The simplest transition uses the repeated word — repetition of or reference to a key term or phrase occurring at the end of the preceding paragraph:
Despite my distrust of officers, I find myself sympathizing with Gen. Michael Dugan, who has just been fired as Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
Dugan got in trouble with the White House because he told reporters that if fighting broke out, we planned to run Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait by having the Air Force blow the hell out of Iraq.
He said we'd blast Baghdad and various military targets and maybe drop a bomb on Hussein himself. ...
A second method of linking paragraphs is to ask and answer a rhetorical question. Usually the question occurs at the end of the preceding paragraph and the answer at the beginning of the following one:
Some teachers of composition may assume that students are naturally eager to learn how to write. We don't. We are aware that writing can be one of the most upsetting, frustrating, and exasperating of all human activities. Seldom do the words pour out; seldom do they sound or look the way we want them to. And seldom do we or our students — or most people, for that matter — want to write. Then why learn to do so?
True, some people do find writing a release, an act of creation, ... If so, what's the point of learning to write?
The honest answer is that ...
The question-answer transition makes a very strong tie, but, as with the rhetorical question generally, it is too obvious a strategy to be called upon very often. In a short paper, one use is enough.
In the next type of transition you begin with a phrase or clause that sums up the point of the preceding paragraph and then move to the main clause, which introduces the main topic. If- and while- clauses frequently carry such transitions:
If I went through anguish in botany and economics — for different reasons gymnasium was even worse.
（James Thurber）
But while Bernard Shaw pleasantly surprised numerable cranks and revolutionists by finding quite rational arguments for them, he surprised them unpleasantly also by discovering something else.
（G. K. Chesterton）
In each case the opening clause refers back to the discussion in the paragraph before, while the main clause points forward to the new topic. On informal occasions, variations are possible as a prepositional phrase in this example:
Because of these differences in teaching methods, college throws more responsibility upon the student.
The summarizing transitions may take even briefer forms, using this, that, these, those, or such to sum up the preceding topic. These demonstratives as well as synonyms and pronouns are sometimes called Meaning Links.
Finally, you may link paragraphs by terms showing logical relationship, e. g. therefore, however, but, consequently, thus, and so, even so, on the other hand, for instance, etc.
Logical connectives seldom, if ever, provide the only link between paragraphs. Rather, they work in conjunction with word repetitions, summaries, pronouns, etc. In fact, all the various transitional strategies commonly occur in some combination. But whatever its form, an inter-paragraph transition should be clear and unobtrusive, shifting readers easily from one topic to the next without jolting them.
