Transitions

One of the ways a speaker can help an audience follow what they’re saying is to use words and phrases that illuminate the connections between different parts of the speech. These words are called transitions (or sometimes connectors or signposts).  A transition is a movement from one thing to another, and that’s what these words indicate – they help your listeners keep track of the structure and content of your speech.

Imagine describing a house to someone over the telephone. You probably wouldn’t just list the objects and furniture: “I see a sofa. And a table. Now there’s a bed. And a window. There’s a stove and a sink.” If you wanted your listener to be able to picture the layout of the house, you would use connector words to help describe the space. “I’m walking through the front door. To my left is the living room. There’s a sofa with a table in front of it. To my right is the dining room. I’m walking through a door into a bedroom. There’s a bed and a large window.” This is how transitions work in a speech. Of course, not all speeches are about topics that lend themselves to spatial organization. But no matter the topic and organization of the speech, you still need transitional words and phrases to help your audience know where you are in the speech. Are you changing direction? (e.g., however, but). Are you going into deeper into a particular detail? (e.g., for example). Are you moving into a new main idea? (e.g., next). Are you giving an overview of the idea to come or recalling the part you just finished? (e.g., to preview, to review). Transitions allow your listener to understand where you and they are in the overall structure of the speech.

Purpose of Transitions

We are used to processing information both visually and aurally. Lectures and trainings are often accompanied by slide decks or outlines. When listening, we often take notes, writing the main ideas and important pieces of information in a way that helps us organize and recall that information.

When listening to a speech, however, audience members rarely take notes and a good speaker does not rely on a slide deck to illustrate the outline of the presentation. Therefore, the audience loses the visual aspect of processing information. This loss creates the need for obvious, succinct, and repetitive audible organizational tools that the speaker can use to usher their audience through their presentation. The general rule of a presentation is tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you’ve said.

Take a moment to consider the characteristics of effective audible organizational tools. To do so, imagine that you are driving on a road trip. The first thing you would do is preview your route to get an understanding of how long the drive should be, the general direction in which you will be moving, and any major towns or cities you will drive through. If you try to include too many details in this general route, you likely wouldn’t remember it, so you only want to note the overview.

Then, while driving, you will need to recognize any signs that indicate exits, merges, street names, speed limit changes, etc., so that you can take the action you need to. These signs need to be clearly visible and easy to understand at a glance so that you can keep moving. It’s also helpful to see confirmation of the road or direction from time to time to ensure that you are going the right way. Similarly, the organizational tools you provide in your speech should be easy to identify and follow for your audience.

There are two main goals of transitions:

Goal #1: Connect Ideas

The content of your outline may be solid, but presenting only that content to your audience without transitions among ideas may make for a very choppy, abrupt speech. Transitions help connect those ideas, just as connective tissue links together the bones in your body. Transitions should help you seamlessly move your audience’s focus from one idea to the next.

Goal #2: Help the Audience Follow Along

When reading, you have the visual cues of paragraph indentations, chapter breaks, and headings serve to help you organize and process information. In a speech, those visual cues are unavailable to your audience. Therefore, you must create audible organizational cues to help the audience follow along, organize, and recall the information that they hear.  Even though it may feel awkward and repetitive to so blatantly state previews, transitions, and summaries, it is necessary for a smooth presentation and to help your audience to process what they hear.

Types of Transitions

This is an important concept no matter what type of transition you’re using. Transitions should be:

• Obvious: The audience should be able to easily identify that they are hearing a preview, transition, or review.
• Succinct: Just like a road sign, the organizational tools should be very brief, simple, and clear.
• Repeated: The same words should be used to preview, review, and transition as it will help the audience identify where they are in the speech.

Previews, Reviews, and Summaries

A preview provides a road map for what’s to come, much like a table of contents, serving the “tell them what you are going to say” function of transitions. A review, or summary, reminds the audience of the major topics that were just covered in your speech, serving the “tell them what you’ve said” function of connectors.

There’s one main preview that comes at the end of your introduction and identifies the main points of the speech in the order in which they’ll be presented. There’s one main review that comes at the start of your conclusion and reminds your audience of the main points of the speech in the order in which they were presented.

Main previews and reviews need to use the same names and order for each point as you have used in the body of the speech – they all need to match, in order to help your audience remember them. All previews and reviews should be simple, succinct, and easy to recall, without any extraneous details or subpoints.

Note that some speeches, especially longer ones, may have internal previews and reviews that respectively identify the points of the particular upcoming section, and review those points at the end.

For example, if your speech is an informative one about your college or university, your main preview and review would go over the following main points: college’s background, students, and special features.  An internal preview or review would function on a smaller scale, offering the main ideas in only that section of the speech. For example, an internal preview or review of the “students” section of your speech could include supporting points about students’ average age, most popular degrees, and internship opportunities.

A summary is a combination of an internal preview and review.  Summaries occur only between main points in the body of your speech. They restate the main point that was just finished and introduce the next main point.

Linking Words

You’ll use linking words and phrases as signposts to indicate order, sequence, or time passing, such as first, next, and finally or a shift in ideas, such as in addition or furthermore. Linking words can indicate time or sequence, relationship, cause and effect, comparison or contrast, and many more types of relationships among ideas.

You’ll use linking words not only between main points in your speech, but as needed between sentences and paragraphs.  You’ll also combine linking words with previews, reviews, and summaries.

Connect to the University of Wisconsin Writing Center’s page on Transitional Words and Phrases (opens in new window) or to Purdue University OWL’s page on Transitional Devices (opens in new window) to get a sense of the variety of linking words that you can use.

Revising Transitions

When refining your working outline, remember how important transitions are. Identify places where you have transitions and places where you need further transition. Then go back again, now that you’ve identified which connectors to use and where to put them in your outline, and refine your work to make each transition as seamless and impactful as possible.  Ask the following questions:

Question #1: Are transitions in appropriate order?

Imagine following a recipe, but finding out halfway through that the steps are not chronological. A good preview and review not only clearly names the main points or sub-points, but also reflects the organization of those ideas by listing them in the order that they will be or have been delivered. People familiarize themselves and engage with content by remembering information in sequence.

Question 2: Are transitions easy to recall?

Since transitions exist to help the audience follow along, that audience should easily be able to recall the main points and identify the subpoints in the speech. It is much easier to remember a sequence of three words than a sequence of three sentences. It is even easier to remember a sequence when it rhymes or uses alliteration. A good speaker will make this sequence as easy as possible for the audience by simplifying the names of main points and subpoints as well as using literary techniques that help them to stand out.

Reduce wording

Try to reduce your main points to the most salient words. While you may not be able to reduce each main point to just one word each, no more than three key words per main point is a good goal.

• “Main points: 1) Clients need to get reports quickly 2) Reports need to be accurate 3) Clients want a lot of details” becomes: “Clients need reports to be quick, accurate, and thorough”

Use Parallelism

Use the same grammatical pattern of words for each main point. Depending on how much you’ve been able to reduce the number of key words in each main point, this strategy can occur at the word or phrase level.

• “I had come. I saw. The city was conquered.” becomes “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

Use Alliteration and Assonance

Alliteration and assonance refer to repeated sounds.  In addition to using parallel word format, try to use transitions that begin with the same sound or repeat similar vowel sounds.

• “Reduce wording, Parallelism, and Alliteration and Assonance” becomes “Reduce, Rephrase, Refine”

Embrace Repetition

Use the same labels and phrasing and in the same order each time you refer to your main points throughout your speech.