English 104 Communication

Speech transitions
Words and phrases to connect your ideas
When delivering presentations it is important for your words and ideas to flow so your
audience can understand how everything links together and why it is all relevant.

This can be done using speech transitions because these act as signposts to the audience -
signalling the relationship between points and ideas. This article explores how to use
speech transitions in presentations.

What are speech transitions?

Speech transitions are words and phrases that allow you to smoothly move from one
point to another so that your speech flows and your presentation is unified.

This makes it easier for the audience to understand your argument and without
transitions the audience may be confused as to how one point relates to another and they
may think you're randomly jumping between points.

Types of transitions
Transitions can be one word, a phrase or a full sentence. There are many different types.
Here are a few:

Introduction
Introduce your topic:

 We will be looking at/identifying/investigating the effects of...

 Today I will be discussing...

Presentation outline
Inform the audience of the structure of your presentation:

 There are three key points I'll be discussing...

 I want to begin by..., and then I'll move on to...
 We'll be covering... from two points of view...
 This presentation is divided into four parts...

Moving from the introduction to the first point

Signify to the audience that you will now begin discussing the first main point:

 Now that you're aware of the overview, let's begin with...

 First, let's begin with...
 I will first cover...
 My first point covers...
  To get started, let's look at...

Shifting between similar points

Move from one point to a similar one:

 In the same way...

 Likewise...
 Equally...
 This is similar to...
 Similarly...
 Also

Shifting between opposing points

You may have to introduce conflicting ideas - bridging words and phrases are especially
good for this:

 Conversely...
 Despite this...
 However...
 On the contrary...
 Now let's consider...
 Even so...
 Nonetheless...
 We can't ignore...
 On the other hand...

Transition to a significant issue

 Fundamentally...
 A major issue is...
 The crux of the matter...
 A significant concern is...

Referring to previous points

You may have to refer to something that you've already spoken about because, for
example, there may have been a break or a fire alarm etc:

 Let’s return to...

 We briefly spoke about X earlier; let's look at it in more depth now...
 Let’s revisit...
 Let’s go back to...
 Do you recall when I mentioned...

This can also be useful to introduce a new point because adults learn better when new
information builds on previously learned information.

Introducing an aside note

You may want to introduce a digression or something not part of the discussion:
  I'd just like to mention...
 That reminds me...
 Incidentally...

Emphasising importance
You need to ensure that the audience get the message by informing them why something
is important:

 More importantly...
 This is essential...
 Primarily...
 Mainly...
 significantly

Internal summaries
Internal summarising consists of summarising before moving on to the next point. You
must inform the audience:

 What part of the presentation you covered - "In the first part of this speech we've
covered..."
 What the key points were - "Precisely how..."
 How this links in with the overall presentation - "So that's the context..."
 What you're moving on to - "Now I'd like to move on to the second part of
presentation which looks at..."

Cause and effect transitions

You will have to transition to show relationships between factors:

 Therefore...
 Thus...
 Consequently...
 As a result...
 This is significant because...
 Hence...

Elaboration

 Also...
 Besides...
 What's more...
 In addition/additionally...
 Moreover...
 Furthermore...

Point-by-point or steps of a process

 First/firstly/The first one is...

 Second/Secondly/The second one is...
  Third/Thirdly/The third one is...
 Last/Lastly/Finally/The fourth one is...

Introducing an example

 This is demonstrated by...

 For instance...
 Take the case of...
 For example...
 You may be asking whether this happens in X? The answer is yes...
 To show/illustrate/highlight this...
 Let me illustrate this by...

Transition to a demonstration

 Now that we've covered the theory, let's practically apply it...
 I'll conduct an experiment to show you this in action...
 Let me demonstrate this...
 I'll now show you this...

Introducing a quotation

 X was a supporter of this thinking because he said...

 There is a lot of support for this, for example, X said...

Transition to a visual aid

If you are going to introduce a visual aid, you must prepare the audience with what
they're going to see, for example, you might be leading into a diagram that supports your
statement. Also, before you show the visual aid, explain why you're going to show it, for
example, "This graph is a significant piece of evidence supporting X".

When the graphic is on display, get the audience to focus on it:

 The table indicates...

 As you can see...
 I'd like to direct your attention to...

Explain what the visual is showing:

 You can see that there has been a reduction in...

 The diagram is comparing the...

Conclusion
Always summarise or preview your key points first in the conclusion:

 Let's recap on what we've spoken about today...

 Let me briefly summarise the main points...

And then conclude:

If you have a shorter speech you may choose to end your presentation with one
statement:

 In short...
 To sum up...
 In a nutshell...
 To summarise...
 In conclusion...

However, using statements such as "To conclude" as a final remark may cause the
audience to stop listening. It's better to say:

 I'd like to leave you with this...

 What you should take away from this is...
 Finally, I want to say...

Call to action
Requesting the audience to do something at the end of the presentation:

 You may be thinking how can I help in this matter? Well...

 My aim is to encourage you to go further and...
 What I'm requesting of you is...