Speaker 1: Hi. Welcome back to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. Today's lesson, we're going to look at writing skills. More specifically, we're going to look at transitions. Now, again, before I begin, let me tell you IELTS and TOEFL students out there, transitions are very, very important for you for the essay section of the test. Okay? Big points, if you use them correctly. Few points if you don't use them or use them incorrectly. Anyway, let's get into what transitions are and look at a few specific ones. What is a transition? A transition means a change from one idea to another idea. Now, there are many transitions in English. We use transitions to add information. We use transitions to show a contrast, although, however, etc. We use transitions to show conditions, if, unless. We use transitions to show... To get to a conclusion, therefore, thus. Okay? Lots of transitions. Very important because they can join ideas within a sentence, but even more so, they can join two paragraphs. So what they do, really, is they create flow. Flow is very important for writing. Okay? Flow makes it easier for the reader to follow what you're saying, and it makes it a little bit more interesting as well. Okay? So, to transition basically means to bridge. You have two ideas, you're connecting. You're creating a bridge from one idea to the next. Okay. So today, we're going to look specifically at in addition, in addition to, furthermore, moreover, and another something. Okay? These are very, very important transitions because they help you add ideas, one idea to another. Again, very, very important for TOEFL and IELTS because you're always going to be adding ideas to one topic. I'll get to that in a minute. The most important thing to remember here, and where people, I find, make the most common mistakes, and believe me, I have marked hundreds of essays for TOEFL and IELTS. Very, very common mistake, and what people forget. This basically means plus. You're adding. You're adding two things, and you're always adding, you're always adding at least one idea to another idea, so you will always have two ideas if you're using these transitions. Okay? So one of the most common mistakes I have seen on these essays is that people use these words, but they only have one idea. So I'm the reader, and I'm reading, reading, reading, and I say, furthermore, dot, dot, dot. I'm going, furthermore what? What are you adding to? What are you adding at all? And then I look around, and I only see one idea. If I'm the IELTS grader, and I'm reading your essay, you just lost at least one bend because of that. Why? Because you made me stop. You made me search for that second idea that is not there. Okay? Be very careful about that. If you're going to use these words, there must be two ideas, and they must be linked. They must have something similar between them, and they must be pretty close to each other. Okay? In addition to, furthermore, and moreover. These are all pretty much the same. This one is probably the most formal. This one is next most, and this is the most common. Now, if you're going to write a short essay, usually two of these will be enough. Why do you need to know how to use two? Because you don't want to repeat. You don't want to say, in addition, and give your idea. In addition, give another idea. In addition, give another idea. You don't want to do that. You want vocabulary variety. So use at least two. For a longer essay, you can use all three or four, as the case may be. Okay. Now, what's interesting about these, you can use all of these mid-sentence or to join paragraphs. Okay? Very important that you use them correctly, though. So let's look at some examples on how to use these. Okay, so first we're going to look at a sentence with the transition working inside it. Okay? His laziness caused the company to perform badly last quarter. Moreover, his attitude toward the board has put his job in jeopardy. Okay? So first, let's look at what's going on here. What are we talking about? We're talking about the person's laziness. What are we adding to this? Remember, here I put moreover. I could put furthermore. I can also put in addition. All three would be okay. So we're talking about his laziness. What are we adding to it? Look at the second sentence. What are the two things that we are adding together to get the two whole ideas? Okay. If you said attitude, you're correct. Laziness and attitude, these are both qualities of this person. So his laziness and his attitude caused the company to do badly and put his job in jeopardy. I could rearrange these two sentences into one, but I don't want to. I want to have this idea because this is adding to this. So I have one idea, I have another idea, but they're very much connected. Okay? So we use a word like this, moreover, furthermore, in addition. Okay? All of these, but all of these are about the same topic. Now, when we do, when we talk about an essay, when we're joining paragraph to paragraph, you have to be very careful. The last idea has to join to the first idea of the next paragraph using one of these transition words. Okay? Let's look at that now. Okay, so now let's look at an essay and you're joining two paragraphs, for example. My topic here is, the general topic is the internet, and what I want to say is that the internet is a good thing. Okay? Very, very generally. I'm going to use two reasons, I'm going to talk about two reasons, and I'm going to use basically one example. So the reason it's good is because it helps connect families and friends. This was my paragraph before, and then this is the last sentence of my paragraph, my body paragraph. So conclusion, the internet not only helps people connect to friends and family anywhere in the world, it also makes it cheap to do so. Right? So that's one good thing about the internet, communication, networking, social media, et cetera, Facebook, all that. Now, I want to go to my next paragraph, and I want to add to this idea, the idea of connection. The idea of communication, as why the internet is a good thing. So, in addition to friends and family, or moreover, furthermore, the internet provides companies with a larger network or a larger pool of prospective employees. Right? So I'm still talking about the same thing, connections, networks, but I went from personal idea to business idea. But, still within the topic of the internet, still for the reason of communication and networking, I went with one idea and the other idea working together for the overall idea. Okay? I hope this makes sense to you, because it's a little bit complicated. Any topic you take, any essay you write, where you're using one example or two reasons with one example to work together to support an opinion about a general topic, you can use these. In addition to, moreover, furthermore. But, if you're like this, let's say you're taking the IELTS, the TOEFL test, you're writing your essay, you're running out of time. You're not thinking properly, you're a little bit frazzled, you need a transition word, always use another. For example, another reason the internet is good is because it provides companies dot, dot, dot. Okay? This is your go-to transition. When you're stuck, you have nothing else, you want to switch to the next idea, always use another reason. But, remember, this is not your first choice. This is your last choice. These are your first choice when you want to add an idea. Okay? But, always good to have this in your back pocket in case you get stuck, you pull it out, ace of spades, etc. You're a winner. Okay. Lots of examples on www.engvid.com on the quiz, go check it out. Also, don't forget to subscribe to my channel on YouTube, and I will see you again soon for more lessons. Thanks.