informal discussion upon topics you are
familiar with, you will become able to arrange a plan while you are
rising to your feet.

Transitions. As this preliminary plan takes its form under your
careful consideration of the material you will decide that there are
places between topics or sections which will require bridging over in
order to attain coherence and emphasis. These places of division
should be filled by transitions. A transition is a passage which
carries over the meaning from what precedes to what follows. It serves
as a connecting link. It prevents the material from falling apart. It
preserves the continuity of ideas. A transition may be as short as a
single word, such as _however_, _consequently_, _nevertheless_. It may
be a sentence. It may grow into a paragraph.

The purpose of transitions--to link parts together--may induce
beginners to consider them as of little importance since they
manifestly add no new ideas to the theme. This opinion is entirely
erroneous. Even in material for reading, transitions are necessary. In
material to be received through the ear they are the most valuable
helps that can be supplied to have the listener follow the
development. They mark the divisions for him. They show that a
certain section is completed and a new one is about to begin. They
show the relation in meaning of two portions.

The shorter forms of transitions--words and phrases--belong rather to
the expression, the language, of the speech than to this preliminary
planning.

A speaker should never fail to use such phrases as _on the other
hand_, _continuing the same line of reasoning_, _passing to the next
point_, _from a different point of view_, because they so clearly
indicate the relation of two succeeding passages of a speech.

In planning, the speaker frequently has to consider the insertion of
longer transitions--paragraphs or even more extended passages. Just
how such links appear in finished speeches the following extracts
show. In the first selection Washington when he planned his material
realized he had reached a place where he could conclude. He wanted to
add more. What reason should he offer his audience for violating the
principle discussed in the chapter on conclusions? How could he make
clear to them his desire to continue? We cannot assert that he
actually did this, but he might have jotted down upon the paper
bearing a first scheme of his remarks the phrase, "my solicitude for
the people