Outlining Your Speech

The ability to outline complex information into manageable steps is useful beyond public speaking. Chapter 9 covers task roles in groups, which involve people organizing the activities that help achieve a group’s goals. If you and your siblings want to plan a huge celebration for your parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, you should outline all of the steps needed to make it happen: creating a guest list, contacting and comparing venues, sending out invitations, and so on.

At this point, you have all of the building blocks for a successful speech. Now you’re ready to pull all of your hard work together in the form of an outline—a structured form of your speech content (Fraleigh & Tuman, 2011). An effective outline helps you confirm that your points are arranged clearly and properly, ensures that you’ve cited your all-important research, and assists you in your speech delivery. (In fact, many instructors require students to turn in a formal outline before the presentation. Be sure to check on your instructor’s preferences.)

You may already be familiar with the basics of outlining from your high school courses or from your college composition class. We’ll refresh you with a discussion of the essentials of outlining before we move to types of outlines and the heart of this section: the preparation and speaking outlines.