| The ability to organize ideas is a
principal objective of education. That objective includes the ability to design
appropriate organizational patterns and to identify the organizational patterns someone
else uses. Effective organization of ideas helps you determine how much to say and whether
your topic is broad enough to interest and inform your audience. Good organization also
makes the speech easier to follow and increases the chances that the audience gets your
point. Signposts, transitional statements, and internal summaries are devices you can use
to direct the listeners through the various parts of your speech. |
| The best-known and most frequently
used organizational strategies include time patterns; spatial patterns;
problem-to-solution patterns such as need-plan, plan-need, need-plan-advantages, and
comparative advantages patterns; cause-to-effect patterns; the natural divisions of
topics; and induction and deduction. These patterns work because each one follows a common
way of thinking in our culture. |
| Outlines are useful tools
in planning and delivering a speech. An outline provides a speaker with a framework for
the development of ideas. A planning outline helps in determining the organizational
sequence that makes the most sense for presenting a particular topic to a given audience.
It is more detailed than the speaking outline, because it not only labels the main parts,
but it also describes sub points and shows relationships between major ideas. A speaking
outline assists the speaker while delivering the speech. It is much briefer than a planning
outline because its purpose is only to provide cues that help the speaker stay on track
during the speech. |
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