Use Supporting Points to Prove Your Claims

Printed Page 98

Supporting points represent the supporting material or evidence you have gathered to justify the main points. Generate them with the supporting material you’ve collected in your research—examples, narratives, testimony, facts, and statistics (see Chapter 8).

In an outline, supporting points appear in a subordinate position to main points. This is indicated by indentation. As with main points, supporting points should be arranged in order of their importance or relevance to the main point. The most common format is the roman numeral outline. Main points are enumerated with uppercase roman numerals (I, II, III . . .), while supporting points are enumerated with capital letters (A, B, C . . .), Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3 . . .), and lowercase letters (a, b, c . . .), as seen in the following:

  1. Main point
    1. Supporting point
      1. Sub-supporting point
        1. Sub-sub-supporting point
        2. Sub-sub-supporting point . . .

Here is an example (in phrase outline form; see p. 113 ) from a speech about using effective subject lines in business-related e-mails:

  1. Subject line most important, yet neglected part of e-mail.
    1. Determines if recipient reads message
      1. Needs to specify point of message
      2. Needs to distinguish from spam
    2. Determines if recipient ignores message
      1. May ignore e-mail with missing subject line
      2. May ignore e-mail with unclear subject line
  2. Use proven techniques for effective subject lines
    1. Make them informative
      1. Give specific details
      2. Match central idea of e-mail
      3. Be current
    2. Check for sense
      1. Convey correct meaning
      2. Reflect content of message
    3. Avoid continuing subject line in text
      1. May annoy the reader
      2. May be unclear
        1. Could be confused with spam
        2. Could be misinterpreted

Spend Time Organizing Speech Points

Don’t skimp on organizing speech points. Listeners’ understanding of a speech is directly linked to how well it is organized,3 and audience attitudes plummet when the speech is disorganized.4 Listeners also find speakers whose speeches are well organized more believable than those who present poorly organized ones.5