Organizing Your presentation for the ears of Others: Signposting 9.3 195
readers, cannot go back to review a missed point. A preview is a statement of
what is to come. It “tells them what you’re going to tell them,” building anticipa-
tion of an important idea.
initiaL Previews An initial preview is a statement of what the main ideas
of the speech will be. As discussed in Chapter 7, it is usually presented in con-
junction with the central idea at or near the end of the introduction as a blueprint
for the speech.
Speaking on problems with the U.S. patent system, Robert offered the fol-
lowing blueprint at the end of his introduction:
While patents are a good idea in principle, in practice they have turned
into a disaster. First, I’ll take you on a tour of our broken patent system.
Then I’ll walk you through the havoc it wreaks on us, our economy, and
our future. Finally, we’ll explore hope in potential solutions....^16
In this blueprint, Robert clearly previews his main ideas and introduces
them in the order in which he will discuss them in the body of the speech.
internaL Previews In addition to using previews near the beginning,
speakers also use them at various points throughout their speeches. An internal
preview introduces and outlines ideas that will be developed as the speech pro-
gresses. Note how the following quotation from a speech on hotel security pro-
vides an internal preview:
... the question remains, what can we do, as potential travelers and po-
tential victims, to protect ourselves?^17
Just as anticipating an idea helps audience members to remember it, so men-
tally answering a question helps them to plant the answer firmly in their minds.
Transitions
A transition is a verbal or nonverbal signal that a speaker has finished discuss-
ing one idea and is moving to another.
verBaL transitions A speaker can sometimes make a verbal transition
simply by repeating a key word from an earlier statement or by using a synonym
or a pronoun that refers to an earlier key word or idea. This type of transition
is often used to make one sentence flow smoothly into the next. (The previous
sentence itself is an example: “This type of transition” refers to the sentence that
precedes it.)
Other verbal transitions are words or phrases that show relationships be-
tween ideas. Note the italicized transitional phrases in the following examples:
• In addition to transitions, previews and summaries are also considered to be
signposts.
• Not only does plastic packaging use up our scarce resources; it contaminates
them as well.