This ESL writing exercise introduces students to the correct usage of transitions meaning “But”, which can be used to write essays that are more formal and appropriately structured.
Transitions
When you write a formal essay, you should not start a sentence with “And”, “But”, or “So”.
You can use the following transitions instead of “But”:
However / Nevertheless / Still / Despite that / Nonetheless / Even so
**Note 1: You usually start a new sentence with these transitions. You can also put these after a semi-colon (;).
**Note 2: When you start a sentence with these words, you need to put a comma after them.
Examples:
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- I’m a vegetarian. However, I sometimes eat fish.
- Tom said his English is terrible. Nevertheless, he got a perfect score on his English test.
- Pakistan is a dangerous country for travelers. Still, I want to go explore it someday.
- The water in the city is not safe to drink. Despite that, Kim gives it to her dog to drink.
- Terry is afraid to speak in front of people. Nonetheless, she is giving a speech at the United Nations next week.
- Brian goes to church every Sunday. Even so, he can be very rude.
- The tornado destroyed the entire town. However, no one was killed.
- The doctor said that Benjamin needs to stop eating meat. Nevertheless, he still eats a hamburger every day for lunch.
- Joseph said that his father is rich. Still, he should get a job and learn to be responsible with money.
- The school said that we can’t wear shorts. Despite that, Julie wore her new shorts and was told to go home.
- It has been raining for a week. Nonetheless, we’re going to try to go camping this weekend.
- Our guitarist is sick. Even so, we’re going to perform without him tonight.