Linking Words: Why Fewer Beats More in Your Writing

Use fewer. Guides list a hundred connectors, but examiners reward writing that flows, not writing that signposts. IELTS band descriptors treat cohesive devices as a weakness when they are mechanical or overused, so a connector on every sentence actively costs you. Roughly one per paragraph, at the joins that matter, is closer to right.

The problem with every linking words list

Search for linking words and you get the same article twenty times: a hundred connectors sorted into columns, with a promise that using them will raise your band score. The lists are accurate. The promise is backwards.

Coherence and cohesion is one of four criteria in IELTS Writing, each worth 25% of the mark. But it rewards writing where ideas follow each other logically, and connectors are only one tool for producing that. The band descriptors are explicit about the failure mode: cohesion that is faulty or mechanical is described as a limitation, and at the higher bands the wording specifically mentions under-use or over-use of cohesive devices as something that holds a script back.

So the candidate who memorises a hundred connectors and deploys them all has optimised for the wrong thing. What you want is a smaller set you can use correctly, placed where the logic actually turns.

What a connector is really doing

A linking word does one job: it tells the reader what relationship is coming next. Not decoration, not sophistication. A signpost.

That’s why they only help at genuine turns. If your second sentence simply continues the first, you don’t need “Furthermore” to announce it, because continuation is what a reader assumes by default. Announcing the default is noise. Where a connector earns its place is when the reader would otherwise guess wrong: a contrast where they expected agreement, a consequence where they expected another example.

Read your own paragraph and ask, at each join, whether a reader could predict the relationship without help. If yes, delete the connector. What’s left is the set worth keeping, and it’s usually about a third of what you started with.

The four jobs, and the words worth knowing

Almost every connector does one of four things. Learn a few for each job rather than twenty for one.

Job	Formal written	Neutral	Grammar note
Add	Moreover, Furthermore, In addition	Also, And	Moreover and Furthermore start a new sentence
Contrast	Nevertheless, However, Conversely	But, Though	However is an adverb, not a conjunction
Cause and effect	Consequently, Therefore, Thus	So, Because	Because joins clauses, Because of takes a noun
Sequence and conclusion	Subsequently, In conclusion, Overall	First, Then, Finally	In conclusion belongs once, at the end

Ten to twelve of these, used accurately, will carry any essay you write. The remaining ninety in the big lists are mostly synonyms of these with heavier register, and reaching for them under time pressure is where errors come from.

One caution on the contrast row. “On the other hand” needs an actual other hand: it should follow a stated first position, not float in as a general contrast marker. Using it without the setup is a common and visible error.

Sequencing words deserve a similar warning. “Firstly, Secondly, Finally” is genuinely useful when you’re listing reasons that have no other relationship to each other. It becomes mechanical when it’s the only structure you have, because numbering tells the reader the order of your points without telling them how those points relate. If your second reason builds on your first, saying so is worth more than counting.

What it looks like in practice

The difference is easier to see than to describe. Here’s a paragraph carrying the full connector load, in the style most guides encourage:

“Firstly, remote work saves commuting time. Moreover, it reduces office costs. Furthermore, it gives employees flexibility. However, it has drawbacks. In addition, some workers feel isolated. Therefore, in conclusion, remote work has both benefits and costs.”

Six connectors in six sentences, and the paragraph still reads as a list of unrelated assertions. Now the same content, connected through structure instead:

“Remote work saves the commute, cuts office costs, and gives employees control over their day. Those gains are real, but they aren’t free. Some people find the isolation harder than they expected, and teams that never meet lose something video calls don’t replace. The balance depends less on the policy itself than on how it’s run.”

One visible connector, and the cohesion is stronger. The work is being done by the combined first sentence, the reference phrase “Those gains,” and an ordering where each sentence answers the one before it. That’s the version that scores better, and it’s shorter.

The grammar traps that cost marks

More scripts lose marks to connector punctuation than to connector choice. Three patterns account for most of it.

