The needs, interests, and expertise of the audience should be the central consideration in choosing main points. Demonstrate a variety of methods to help you choose your main points based on your audience and the purpose of your speech
Consider the Audience: In order to create an effective speech, the speaker needs to take the specific audience into account. Of course, some groups are easier to figure out than others. Let's say you are speaking at a professional development conference for paralegals. In that case, the attendees share a common purpose, which makes it easier to address their specific needs. You could look at sources such as professional journals and conference bulletins from previous years to see what issues are important to ambitious paralegals. If, on the other hand, you are speaking at a high school graduation ceremony, the audience may include a wide range of people with very little in common except the ceremony itself. In that case, your main points could focus on graduation, the one thing that binds everyone together. Before you choose your main points, answer these questions about the audience:
There are 9 different ways to organize your speech and the type of speech can help you decide which one is best to use. List ways to organize the main points of your speech
Organizing the Main Points: Making sure the main points are ordered correctly helps the speech to flow better. Try to keep main points down to three or four with supporting sub points. An audience will only be able to grasp so much information at one time and the presenter does not want to bombard the audience with too much information at once. Additionally, make sure that each of your main points are supported by the same number of subpoints or evidence. This adds balance and proportion to your speech. The following are the 9 different ways to organize your speech, including examples to help you understand better. Each of the main points, of course, would require additional support and evidence in a speech and are identified only to aid the conceptualization of the organizational forms.Temporal Organization Cause-effect Telling why something happened; cause-effect may be used for past, present, or future events and processes. Cause-effect can also be reversed, from effect back to cause. Example: What causes something to happen, and the result (effect) of the occurrence.Spatial Patterns When using spatial patterns, be sure to proceed systematically from one place to the next, following a clear order. A size sequence is a variation on spatial organization, describing different artifacts from smallest to largest (or from largest to smallest). This is useful when describing something, especially a progression through a place/time or a physical object. Example: First you enter here, then you go through there, and you end up…Topical Topical is an appropriate approach when the subject matter has clear categories of division. Example: My Family: my dad, my mom, my brothers.Importance Patterns This can be used to discuss the different reasons for something and then designating their importance. Example: If you were the President's advisor, you may come to him/her with 3 problems, organizing each in the order of importance to the country.Compare/Contrast The compare/contrast takes two or more entities and draws attention to their differences and/or similarities. Example: If you were comparing apples and oranges you could use this to better clarify and prove your argument.Problem-Solution Organization
Stock Issues Stock issues are designed to organize presentations on issues of policy in a more complicated way than simple problem-solution. There are generally four main components to this organizational scheme:
Monroe's Motivated Sequence This is good organizational tactic for persuasive speaking. It has 5 Components:
If you want your audience to follow your main points, you should highlight them using visual and textual cues. Give examples of ways to highlight the main points in your speech
Highlighting Main Points: Public speakers can use visual aids and textual cues to highlight their main points. -William Ellery Channing Instructions, rules, and descriptions are all great, but if you want to make a concept stick, support it with an example. Different types of examples include facts, figures, data, illustrations, anecdotes, and quotes. As an illustration, compare the following two versions of the same point:
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