Have you ever found yourself unsure of how to link your points, explain your ideas, or show your readers exactly what you mean midway through your essay or article? Explanation sentence starters help here. These strong sentences help you to clearly, coherently, and insightfully express your ideas between your main points, your evidence, and your conclusion. Explanation sentence starters are a great tool in your writing toolkit whether your work is content creation developing blogs and articles, teacher looking for instructional materials, or student trying to improve her essays.
- Give your arguments background and depth.
- Lead your readers from your major points to your explanation gently.
- Clearly state difficult concepts in an understandable manner.
- Give your writing a refined, sophisticated flow.
What are some explanation sentence starters?
This guide is meant to be your one-stop reference on good explanation sentence starters. Whether you’re writing a short essay, a research paper, or a strong piece of persuasive writing, here you will learn what they are, what distinguishes them from other sentence starters, how to use them effectively, and find long lists of example starters you could use right now in your own work.
| General Explanation Sentence Starters | Evidence Explanation Sentence Starters |
| This shows… This highlights… This means… To explain… This illustrates… This underscores… This reveals… This suggests… This makes clear… This explains why… This demonstrates… This provides insight into… This brings to light… This emphasizes… This underpins… This signals… This adds depth to… This interprets… This shows us… This highlights the importance of… | This piece of evidence shows… This highlights how… This underscores the point that… This illustrates the validity of… This suggests that… This demonstrates the role of… This underscores the necessity of… This makes it clear that… This reveals… This underscores my main point… This highlights the significance of… This exemplifies… This supports the view that… This strengthens the claim… This proves… This further illustrates… This adds weight to… This validates… This explains how… This ties back to the main thesis by… |
| Point, Evidence, Explanation (PEE) Sentence Starters | Quote Explanation Sentence Starters |
| My main point here is… To support this, I can provide… For example… This piece of evidence shows… This highlights the main point by… This suggests that… This underscores… This illustrates how… To explain this further… This means… This is significant because… This ties back to my main point… This is demonstrated by… This piece of information highlights… This lets us know… This underscores the view that… This explains why… This strengthens the claim that… This shows a clear link between… This therefore supports… | This quote highlights… This shows us… This underscores the idea that… This reveals… This illustrates… This emphasizes… This brings to light… This makes clear… This demonstrates… This is significant because… This underscores the author’s main point… This lets us know… This underscores the view that… This supports the claim that… This strengthens the main argument… This highlights the author’s perspective… This shows how… This reflects… This deepens our understanding of… This is a key piece of information because… |
| Essay Explanation Sentence Starters | Explanation Sentence Starters for Essays |
| This is a key point in understanding… This highlights the main contention that… This underscores the thesis of this essay… This shows how… plays a crucial role in… This strengthens the overall argument by… This directly supports the main thesis… This lets us appreciate… This points back to the central question of… This underscores the significance of… This highlights a key piece of the puzzle… This explains how the main idea develops… This makes a strong case for… This reveals the underlying cause… This brings forward a crucial consideration… This highlights an important aspect… This underscores the necessity of… This shows the implications of… This contributes to the overall view that… This plays a pivotal role in… This ties back directly to the main thesis… | This is a key piece of evidence because… This highlights how… This underscores the main claim of the essay… This shows a clear connection between… This supports the view that… This plays a crucial role in understanding… This demonstrates the significance of… This reveals a deeper layer of… This underscores the necessity of… This makes it clear that… This illustrates the main thesis by… This is particularly important because… This strengthens the argument that… This explains how the author… This highlights the consequences of… This suggests that… This further develops the view that… This ties back directly to the main thesis… This adds depth to the overall understanding… This lets us appreciate the complexity of… |
What Are Explanation Sentence Starters?
Explanation sentence starters are phrases or expressions that directly lead into an elaboration of a point you are making. Usually following a piece of information—a main point, a bit of evidence, or a quotation—they enable you to relate it back to your thesis or central claim. Explanation sentence starters help you to go beyond just stating a fact or a piece of data and then letting it hang there.
- Set the background: “This shows…,” “This highlights…”
- Advance your point— “This means…,” “To explain…,”
- Clearly state the relevance — “This illustrates…,” “this stresses…”
- For a climate change essay,
- “The average temperature has risen by 1.5°C over the past 100 years.”
- You can follow with
- “this shows that climate change is a real and measurable phenomenon.”
- Should you be citing a piece of literature, “To be, or not to be…” you could say:
- “This highlights Hamlet’s internal conflict about his own
- future.”
- Explanation sentence starters help you to connect a piece of information to your main point or thesis, so transcending simple stating of a fact.
- Without them, your writing could seem erratic, lacking, or too literal.
- Having them guides your readers gently across your arguments and guarantees that your main points of view come across, helping your writing to acquire coherence, depth, and flow.
How Explanation Sentence Starters Differ from Other Types of Starters and Where They Overlap
- Generally speaking, general starters—such as “I think…,” or “In my opinion”—just express a view or observation.
- On the other hand, explanation starters expand and clarify, adding context, depth, and a clear connection back to your central argument.
- Evidence starters present a piece of evidence—perhaps a statistic or a quote.
- Starting explanations here helps you to explain why the evidence counts and how it strengthens your thesis.
- Point starters assert a claim, supported by evidence starting here.
- Starting explanations links the two and clarifies the importance of the point and the evidence taken together.
- Quote starters present straight quotes from sources.
- Starting explanations comes right after, interpreting and giving those quotes complexity.
- Because they naturally follow a piece of information you have presented, areas of overlap explanation sentence starters—often coincide with point, evidence, and quote sentence starters.
- Though they interpret and clarify instead of merely transitioning, they occasionally seem like transition phrases, in that they link ideas and generate flow.
- Like a conclusion sentence, some explanation starters (such as “This stresses…,” or “This highlights…”) can serve both a dual function: adding depth and also connecting back to your main thesis.
If You Loved This, Check Out Our Other Guides!
Looking for more sentence starters to take your writing to the next level?
Here are a few related articles you might find helpful:
Context Sentence Starters — Learn how to provide background and set-up in your writing.
Reasoning Sentence Starters — Discover powerful sentence starters to explain your thinking and connect ideas.
Sentence Starters for an Argumentative Essay — Get a range of sentence starters to structure your arguments and make your essay more persuasive.
