General Outline
- Outlining
skills are essential to effective public/oral communication performance:
- Know
your purpose: One of the essential aspects of organizing your
outline is to figure out your specific purpose. What do you
want your audience to know, believe, or perhaps do after you’re
finished your speech?
- Decide
on a central idea or thesis: What is your main contention?
- Choose
a specific organizational design: There are several for both
informative and persuasive speeches. You will learn these
in class.
- Determine
what your main points will be: There is a close relationship
between your organizational designs and your main points (your
main points revealing to you what structure you might use, or vice
versa). Your points are the dimensions of the topic you will
be talking or writing about or the arguments you will make. Each
main point should focus on one general idea or argument, not two
or three. You should not have more than five main points,
and three is always a good bet.
- Determine
your subpoints: The relationship between a main point and a
subpoint is generally a claim wedded to evidence, so when you state
a main point or argument your subpoint will serve as evidence. Most
evidence for outlines and speeches comes from library research (usually
secondary sources, but perhaps some primary documents), interviews
you conduct, and the like.
Organization
The
outline should be organized in a standard outline form:
- Use
standard numbering.
- Have
at least two subdivisions or none at all.
- Use
standard indentation to line up the information.
- Make
sure each heading is grammatically parallel with other headings on
the same level.
The
Introduction
Some professors will ask you to label and list the elements of
your introduction; others will ask you to write them out in paragraph
form:
- Include
an attention-getter.
- Introduce
the topic (or thesis).
- Give
the audience a reason to listen.
- Establish
your credibility.
- Preview
your main points.
The
Body
Within
the body of the outline, some professors will ask you to include headings
for transition statements (or any sort of internal summaries or previews).
The
Conclusion
Some
professors will ask you to label the elements of the conclusion:
- A
summation.
- A
re-emphasis of your thesis.
- A
motivation for the audience to respond.
- A
final closing statement.
Documenting
Sources
In
a speech outline, one must provide two different kinds of documentation:
parenthetical citations and oral attributions. We have created a document
that very clearly explains the difference between those two kinds of documentation
and provides an example of how they should be handled in an outline. It
further explains how the citations should be tied to the list of works
cited. Click here to see that
document.
For additional
information about the Modern Language Association (MLA) style, see MLA
guidelines.
Other
Details
- Use
only complete, declarative sentences.
- Use
parallel construction; consider using repetition (using the same
words again and again) to start or end the main-point statements.
