A list of linking words: First Firstly First and foremost Firstly and most importantly To begin with To start with Second Secondly In the second place Third Thirdly Next Then Also In addition Furthermore On the top of that Moreover Besides What is more However In contrast On the other hand Nevertheless Therefore For example For instance Likewise Similarly In the same way Again Lastly Last of all Last but not least Finally (and) to conclude In fact All in all To sum up apart from… aside from… except (for)… excluding… if we exclude… as well as… including… not to mention to say nothing of… as mentioned earlier equally important more importantly more centrally worse (still) making matters worse more worryingly the first thing to consider is… the first thing to consider is whether… the first point I want to (the author wanted to) make is that… at the outset let me begin by saying that… my (the author’s) next point is that the next point I (the author) want(s) to make is that… this brings us (on/back) to… incidentally by the way to digress for a moment for the record to go on to resume to return to the previous point one should also mention… one might also mention… also worth mentioning is/are… it might also be mentioned that… it is also worth mentioning that… we may note in passing that… one should also bear in mind (that)