Public Speaking
Chapter Nine
Organizing Your Speech
Organizing Your Main Ideas
O When organizing the main ideas for your
speech, there are five organizational
patterns that you can choose from:
O topical
O chronological
O spatial
O causal
O problem-solution
Organizing Ideas Topically
O topical organization is the organization of
the natural divisions in a central idea
according to recency, primacy, complexity, or
the speaker’s discretion
O natural divisions are often essentially equal
in importance
O it may not matter which point you discuss
first, second, third, etc.
Organizing Ideas Topically
O at other times, you may organize your main points based on
one of three principles:
O primacy
O primacy is the arrangement of ideas from the most important
to the least important
O this principle will work best if your audience is unfamiliar or
hostile toward your central idea
O recency
O recency is the arrangement of ideas from the least important to
the most important
O this principle will work best if your audience is somewhat
knowledgeable and generally favorable toward your topic
O complexity
O complexity is the arrangement of ideas from the simple to the
more complex
Organizing Ideas
Chronologically
O chronological organization is organization by
time or sequence
O your steps are ordered according to when
each step occurred or should occur
O it can be either forward or backward,
depending on which end of a set of events
the speaker intends to emphasize
O historical speeches and how-to speeches are
two kinds of speeches organized
chronologically
Arranging Ideas Spatially
O spatial organization is based on location or
position
O it does not matter whether you progress up or
down, east or west, forward or back – as long
as you follow a logical progression
O speeches on museums or the travels of
explorers – or even the structure of an atom
can be organized spatially
Organizing Ideas to Show
Cause and Effect
O cause-and-effect organization is
organization that focuses on a situation and
its causes or a situation and its effects
O speech may first identify a situation and then
discuss the effects that result from it (cause
 effect) OR
O speech can present a situation and then
seek its causes (effect  cause)
Organizing Ideas by Problem
and Solution
O problem-and-solution organization is
organization focused on a problem and then
various solutions or a solution and the problems
it would solve
O if an audience is aware of a problem, but does not
know how to solve it, discuss the problem first
and then the solution
O if an audience knows about an action or program,
but now why it was implemented, discuss the
solution first and then the problems that caused it
to be created
Acknowledging Cultural
Differences in Organization
O each culture teaches its members patterns
of thought and organization that are
considered appropriate for various
occasions and audiences
O as an audience member, recognizing the
existence of cultural differences when you
are listening to a speech can help you
appreciate and understand the organization
of a speaker from a culture other than your
own
Organizing Your Supporting
Material
O sometimes, you can use the five standard
organizational patterns to arrange your
supporting material, as well as your main
ideas and subpoints
O at other times, none of the five standard
patterns will work and you may need to turn to
a strategy more specifically adapted to your
supporting materials, like:
O primacy or recency
O specificity
O complexity
Organizing Your Supporting
Material
O supporting material can be arranged from
soft to hard evidence
O soft evidence is supporting material based
mainly on opinion or inference; it includes
hypothetical illustrations, descriptions,
explanations, definitions, and analogies
O hard evidence is factual evidence and
statistics
Developing Signposts
O signposts are verbal or nonverbal signals that a
speaker is moving from one idea to the next
O verbal transitions
O in addition
O not only
O in other words
O in summary
O therefore
O avoid words like “finally” and “in conclusion”
because they will encourage a listener to stop
paying attention
Developing Signposts
O nonverbal transitions
O facial expressions
O pauses
O altered voice pitches or speaking rates
O movement
O most good speakers use a combination of
verbal and nonverbal transitions
Previews
O audience-centered speakers need to
remember that the members of their
audiences cannot go back to review a missed
point
O previews, then, help to provide coherence
O initial previews are statements of what the
main ideas of the speech will be and are
usually presented with the central ideas
O internal previews are statements in the body of
a speech that introduce and outline ideas that
will be developed as the speech progresses
Summaries
O like previews, summaries provide additional
exposure to a speaker’s ideas and can help
ensure that audience members will grasp
and remember them
O a final summary occurs just before the end of
a speech, often acting as a transition
between the body and the conclusion
O an internal summary is a restatement in the
body of a speech of ideas that have been
developed so far
Supplementing Signposts with
Presentation Aids
O one way to increase the probability that your
listeners will pay attention to your signposts
is to supplement them with presentation
aids
O for example, powerpoints or posters with
bulleted or numbered main ideas