Detailed Outline for Definition Speech: Twitter
Introduction
Opener: All my friends were doing it, and I tried to fight it as much as I could. Alas, I
have finally given in to the craze, and I am now twitterpated!
Transition: For those of you that aren’t familiar with Twitter, that means I am able to see
famous people put up announcements about their daily activities and about things that
they have going on. For instance, I’m friends with Serena Williams and she tweeted,
which is twitter lingo that means she updated her twitter status to say she has new
pictures of her on her new website that people should check out.
Audience Need to Know: It seems more and more people are jumping on the twitter
bandwagon, and I think Twitter can be useful for college students, because it allows
family members and those you have left behind in your hometowns to see what you're up
to in college through quick status updates that is easy to access.
Thesis: Although Twitter has become something that most people recognize as a social
networking website, it's a term that has evolved from a variety of meanings.
Preview Statement: In order to understand the evolutionary cycle the term twitter has
gone through up until recently, it is important we explore the descriptive definition before
moving on to explain the prescriptive definition. Finally, classification and differentiation
can help us sort it all out.
Main Body
Main Point I: Initially, it is important to discuss the descriptive definition of twitter and
how people used and understood the term before it swept across the world wide web.
sub point a: According to Webster.com, to twitter is to utter successive
chirping noises, to talk in a chattering fashion, or chirps. According to the
2009 book Creating Speeches: A decision making approach by Nancy
Goulden and William Schenk-Hamlin This descriptive definition of twitter
is the established conventional usage of a word.
sub point b: The twittering of birds in the morning as you walk to class or
out at the parks is an exemplar of the descriptive definition. It’s a fast and
quick noise that birds make when they are chattering back and forth with
one another and it’s more of a chirp sound that they make than a song.
According to yourdictionary.com, some of the synonyms are sing, whistle,
chirp, beep, and cheep.
Internal Transition: Now that we have a better understanding of
how twitter is known by its conventional use of the word, I will tell
you more about how the term twitter has recently gained a
prescriptive definition.
Main Point II: Twitter is also an online source that is a place where people go to
share status updates and comments. The recent popularity of this web site has
caused the term twitter to evolve and form a prescriptive definition.
sub point a: According to the previously mentioned source by
Goulden and Schenk-Hanlin, prescriptive definitions are commonly
created for brand new terms and the definition has come to be
known through the popularity of its usage. Basically, prescriptive
definitions are like slang words.
sub point b: Perhaps, the evolvement of the term twitter to include a
prescriptive definition can be explained by the creator of the website
Jack Dorsey. In the April 19, 2009 issue of USA Today, Dorsey
states since the creation of the website in 2006, Twitter has gained a
lot of popularity worldwide. It is also widely popular, because the
site allows tweets to be forwarded to cell phones through text
messaging and is now the third most used social networking site in t
he world.
Internal Transition: Now that the prescriptive definition has given
us insight into the creation and popularity of twitter, we can now
move to discuss ways we can distinguish the two.
Main Point III: Classification and differentiation can help us to keep track of the
different uses of the term, and distinguish the two from one another or at the very
least, help you to explain the twitter website to others.
sub point a: Goulden and Schenk-Hanlin explains classification as a way
to categorize words according to their characteristics. The prescriptive
definition of twitter can easily be classified as a website. Additionally
classification also categorizes based on the use of an object, so we could be
more specific and classify twitter as a social networking site. The
descriptive definition can be categorized as an animal sound. We can also
be more specific with the classification of the descriptive form of twitter
and identify it by its use categorizing it as a bird sound used to
communicate with other birds.
sub point b: Both the prescriptive and descriptive forms of twitter share the
characteristic of communication, so in order to further separate the two, we
can use differentiation, which the previously mentioned source defines as
identifying what the object is not and used to ensure there is no possibility
of confusion. So, when we look at the prescriptive form of twitter and see
the classification of the term identifies twitter as a social network site.
There is a chance those not familiar with the site may confuse it and assume
it is just another Facebook or Myspace. Differentiation can be used to
illustrate that it is not a extensive social networking site, and it does not
allow photo albums to be uploaded. Twitter does not have apps and
quizzes. Myspace and Facebook do not have the capability of being
updated through text messaging like Twitter does.
Transition to ConclusionSo, I hope you have found the word "twitter" to be as
interesting as I did.
CONCLUSION
Restate Thesis: Because of how the term has evolved from several different
meanings to become a well known social networking site that most people think of
when they hear the word twitter.
Recap of main points: We explored this evolution of the term by taking a look at
the prescriptive and descriptive definitions before finally identifying the
classification and differentiation.
Closer: So, the nest time you're online, you might want to check twitter out if you
haven't already. I have to warn you though, before you know it you'll find yourself
just as twitterpated as I am and then there's no turning back.