academic writing - What is the most effective way to transition from one paragraph to the next?

I desire to know how to transition smoothly from one paragraph to another in the body text, but there are a number of ways to do it and I don't know which is best. For instance, I could place the bridge sentence in the previous or next paragraph, or I could switch it up. There's also the question of whether the bridge sentence should follow, replace, or merge with the concluding sentence it if it is placed in the previous paragraph, or whether it should precede, replace, or merge with the topic sentence if it is placed in the next paragraph.