Linking Words

Linking & Connecting Words

It is essential to understand how Linking Words, as a part of speech, can be used to combine ideas in writing - and thus ensure that ideas within sentences and paragraphs are elegantly connected - for the benefit of the reader. This will help to improve your writing (e.g. essay, comment, summary (scientific) review, (research) paper, letter, abstract, report, thesis, etc.).
It is also fundamental to be aware of the sometimes subtle meaning of these "small" words within the English language.

"Linking Words" is used as a term to denote a class of English words which are employed to link or connect parts of speech or even whole sentences. They are also called connecting words. There are 2 categories of Linking Words (or Connecting Words):

Conjunctions

and

Transition Words

Connecting Words

Relations Between Words

A concept is an idea - and what is an idea? A thought which is in or on our mind. And what is that? Arguably, even more difficult to describe - if not impossible. So, to make it easier, how do we express ideas? With words - and more often than not - with attitude, gesture, movement, and any other kind of physiological behavior.

So, a concept can be expressed as something between a single word, and an elaborate and in extenso described philosophy.

A concept by itself does not necessarily communicate a clear, unambiguous, understandable meaning. Therefore, especially in written communication, it is more than helpful, to use words, which can join ideas (expressed in different words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs). For this, we need linking words or linking phrases. These are a set of words used to join concepts and to express the relationships between concepts. Depending on the linking words selected, the connection between the concepts becomes more apparent, clear, vivid, self-explanatory, definite or on the contrary, more nebulous, vague, inexplicit, ambiguous or obscure.

Complete List of Linking & Connecting Words

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Please feel free to download this concise and comprehensive guide as a 2 page cheat sheet Linking Words & Connecting Words — the PDF contains all the Conjunctions & Transitional devices listed on these 2 pages.

Writing Tip: Finding the right word for a text, letter, review or essay not only involves your brain's intuition and memory, but in these days frequently the use of search engines (although Synonym Lists can be a big help either). Read this concise article, peppered with examples, of How to Choose the Right Words for Best Search Results and your results will vastly improve.