Coordinating conjunctions are words such as and, but, as, or, yet, for, and nor.
They link or join thoughts together in the middle of a sentence. For example:
I love pizza, so I eat it for breakfast.
Mother drove to town to buy groceries, but she came home with a present for me.
Coordinating conjunctions can also be used to begin sentences, as in these examples:
And I didn’t like parties.
So I did not do well on that test.
When you have too many sentences beginning with coordinating conjunctions, your writing becomes choppy. To make your writing smoother, use coordinating conjunctions only when joining ideas within sentences.
In the paragraph below, the writer uses a lot of coordinating conjunctions to begin sentences:
Baseball is the great American sport. And, it is thought of as a summer pastime. So as soon as the weather turns warm, all the neighborhood kids find a field to toss a ball around. And soon they form teams and play each other. But all summer, they always find time to listen to pro games on the radio. And they watch them on TV.
The paragraph can be improved by getting rid of beginning coordinating conjunctions:
Baseball, the great American sport, is thought of as a summer pastime. As soon as the weather turns warm, the neighborhood kids find a field to toss a ball around. Soon, they form teams to play each other, but all summer, they always find time to listen to pro games on the radio and to watch them on TV.
Summary: Coordinating conjunctions are very useful for joining thoughts together in the middle of a sentence. However, try to avoid using them to begin sentences in academic writing.
Thanks for reading!