When evaluating your transitions from idea to idea, question whether the transitions
appear too obvious, thereby undercutting your credibility. At best, when unnecessary,
readers perceive explicit transitional sentences to be wordy; at worst, they perceive such sentences as insulting (they imply that readers are too inept to follow the discussion).

Transitions: 

In an academic essay, transitions highlight the link between two distinct but interrelated ideas (e.g., two supporting ideas/topic sentences) and ease the reader from one to the other.

A transition can be made via a topic sentence; however, in many cases using a topic sentence for a transition can be awkward. One solution to this problem is to create a separate transitional sentence that (1) either precedes the topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph or (2) concludes the previous paragraph.

In general, such transitional sentences should point back to the point made in a previous paragraph while at the same time leaning toward the point that will be developed in an ensuing paragraph.

For example:

    Mary Cassatt, one of the few female Impressionist painters, lived in France although she was of American descent.  Unlike her fellow painters, who chose landscapes as their primary medium, Cassatt's main subjects were her immediate family.  In fact, her nieces and nephews were captured in many of her most famous works of art.

     For instance, the painting, Mother with Child, shows Cassatt's sister bathing her child. This painting not only illustrates Cassatt's use of her family as subjects, but also highlights the theme of mother and child.  The closeness of the mother with her child remains a constant theme of Cassatt's painting and sketching throughout the Impressionist period.