Use Main Points to Make Your Claims

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Main points express the key ideas of the speech. Their function is to represent each of the main elements or claims being made in support of the speech thesis. To create main points, identify the central ideas and themes of the speech. What are the most important ideas you want to convey? What is the thesis? What key ideas emerge from your research? Each of these ideas or claims should be expressed as a main point.

Use the Purpose and Thesis Statements as Guides

Main points should flow directly from your speech purpose and thesis, as in the following example:

SPECIFIC PURPOSE: (what you want the audience to learn or do as a result of your speech): To show my audience, through a series of easy steps, how to meditate.
THESIS: (the central idea of the speech): When performed correctly, meditation is an effective and easy way to reduce stress.
MAIN POINTS:
  1. The first step of meditation is the “positioning.”
  2. The second step of meditation is “breathing.”
  3. The third step of meditation is “relaxation.”

Note that some topics suggest natural divisions indicating main points, such as in the sequential steps involved in meditation.

Restrict the Number of Main Points

Research has shown that audiences can comfortably take in only between two and seven main points.1 For most speeches, and especially those delivered in the classroom, between two and five main points should be sufficient. If you have too many main points, further narrow your topic (see Chapter 7) or check the points for proper subordination (see p. 99).

Restrict Each Main Point to a Single Idea

A main point should not introduce more than one idea. If it does, split it into two (or more) main points:

INCORRECT:
  1. West Texas has its own Grand Canyon, and South Texas has its own desert.
CORRECT:
  1. West Texas boasts its own Grand Canyon.
  2. South Texas boasts its own desert.

Main points should be mutually exclusive of one another. If they are not, consider whether a main point more properly serves as a subpoint.

Express each main point as a declarative sentence (one that states a fact or an argument). This emphasizes the point and alerts audience members to the main thrusts of your speech. For example, if one of your main points is that children need more vitamin D, offer the declarative statement, “According to the nation’s leading pediatricians, children from infants to teens should double the recommended amount of vitamin D.” As shown in the example about West Texas and South Texas, strive to state your main points (and supporting points; see below) in parallel form—that is, in similar grammatical form and style (see p. 139 on parallelism). This strategy helps listeners understand and retain the points (by providing consistency) and lends power and elegance to your words.

Save the Best for Last—or First

Listeners have the best recall of speech points made at the beginning of a speech, a phenomenon termed the “primacy effect,” and at the end of a speech (the “recency effect”) than of those made in between (unless the ideas made in between are much more striking than the others).2 If it is especially important that listeners remember certain ideas, introduce those ideas near the beginning of the speech and reiterate them at the conclusion.