• However. It’s an adverb, so it can’t join two clauses. Write a full stop or semicolon, then However, then a comma. “It was expensive, however I bought it” is a comma splice; “It was expensive. However, I bought it” is correct.
• Despite and In spite of. Both take a noun or an -ing form, never a full clause. “Despite the rain” and “Despite being tired” work. “Despite it was raining” doesn’t. If you want a clause, use Although.
• Because and Because of. Because takes a clause, Because of takes a noun phrase. “Because the traffic was heavy” and “Because of the heavy traffic” are both fine; mixing them isn’t.

These three are worth more attention than any amount of vocabulary expansion, because they’re testable, they recur constantly, and getting them wrong is visible to any examiner in a single glance.

Register mismatch is the other giveaway

Connectors carry a formality level, and mixing them jars in a way that’s hard to unsee.

“Moreover” and “Nevertheless” belong in academic writing. “Plus” and “Anyway” belong in conversation and messages. Dropping “Anyway” into an IELTS Task 2 essay reads as clearly wrong as “Nevertheless” would in a text to a friend, and both errors come from learning connectors as a flat list without noting where each one lives.

The safest approach for exam writing is to stay in the neutral-to-formal middle. “However,” “Therefore,” “In addition” and “Overall” are unremarkable in any academic context. The heavier options like “Notwithstanding” or “Hitherto” attract attention, and in an exam attention is rarely what you want. This is the same principle behind natural word pairing generally, which we cover in English collocations.

So how many is right

A workable rule: one connector at each paragraph join where the direction of the argument changes, plus whatever occurs naturally inside sentences. For a four-paragraph essay, that’s often three or four visible connectors in total.

Then produce the rest of your cohesion through other means, which is what strong writing actually does:

• Pronouns and reference. “This approach,” “these findings,” “such policies” tie sentences together without a connector in sight.
• Repeating a key noun. Deliberate repetition of the topic word is a cohesion device, not a style flaw.
• Ordering ideas properly. If sentence B naturally follows sentence A, no signpost is needed. Most cohesion problems are actually ordering problems.
• Sentence openings that carry the link. “One reason for this is…” does the connector’s work inside the grammar of the sentence.

Notice that three of those four cost you no vocabulary at all. They’re structural. That’s the part the hundred-word lists can’t sell you.

Learning them so they arrive under pressure

Knowing a connector and producing the right one mid-sentence in an exam are different skills, and the gap between them is the same gap that shows up everywhere in vocabulary learning.

The practical approach is to learn each connector as a complete pattern rather than a word. Not “however,” but “However, comma, clause.” Not “despite,” but “despite plus noun or -ing.” Storing the grammar with the word is what stops you assembling it wrongly when the clock is running.

There’s also a quick audit worth running on anything you write. Delete every connector in the draft and read it again. Most of them turn out to have been carrying nothing, and the paragraph reads faster without them. Put back only the ones whose absence genuinely changes how a sentence lands, which is usually the contrasts and the occasional consequence. Do this a few times on practice essays and you stop needing the audit, because you stop writing the unnecessary ones in the first place.

Say them aloud too. Connectors have their own rhythm, a slight pause after “However,” a run-on feel to “Because of the…”, and hearing that rhythm makes the correct punctuation feel obvious rather than memorised. It also matters for speaking, where the same words appear and the same register rules apply. The broader mechanics of getting exam vocabulary to come out on demand are in how to study vocabulary for an exam, and the same production-over-recognition principle drives C1 Advanced vocabulary.

How Vocaby helps

Vocaby is built for the retention half of this. With more than 29,000 words, it covers the mid-frequency vocabulary that academic and exam writing draws on, well past the common words you already have.

Every word carries IPA and real audio, which is what makes register and rhythm learnable rather than theoretical, and it’s the difference between a connector you’ve read and one you can say without hesitating. Example sentences show each word inside its grammar, so you’re learning the pattern rather than the label. Curated decks let you focus, and swiping keeps a daily habit small enough to actually keep.

FSRS spaced repetition handles the part that decides whether any of this survives to exam day. It brings each item back just before you’d forget it, so what you learned in week one is still available in week ten. You can browse the range in the word library.

Learn twelve connectors properly. Delete half the ones you’re currently using. Your writing gets clearer and your score usually follows.

Download Vocaby on the App Store to build exam-ready vocabulary with audio, IPA, examples, and spaced review on every word.