Craig Dodge - Blog

I often hear my students use the adverb "besides" to add information or details, but it just never sounds right to me. In most of the situations where I heard it, it would have been better to use words like "additionally", "furthermore" and "moreover" (among others). So what's the difference?

If you look in a dictionary, or use translation software, words like "besides", "additionally", "futhermore" and "moreover" mean the same thing. Even though the dictionary and thesaurus say that they mean basically the same thing, we use them differently.

The subject came up again last week at one of my group classes. When someone asked me what the difference was, though, I was not happy with my explanation, so I did some Googling and found a really clear answer on BBC's Learning English website.

"Besides" is used to introduce an afterthought. The information that follows was not part of your original, planned argument. It just suddenly came to you. For example:

• 'It’s too late to start a round of golf now. We shall never finish before dark. Besides, it’s starting to rain.'
• 'He doesn’t have very much money and he doesn’t have very many prospects. Besides, he’s far too young to think of getting married.'

So use words like "additionally", "furthermore" and "moreover" for points that you had planned to make all along, and use "besides" if somthing just suddenly came to your mind.