38 3.7 Presenting Your First sPeech
prepare them; look at your audience, not your presentation aid; control your
audience’s attention by timing your visual displays; and keep your presentation
aids simple. Always concentrate on communicating effectively with your audi-
ence, not on dazzling your listeners with glitzy presentation displays.Organize Your Speech
3.7 Develop a speech with three main organizational parts—an
introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
A wise person once said, “If effort is organized, accomplishment follows.” Clas-
sical rhetoricians called the process of developing an orderly speech disposition.
A clearly and logically structured speech helps your audience to understand and
remember what you say. A logical structure also helps you to feel more in con-
trol of your speech, and greater control helps you to feel more comfortable while
delivering your message.Divide Your Speech
Every well-prepared speech has three major divisions:
• The introduction helps to capture attention, serves as an overview of the
speech, and provides your audience with reasons to listen to you.
• The body presents the main content of your speech.
• The conclusion summarizes your key ideas.
You might have heard this advice on how to organize a speech: “Tell them
what you’re going to tell them (the introduction), tell them (the body of the
speech), and tell them what you told them (the conclusion).”
Because your introduction previews your speech and your conclusion sum-
marizes it, most public-speaking teachers recommend that you prepare your intro-
duction and conclusion after you have carefully organized the body of your talk.
As a student of public speaking, you will study and learn to apply varia-
tions of this basic pattern of organization (chronological, topical, cause–effect,
problem–solution) that will help your audience to understand your meaning.
You will learn about previewing and summarizing—methods that will help
your audience to retain your main ideas.Outline Your Speech
If you have already generated your major ideas on the basis of logical divisions,
reasons, or steps, you are well on your way to developing an outline. For your
first speech, you might want to adapt the simple outline format shown in the
Sample Outline in this chapter.^7 Indicate your major ideas by Roman numerals.
Use capital letters for your supporting points. Use Arabic numerals if you need
to subdivide your ideas further.3.7