A debater’s success in giving unity and coherence to his argument depends chiefly on his method of introducing new ideas in supporting his issues.  These changes from one idea to another, or transitions, as they are called, should always be made so that the hearer’s attention will be recalled to the assertion which the new idea is intended to support.  Suppose we have made this assertion:  “Contests within schools are more desirable than contests between schools.”  We are planning to support this by proving:  first, that the contests between schools are very much abused; second, that the proposed plan will be more democratic; and third, that the proposed plan will work well in practice.  In supporting these issues, we should, of course, present a great deal of material.  When we are ready to change from the first supporting idea to the second, we must make that change in such a way that our hearers will know that we are planning to prove the second main point of our contention.  But this is not enough.  We must make that change so that they will be definitely reminded of what we have already proved.  The same thing will hold true when we change to the third contention.

The following illustrates a faulty method of transition:  Contests between schools are so abused that they should be abolished [followed by all the supporting material].  The proposed plan will be more democratic than the present [followed by its support].  The proposed plan would work well in practice [followed by its support].  No matter how thoroughly we might prove each of these, they would impress the audience as standing alone; they would show no coherence, no connection with one another.  The following would be a better method:  Contests within schools should be substituted for those between schools because contests between schools are open to abuses so great as to warrant their abolition [followed by its support].  We should then begin to prove the second issue in this way:  But not only are contests between schools so open to abuse that they should be abolished, but they are less desirable than contests within schools for they are less democratic. [This will then be followed with the support of the second issue.] The transition to the third issue should be made in this way:  Now, honorable judges, we have shown you that contests between schools are not worthy of continuance; we have shown you that the plan which we propose will be better in its democracy than the system at present in vogue; we now propose to complete our argument by showing you that our plan will work well in practice. [This would then be followed with the proper supporting material.]