Lesson 4: Selecting, Researching, And Organizing Your SpeechPrepare an OutlineBefore you write your speech, you need a plan of attack. Now that you have a topic in mind and have researched to gather supporting information, you need to put it all together in a logical sequence. An outline is the next crucial step in transforming all the raw materials you have collected into a finished product. In their book, Speak with Confidence, Albert J. Vasile and Harold K. Mintz list several reasons why preparing an outline is so important. 4
A well-organized, successful speech has five parts. I call them the five bullets. They are an introduction, the thesis statement, the body of the speech, the conclusion, and the closure statement. Let me explain in more detail what each “bullet” should do. IntroductionThis should be a “grabber”—something that catches the attention of your audience and pulls them into what you are saying. It can be a question, quote, joke, metaphor, hypothesis, statistic of interest, etc. It can also be as simple as “Good afternoon, I’m so glad to be here. I can’t wait to talk to you about my love of golf.” Never apologize for having to give a speech or say, “I’m sorry, I just prepared last night.” Thematic statementThis is where you tell your audience what you are going to talk about and why. You should expressly tell your listeners where you are going with the speech by telling them, “I will illustrate my point of view with the following three points.” Use no more than three points as support. An example of a strong thesis statement is, “Today I would like to speak to you about golfing. There are three important steps to golf: the mental approach, the actual golf swing, and the closure of the swing.” Body of the speechThe body of your speech is where you fill in all the details by explaining and supporting your thesis statement. Here is your chance to capitalize on the points outlined in your thesis statement. You should stick with three or fewer points if you are talking for ten minutes. Subpoints and more points just distract from your main message. Your body can include the materials gleaned from your research. You can use personal experiences, quotes, examples, philosophies, etc. If I were speaking about golf, I would go into more detail about the three important steps to golf, drawing from my own experiences on the course for examples. ConclusionThe conclusion simply wraps up your speech. You summarize again your thematic statement and make concluding statements about your three points. Vasile and Mintz give some ideas that you can incorporate in your conclusion: 5
Closure statementFinally you have the closure statement, which is a one-sentence remark with no rambling. Your last words leave your audience with a lasting impression, so do it right. Some examples of good closure statements are: “Golf is a sport that truly makes me happy.” “A focused golfer is a good golfer.” “Here’s what you can do: Go forth to serve.” Now that you know how the five bullets work, I would like you to read a speech that demonstrates these principles in action. The following speech is a good example of how to organize a speech using the five bullets. This speech was given in my Speech 150 class. |