contrast,” “On the contrary,” Complementary to this,” “Nevertheless,” “Despite this,” “Similarly,” “Likewise,” or “Rather than.”
Cases when bodies explain a series of events are frequent. If you want to link them together and arrange them in the proper order, the following sentence starters can be handy. The list includes “First…, Second…, Third…,” “Next,” “After that,” “Later,” and “Moving on.”
These words and phrases add information or evidence to support previously made claims. They include “Moreover,” “Likewise,” “For example,” “For instance,” “Along with,” “To illustrate,” and “Consider the example of.” They are helping to support your claims with evidence.
Phrases for citing an idea from another work comprise “According to,” “As seen by,” “Based on the research of,” and “With regards to.”
Cause and effect statements are words indicating that the information in a sentence is a result of something stated in the previous sentence. Some examples of these essay sentence starters include “As a result,” “Consequently,” “Due to,” “Subsequently,” “This means that,” or “Obviously.”
These sentence openers show how long has passed or the opposite. This category includes phrases like “In the meantime,” “After a while,” “In a while,” and “Before long.”
There are situations where something is uncertain and needs to be proved. Not to misinform your reader, use the words like “Arguably,” “Possibly,” “Perhaps,” and “Although not proven” to leave room for doubt.
Sentence starters aren’t necessary for some situations, but they help make a point stand out. Reserve the following phrases for the sentences you want your readers to remember better: “Above all,” “As usual,” “Certainly,” “Absolutely,” “Of course,” “Obviously,” “Apparently,” and “Generally speaking.”
Your reader can be oblivious of some generally accepted concepts or not-so-common historical facts. In these instances, good paragraph starters like “Traditionally,” “Initially,” “In the past,” or “Up to now” can provide that context.
You need to be aware of whether your opening phrases serve their purpose of unifying the whole text or not.
Though conclusions and summaries relate to the entire paper, they don’t deliver new information. So when you’re writing a concluding paragraph, remember that sentence starters can indicate to your reader that you’re about to wrap things up.
That’s how they understand that you are summing up and don’t expect any new information:
Note that the phrases above can fit regardless of your work paper type.
To be capable of making meaningful sentences, one must know how to start them. Here are some tips on using sentence starters to create smooth sentences.
And last but not least, be minimalistic. If you’re going to apply a minimalist writing style, think about rephrasing your points in a short sentence.
