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.”  That, then, was the germ of his transition paragraph.  Notice how clearly the meaning is expressed.  Could any hearer fail to comprehend?  The transition also announces plainly the topic of the rest of the speech.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop.  But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.  These will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to bias his counsels.  Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiment on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

    GEORGE WASHINGTON:  Farewell Address, 1796

The next selection answers to a part of the plan announced in a passage already quoted in this chapter.  Notice how this transition looks both backward and forward:  it is both retrospective and anticipatory.  If you recall that repetition helps to emphasize facts, you will readily understand why a transition is especially valuable if it adheres to the same language as the first statement of the plan.  In a written scheme this might have appeared under the entry, “pass from 1 to 2; list 4 apologies for crime.”  This suggests fully the material of the passage.