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Successful speeches follow a clear structure whose purpose is twofold: to help the audience follow the speaker’s ideas, and to arrange those ideas to optimum effect.1 A good time to select an organizational pattern is after you’ve gathered the supporting materials and prepared preliminary main points.
Speeches make use of at least a dozen different organizational arrangements of main and supporting points. Here we look at six commonly used patterns: chronological, spatial, causal (cause-effect), problem-solution, topical, and narrative. In Chapter 24, you will find three additional patterns of organization designed specifically for persuasive speeches: Monroe’s motivated sequence, refutation, and comparative advantage.