Adding and listing
Here are some useful linking words and phrases for adding or listing information. The three functions we list are a) continuing the same thought, b) showing chronological order and c) showing order of importance.
Continuing the same thought
To show that you are adding something to a thought that you have already introduced, start the next sentence with a word like moreover, furthermore, or in addition:
The word besides
Take care when using besides. Used alone, it has a conversational tone. It has a more formal tone when followed by a noun phrase or an ing-form (3b). The linking phrase in addition has a more formal tone (3c).
Informal:
(3a) Learning from human demonstrations is challenging. The learner agent does not have access to human actions to clone its behavior. Besides, robot arms and human arms have many differences, which introduces a large domain gap.
More formal:
(3b) Learning from human demonstrations is challenging. The learner agent does not have access to human actions to clone its behavior. Besides this problem, robot arms and human arms have many differences, which introduces a large domain gap.
(3b) Learning from human demonstrations is challenging. The learner agent does not have access to human actions to clone its behavior. In addition, robot arms and human arms have many differences, which introduces a large domain gap.
Showing chronological order
It is a good idea to use the adverbs such as next, then, firstly, and lastly to clarify chronological order, as in examples (4) and (5) from two Method sections:
Showing order of importance
Example (5) shows how firstly, secondly and thirdly can also be used to indicate an order of importance, or simply highlight the items in a list: