Transitions

Transitions: Find the Right Flow of Ideas

As you craft your speech, you will need to transition from one point to the next to fully articulate your purpose or objectives. When read aloud, your speech should flow smoothly from introduction to body, from main point to main point and then finally into your conclusion. Transitions are essential in order to help your audience follow along your line of reasoning.

Types of Transitions

There are different types of transitions often used in speeches, including:

• Temporal- using words like before and after
• Equality-highlighting points of equal importance like in addition or moreover
• Causality- using words that show cause and effect
• Compare and Contrast- using words and phrases that compare one part of the speech to the next, like contrarily or on the other hand
• Introductions and summaries are also types of transitions to let listeners know what a person will be speaking about and offering a way to understand the important parts of a speech

The Art of the Segue

To move from one point and into the next, you'll want to segue into your new point. Sometimes your points may share similar themes or concepts - order your points in such a way as to capitalize on those similarities. You can also use opposition to present opposing main points. If you have multiple pieces of supporting evidence, you may need to transition between examples so that your audience knows you are furthering a point with another example, anecdote or set of researched data.

However you decide to transition, you'll want to use triggering keywords that let your audience know you're moving on to a new point. Ordinal words like "next," "second and "third" give your audience the heads up that you're about to proceed in a new or continued direction of thought.

Writing Transitions

After you have identified your main points and outlined what evidence you'll use to support them, begin to prioritize and sort your main points so they follow in the most logical order. From there, you'll be able to pinpoint how you'll want to transition your speech from one point to the next. Try to think of transitions as a way to connect the dots of your speech's purpose.