Outlining Your Introduction

Printed Page 315

Once you’ve outlined the body of your speech, turn to outlining the introduction. In chapter 10, we identified the five purposes of an introduction: gaining your audience’s attention, signaling your thesis, showing the relevance of your topic for your audience, establishing your credibility, and previewing your main points. Each of these purposes provides the basis for one part of your introduction. When you have prepared them, insert each one into your working outline. The structure of the introduction should appear as follows:

INTRODUCTION

  1. Attention-getter
  2. Thesis statement
  3. Relevance of topic for audience
  4. Speaker’s credibility
  5. Preview of main points

In your working outline, each of these five elements should be expressed in complete sentences or detailed phrases, so that a reader would know what you were planning to say for each part.