Structuring Your Speech
Once you have your subject matter clear in your mind, it’s time to start putting words to the page. In terms of its structure, a speech will have three main components: the introduction, the body, and then the conclusion. Each of these sections, in turn, will also consist of certain elements. Let’s walk through each of them in detail.
Introduction
The introduction is just that: a means of introducing yourself and your topic to your audience. It’s what sets the stage for the next few minutes, and lets your listeners know why they really want to pay attention to what you have to say. Time is precious, and your introduction needs to convey to your audience that you deeply value the time they’re about to lend you. How do you do that?
Hook
The first component to include in the introduction is what’s known as the hook (sometimes also known as the attention-getting device or AGD). This is what grabs your listeners’ attention right off the bat. Sometimes it’s a thought-provoking quote related to your thesis. Other times it might be a probing question to get the audience to think. Perhaps it’s an engaging story that pulls your audience in and leaves them wanting more. Regardless of the type you use, the hook is what gets the audience to set aside whatever it is they’ve been thinking about and focus their attention on you for the next few minutes.
Thesis
Once you have everyone’s attention, it’s time to tell them what you’re going to be talking about. You do this through the use of a thesis statement, which you should already be familiar with from writing essays. It’s your main point, your reason for speaking—it’s what you want everyone to remember as they walk away.
Outline
Now that your audience has an idea of what you’re going to talk about, the next step is to tell them how you’re going to address the issue. If you’ve heard the expression, “Tell your audience what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them,” the outline is the first step in the process. You want to paint a clear picture in each listener’s mind of where you’ll be going in the next few minutes, so they can start forming a mental model into which they can later place the information you’ll give them.
You’re going to want to back up your thesis statement with a handful of supporting points, and each of these points should have a short (three to seven words or so) but descriptive tag line. Using these tag lines in your introduction helps your audience to take notes, at least mentally, about what you’re saying. Later on you’ll be able to refer back to them to continue to remind your audience of the organization of your speech.
Motivation
If the thesis is what you’re talking about, and the outline gives an idea of how you’re going to address the issue, another question you need to answer for your audience is “Why?” Why should they care? Why should they listen intently for the next few minutes? What’s in it for them? You may have already answered some of these questions with the hook, but perhaps not. Make sure you don’t leave the introduction without giving the audience motivation to tune in, though, otherwise you may be left with disengaged listeners, and that’s no bueno.
Body
The body of your speech is where all the meat is. As mentioned before, you’ll want to support your thesis with a handful of supporting points or areas of analysis, which will contain some of the following elements.
- Claim
What exactly is the point you’re trying to make? Think of this like a mini-thesis of sorts.
- Support
What support do you have for your claim? It’s one thing for you to say, “I think something,” but another thing to say, “Here are some people who have thought something over the years, and I heartily agree with them.” You can support your claims with things like quotes, research, logical reasoning, philosophy, current events, etc. See Using Evidence in a Speech for more details.
- Tie-In
How does this point relate to your thesis? The connection may be clear in your mind, but make sure it’s concrete for your hearers as well.
- Significance
Why are you making this point? What impact should this point have on your audience.
- Transitions
How do you transition from one point to the next? You can refer back to the outline and help the audience understand your thinking as you flow from one thought to another.
How many supporting points should you have? That’ll depend on a few factors. For one, keep in mind your audience and their ability to remember what you’ve said after you’re done speaking. Generally you’ll want to limit yourself to two to four areas of analysis—any more and your listeners will have a hard time remembering all the points you’re trying to get across; any less and it’ll seem like your thoughts aren’t fully supported. The other significant factor is the time you have to deliver your speech. If you only have a few minutes to speak, you might want to restrict yourself to fewer, better-developed points, rather than trying to fit in more ideas, but then not having time to develop them fully.
Conclusion
After making all your points, it’s finally time to draw things to a close with your conclusion. This is the “then tell them what you told them” part of the adage. Remind your audience of the journey you’ve been on together in the past few minutes. Remind them of your thesis, and how each of your points supported it. The bits and pieces of the introduction are generally recapitulated here. If possible, relate back to your hook to bring your audience full circle. You may also wish to include the following:
- Thanks
Make sure your audience knows how much you’ve appreciated their attention.
- Call to Action
Help your audience understand what’s next for them after having listened to you. It may be to continue ruminating on your topic, or to simply think differently about something. Then again, you may have a specific course of action in mind for them—something for them to actually go and do.
Vehicle
Note
This last component of your speech is a more advanced one, so if this is your first time writing a speech, don’t worry about it for now. After you have a few under your belt, then come back to this and see how you can incorporate it into your next one. Note that it’s not an additional section to add to your speech, but rather a mechanism to use throughout.
A vehicle is a device that gets you from where you are to where you want to go. In the context of delivering a speech, “where you are” is wherever your audience is before you start speaking—not physically, but rather intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, etc. “Where you want to go” is your desired end state for your audience once you’ve finished speaking. What do you want them to think, believe, or feel as they walk away? What do you want them to do in the days and weeks to come?
Once you have a good idea of your audience’s starting and ending points, you have some questions to ask and answer: How do we get from here to there? What stops do we need to make along the way? Think of the vehicle as a kind of extended metaphor that helps convey your audience on the journey you intend for them to take with you. In practice, this extended metaphor winds up permeating your speech, being included in the hook, outline, and any transitions between points.
As an example, let’s consider a speech in which you’re trying to alert your audience to the dangers of worry and anxiety. As a vehicle for the delivery of your analysis, you could consider using Disney’s The Lion King. For your hook, start off singing your best rendition of the first little bit of Hakuna Matata—that’ll get people’s attention! From there, you could use Simba’s journey as a means of walking your audience through your points: starting with his upbringing and the onset of his troubles, moving on to his introduction to a new problem-free philosophy via Timon and Pumbaa, and then concluding with his realization that you only really get past the problems of yesterday by confronting them head on. As you wrap up in your conclusion, finish with the last little bit of Hakuna Matata, and then you’ve come full circle. It’s important to note that this speech isn’t about Simba’s story; rather, you’re using that as an illustration that pervades the speech for the sake of giving structure to the story you’re trying to tell.