Chp 14: Organizing Your Presentation

BOOK: pgs. 207-221

PDF: pgs. 217-231

What you need to know

• Specific goal (includes specific purpose, intended audience, and topic)

• Introduction: attention grabber, listener relevance link, speaker credibility)

• Thesis/Preview of main points (in our class this is combined to be the same statement)

• Transitional word phrases, signposts

• Speech Body

• Conclusion: transition, summary (recap of thesis/main points, clincher)

• Attention grabbers and clinchers (doc with different methods)

• Internal summary

• Internal preview

• Full-sentence outline (what you turned in as a doc to Blackboard)

• Keyword speaking outline (what you wrote on notecards and used during your speech)

• Subordination

• APA citations (in-text and works cited page)

Organizing Your Presentation

• Identify your general purpose

• Develop a specific purpose statement - a narrower version of the general purpose statement that identifies what you will talk about, what you will say about it, and what you hope the audience will take away from the speech

• Convert it to a thesis statement - a one-sentence summary of your speech that is written the way you will say it out loud to your audience during your speech

• Write a preview of your presentation

Parts of a Speech

• Introductions are the first part

• Make them creative and memorable

• They set the tone for the speech

• Ideally, capture the audience's attention

• Six parts to an introduction

  • Introductions should be 10-15% of the total length of the speech

  • Attention-getter

    • Several strategies for gaining attention

      • Ask a question

      • Share a surprising fact or statistic

      • Tell a brief narrative or anecdote

      • Use a famous or inspiring quotation

      • Tell a joke

  • Statement of relevance to the audience

    • Provide background to establish relevance

    • Tell the audience why they should care about the topic

    • Great place for a statistic, for example, to show the impact of the issue on the audience

  • Evidence of speaker credibility

    • Important to establish your credibility to speak on the topic

    • Explain your qualifications

    • Why should they trust you?

    • Why should they trust the information you provide them?

  • Thesis

    • Must provide a clear thesis statement

    • A one-sentence summary of your speech

    • Helps focus the audience on the takeaway point

  • Preview of main points - tells your audience how you will organize the information for that lesson or argument

    • Introduce the main points you’ll cover

    • Keep them in the same order

    • Preview helps the audience see where you’re going in the speech

  • Transition to the body of the speech

    • After your introduction, link the body of the speech

    • It’s a signpost that the main part of the speech is next

    • Helps the audience keep track of your progression

Body of Speech

• The bulk of presentation time here (75-80%)

• Divided into your main points

• Each main point supports the thesis

• Each main point is divided into subpoints

• Each sub-point is a separate idea, which supports the main point

Conclusions

• Final chance to impact the audience

• Goal is to help audience remember your points

• Want to leave a lasting impression

• Should be approximately 10% of the length

• Three parts of a conclusion:

  • Signal conclusion (“In conclusion…”)

  • Review the main points

  • Clincher

    • Use same devices as an attention-getter

    • This is the last thing the audience hears - make it good!

A Few Words about Transitions

• Transitions: connecting statements that lets your audience know you are moving between parts of your speech

• The glue that holds it all together

• Should appear between:

  • Introduction and body

  • Main points

  • Last main point and conclusion

• Types of effective transitions

  • Internal summary - a statement that reviews or sums up what you just finished telling the audience

  • Signpost - a word that catches the audience’s attention and indicates where you are in the speech

  • Internal preview - a statement that previews what is coming up next and can even be an overview of the elements of the next main point

Outlining

• Two types of speaking outlines

  • Full-sentence preparation online - an outline that includes everything you plan to say in your speech and is written somewhat like a manuscript in an outline format

  • Keyword speaking online - the outline you will put on a notecard and use during your speech; it should include only keywords to remind you of your main points and subpoints, as well as source citations, statistics, and direct quotations you want to make sure you say in a particular way

Processes of Outlining

• Subordination - the principle of hierarchy of ideas in which the most general ideas appear first followed by more specific ideas

  • Creating hierarchies of ideas

  • Each level has a different symbol and level of indention

• Coordination - the principle of outlining that states all information on the same level has the same level of significance

  • Parts with same level of significance are “parallel” in the outline

  • Each sub-point should be given the same amount of time

• Division - the principle of outlining that states if a main point is divided into subpoints, it must be divided into two or more subpoints

  • If points are subdivided, need at least 2+ sub points

  • If you can’t do that, then are not explaining your main point enough

References

• Supporting materials need referencing

• Gives credit to the source

• Adds to your credibility

• Three places you cite sources

  • Verbally in the speech

  • In presentation aids (e.g., a pie chart you extracted from a source)

  • On your references page

Using Organization to Encourage Dialogue

• Use an interesting, ethical attention getter

• Use personal credibility wisely

• Provide credentials for all sources

• Leave the evaluation for the audience

• Acknowledge disagreement

Key Terms

1. Specific purpose statement - a narrower version of the general purpose statement that identifies what you will talk about, what you will say about it, and what you hope the audience will take away from the speech

2. Thesis statement - a one-sentence summary of your speech that is written the way you will say it out loud to your audience during your speech

3. Preview of main points - tells your audience how you will organize the information for that lesson or argument

4. Transition - connecting statement that lets your audience know you are moving between parts of your speech

5. Internal summary outline - a statement that reviews or sums up what you just finished telling the audience

6. Signpost - a word that catches the audience’s attention and indicates where you are in the speech

7. Internal preview - a statement that previews what is coming up next and can even be an overview of the elements of the next main point

8. Full-sentence preparation online - an outline that includes everything you plan to say in your speech and is written somewhat like a manuscript in an outline format

9. Key word speaking outline - the outline you will put on a notecard and use during your speech; it should include only key words to remind you of your main points and subpoints, as well as source citations, statistics, and direct quotations you want to make sure you say in a particular way

10. Subordination - the principle of hierarchy of ideas in which the most general ideas appear first followed by more specific ideas

11. Coordination - the principle of outlining that states all information on the same level has the same level of significance

12. Division - the principle of outlining that states if a main point is divided into subpoints, it must be divided into two or more subpoints