{"id":952,"date":"2013-04-15T09:10:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T16:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kibin.com\/blog\/?p=952"},"modified":"2022-08-24T13:08:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T20:08:28","slug":"how-comedians-teach-you-to-write-good-transition-sentences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kibin.com\/essay-writing-blog\/how-comedians-teach-you-to-write-good-transition-sentences\/","title":{"rendered":"How Comedians Teach You to Write Good Transition Sentences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think back to the last time you saw a really great stand-up comedy show. The jokes were funny. The comedian was a good story teller, transitioning effortlessly between segments, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.<\/p>\n

Now think about a time when you saw a really terrible comedian. It may have been the same night; he may have been the opener for the headlining comedian. This experience was probably quite different. The jokes had potential, but fell flat. There were awkward pauses, and the entire bit seemed to be a mishmash of random anecdotes.<\/p>\n

This is a pretty typical experience, but most people don\u2019t actually analyze why they loved one comedian, but didn\u2019t care for the other.<\/p>\n

The last time I was at Cobb\u2019s Comedy Club<\/a>, I sat through a very average comedian, but was later blown away by the headliner.<\/p>\n

As my friend and I left, we discussed why these two comedians had such different effects on us. It wasn\u2019t the quality of the jokes; we agreed that they both had good material. However, the delivery was completely different.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The headlining comedian masterfully transitioned from one topic to the next. The segments were often seemingly unrelated, but we hardly noticed. What resulted was a fluid show from start to finish that captured our attention the entire time.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the power of good transition sentences and phrases.<\/strong> They are capable of taking your audience or reader from one idea to the next without sounding disjointed or jerky. Transitions thread together several different ideas to create one cohesive story. But it\u2019s done in a subtle way, and that\u2019s why good transitions are so difficult to master in our everyday writing whether that be an essay<\/a>, email, or cover letter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So what are transition sentences exactly?<\/h2>\n

A transition sentence is any sentence that is designed to move your audience from one idea to another without causing confusion or losing fluidity. You may have been taught that the words \u201chowever,<\/em>\u201d \u201ctherefore,<\/em>\u201d and \u201cfurthermore,<\/em>\u201d among others, are transitional words that, in turn, compose transitional sentences. However, this is the most basic form of transitional sentences. In this blog post, I\u2019ll be talking about more subtle and complex forms of transitional sentences and how they take your essays and writing to the next level.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, many people believe that transitions only happen at the beginning of paragraphs in order to connect their different ideas. That is not true.<\/strong> Transitions should actually happen within paragraphs to move slowly from topics and segments before introducing new ones.<\/p>\n

That sounds really vague, how about some examples?<\/h2>\n

Sure, but before we get into any written examples, let\u2019s look at what world-class comedians teach us about transitions.<\/p>\n

Stand-up comedy is much like an oral essay. The comedian tells jokes, usually in the form of a story, and moves from one segment of material to the next by connecting them with good transition sentences.<\/p>\n

Take a look at this short clip of Jim Gaffigan<\/a>.<\/p>\n