Using transitions between your main points
  Keep your audience with you!

It is important to provide clear transitions between sections of a speech. This is to help listeners know how to sort the information that they are receiving, and to allow them to tune back in if their attention started to wander.

Without clear transitions you risk losing listeners because they don’t know how to sort the information they are getting. You need to provide easy “re-entry points for listeners to renew their attention. Here are some ways you can signal a transition from one section of a speech to the next:

• Use bridging words or phrases ("finally"; “to sum up these ideas”; “now, moving on").
• Tell a personal story, to break up the speech and draw people back in.
• Use a visual prompt like an overhead, with something that sums up what was said.
• Pause, take a breath, and look at the audience.
• Change positions to grab attention (for example move to the front of the stage and keep talking).
• Set out what is going to be said in the next section ("Now I am going to move on to talk about Israel’s attempts to make peace. This will consist of three parts. First, I’m going to tell you about Israeli offers of land for peace. Second").
• Tony Blair’s special: ‘and I say to youŅ’

Make sure that transitions aren’t too short. If listeners don’t know how to ‘sort’ what is being said, they will stop listening. Transitions should make up a sizable part (around 10%?) of a speech. It is better to say a little but be well understood than to say a lot but be ignored.