Understanding life

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The previous article in the Speech Preparation Series described how to select your speech topic and your core message.

This article describes how to support your core message with a speech outline, and provides numerous examples. This is the second step in the six-step speech preparation process.

Writing an outline is, unfortunately, a step that many skip. The most common excuse is simply “No time.” This is unfortunate because time spent on an outline is time well spent. It is necessary to ensure that you craft a coherent and focussed presentation.

Contents

1.Writing a Speech Outline
2.Basic Speech Outline
3.Speech Outline Variants
4.Outline Writing Tips
5.Speech Outline Extended Example

Writing a Speech Outline

An outline is a blueprint for your presentation.

It highlights the key logical elements. i.e. what points are being made to logically support the core message?

It highlights the key structural elements. e.g. introduction, body, conclusion, stories, high-level concepts

It links these elements together in a sequence, perhaps allocating very rough timings.

It can also map out the transitions between elements, although this may be deferred to a later stage of preparation.

Basic Speech Outlines

“An outline is a blueprint for your presentation.”

The basic speech outline template for structural elements is:
1.Introduction
2.Body
3.Conclusion

Similarly, the basic speech outline template for logical elements is the familiar advice:
1.Tell them what you’re going to say
2.Tell them what you’ve said

Put these together, and you have the start of a generic speech outline:
1.Introduction — Establish topic and core message; list supporting points
2.Body
3.Supporting Point One
4.Supporting Point Two
5.Supporting Point Three
6.Conclusion — Recap main points; summarize core message; call-to-action

It is surprising how well this simple 3-part outline template works for a wide range of speech topics. Incidentally, this same basic formula can be seen in novels, short stories, movies, plays, reports, business briefings, emails, memos, and many other forms of communication.

For many more examples, check out Why Successful Speech Outlines follow the Rule of Three.

Other Speech Outline Writing Tips

“When sequencing your outline points, try to avoid random order. Seek and extract the meaningful relationship.”

Note that all of these speech outline examples are appropriate for a short six to ten minute speech. Longer time windows will obviously allow for more detailed outlines.

You may be able to customize one of the generic speech outline formats for your speech; more likely,

you will need to craft your own to fit your situation. A few other things to consider:
The granularity of your outline should be roughly one outline point per minute of speaking time, perhaps less for lengthy presentations.

For presentations which are complemented with slides, your outline might include slide concepts, but no finer details.

Remember that your presentation is much more than your set of slides. Your outline should reflect your speaking elements which the slides complement.
When sequencing your outline points, try to avoid random order. Seek and extract the meaningful relationship.

1.Chronological – e.g. a biographical speech
2.Spatial – e.g. an entertaining travel speech
3Cause-effect – e.g. speech relating crime rate to drug use
4.Low to high importance – e.g. reasons to exercise
5.Broad vision to specific details – e.g. a management speech outlining new company direction

Your outline is not the same as cue cards, but they are related (if you use cue cards). An outline contains high-level speech elements; cue cards might additionally contain selected speech details e.g. transition phrases, key words/phrases, key numbers, or punch lines.

Speech Outline Example — Face the Wind

Here is the original outline that I put together for the Face the Wind speech. Comments follow which represent my thinking at the time of writing the outline.
Opening humor – connect with audience as typical home owner

Story #1 – Backyard tree battle
“Strong roots… strong tree”
Foreshadow: neighbour’s monster tree falling

Story #2 – Winter storms knock over many trees
National news (trees falling on houses), but our house okay
Arborists: “Wind came from a different direction”
Establish key analogy – Trees cannot face the wind.

Story #3 – Baby Maximus
Michelle and Lance have strong roots
Maximus is born
Conclusion
Call-to-action: “We must face our problems”
Comments on Face the Wind Outline

At the outline stage, I set up many key elements of the speech. I determined the three main stories, planned humorous opening, identified a few key phrases to incorporate, established contrast (tree/people), used a metaphor (roots of people), and concluded with a call-to-action.

Opening – I wanted to open with humor to offset the drama later in the speech. Also, I wanted to connect with the audience as a homeowner as many in the audience are also homeowners.

Story #1 – I wanted the first story to establish the “strong roots… strong tree” connection. By establishing that trees have strong roots, it makes the fact that they were toppled in the storm (story #2) more dramatic.

Story #2 – This story was essentially an expansion of the “wind came from a different direction” theory of arborists that I picked up several months prior from my friend. The fact that trees cannot face the wind is the key analogy in this speech, although the audience doesn’t know it yet.

Story #3 – This story tells about the struggles which eventually led to the birth of Maximus. The key element here is the contrast between trees and people (who can face the wind).

Thank you for your attention!