Speech

Chapter 9: Organizing Your Speech

Overview

Organization is the logical grouping and ordering of "like" parts. Before giving a speech, you should be sure it is organized into three distinct parts: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. The introduction is the beginning of the speech and should contain an attention-getter, a link, a thesis statement, and a preview statement. The thesis statement is the most critical part because everything else in the speech revolves around it. The body of the speech is the part in which you prove your thesis or make your point. Outlining will prepare you to present your thoughts in order of importance. You should use main headings to remember major points, supporting material to reinforce the main headings, and details to further narrow the supporting material.

There are various types of organizational patterns you may use to organize the body of your speech. A chronological pattern puts things in a time sequence; a climactic pattern organizes information in ascending order of importance; a spatial pattern divides the topic on the basis of space relationships; a cause-effect pattern presents one area (the cause) that leads directly to another (the effect); and a problem-solution pattern presents a problem and then provides ideas about how the problem can be solved.