What is a speech outline?

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Regardless of the type of presentation you are giving, certain elements are typically going to be included. Specifically, you should have a clear introduction, main ideas that are easy to follow, and a conclusion to wrap up the speech. This form highlights the typical components of a speech; you can use it to frame your own presentation.

Your introduction sets the stage for the rest of your speech. As the first thing the audience hears from you, it is also one of the most remembered parts of a speech. It should contain three main elements.

A. Hook: This will grab your audience’s attention and make them interested in your speech. For example, you might ask a question, tell a story, or cite a shocking statistic. Generally, you don’t need to tell the audience your name.

B. Thesis: Just like in a paper, your speech has a thesis. It is what you are here to prove to your audience.

C. Road map: In a speech, you want to signal where you are going to be going and how you’re going to get there; it helps your audience follow you, since they can’t go back and re-read anything like they could in a paper. Your road map previews your main points.

The main section of your speech, where you make your main points. These are what you to laid out in your road map, and this is where transitioning is particularly important. For most speeches, 2-3 main points will give you sufficient content while also being easily followed by the audience. You want to think about the logical order of your points, which would easily flow into one another. 

A. First point: _________________________________________________________________________  _______________________________________________________________________________________

Transition: ____________________________________________________________________________

B. Second point: _______________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________

Transition: _____________________________________________________________________________

C. Third point: _________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________

Transition: _____________________________________________________________________________

Use your conclusion to summarize your main points, but don’t restate them word for word, similar to the conclusion of an essay. There’s a tendency to end speeches by saying “and that’s all I have,” but this is the last impression you’re giving your audience, and it’s an opportunity to drive home why your message is important.

A. Paraphrase your thesis and main points: _____________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________

B. Tell your audience why your message is important: ___________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Article Category: Speechwriting

by Andrew Dlugan

Published: Feb 29th, 2008

This article describes how to support your core message with a speech outline, and provides numerous examples. This is the second step in the six-step speech preparation process.

Writing an outline is, unfortunately, a step that many skip. The most common excuse is simply “No time.” This is unfortunate because time spent on an outline is time well spent. It is necessary to ensure that you craft a coherent and focussed presentation.

Contents

Writing a Speech Outline

An outline is a blueprint for your presentation.

• It highlights the key logical elements. i.e. what points are being made to logically support the core message?
• It highlights the key structural elements. e.g. introduction, body, conclusion, stories, high-level concepts
• It links these elements together in a sequence, perhaps allocating very rough timings.
• It can also map out the transitions between elements, although this may be deferred to a later stage of preparation.

Basic Speech Outlines

“An outline is a blueprint for your presentation.”

The basic speech outline template for structural elements is:

1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion

Similarly, the basic speech outline template for logical elements is the familiar advice:

1. Tell them what you’re going to say
2. Tell them
3. Tell them what you’ve said

Put these together, and you have the start of a generic speech outline:

1. Introduction — Establish topic and core message; list supporting points
2. Body
   1. Supporting Point One
   2. Supporting Point Two
   3. Supporting Point Three
3. Conclusion — Recap main points; summarize core message; call-to-action

It is surprising how well this simple 3-part outline template works for a wide range of speech topics. Incidentally, this same basic formula can be seen in novels, short stories, movies, plays, reports, business briefings, emails, memos, and many other forms of communication.

For many more examples, check out Why Successful Speech Outlines follow the Rule of Three.

Variants or Examples of Speech Outlines

Example: Story-based Outline

Some people believe that stories are the best building blocks for speeches. For example, in The Story Factor (Annette Simmons), the author claims that storytelling is the key to business communications.

1. Attention grabbing opening which introduces the topic and core message
2. Tell a story.
3. Tell another story.
4. Tell another story.
5. Memorable conclusion which ties together all three stories to support the core message.

Example: Scientific Conference Talk Outline

The outline for many scientific talks mirrors the scientific method:

1. Define the problem needing a solution
2. Describe the hypothesis which will explore one aspect of the problem
3. Describe the experiment performed to test the hypothesis
   1. Detail 1 — schematic
   2. Detail 2 — photograph
   3. Detail 3 — description
4. Show the data collected and subsequent data analysis
   1. Data analysis 1 — chart
   2. Data analysis 2 — chart
   3. Data analysis 3 — table
5. Draw conclusions relating back to the hypothesis
6. Suggest future actions

Example: Community Association Meeting Speech Outline

1. Story to introduce the symptom (e.g. vandalism)
2. Use facts and evidence to trace back to the core problem (e.g. lack of “safe” activities for youth)
   1. Statistics
   2. Reports
   3. Interviews
3. Suggest a solution
   1. Budget
   2. Volunteers
   3. Stakeholders
4. A strong call-to-action motivating the audience to join the cause

Example: Business Proposal to Investors

1. Be direct: “Invest $___ for %___ of the shares”
2. Story to illustrate the need for the product XYZ
3. Story to describe the vision of how product XYZ improves lives
4. Demo of product XYZ
   1. Benefit #1 (focus on benefits, not features)
   2. Benefit #2
   3. Benefit #3
5. Invest now and make product XYZ possible
   1. Story illustrating strength of the team
   2. Market analysis
   3. Financial projections
6. Repeat call-to-action: “Invest $___ for %___ of the shares”

Other Speech Outline Writing Tips

“When sequencing your outline points, try to avoid random order. Seek and extract the meaningful relationship.”

Note that all of these speech outline examples are appropriate for a short six to ten minute speech. Longer time windows will obviously allow for more detailed outlines.

You may be able to customize one of the generic speech outline formats for your speech; more likely, you will need to craft your own to fit your situation. A few other things to consider:

• The granularity of your outline should be roughly one outline point per minute of speaking time, perhaps less for lengthy presentations.
• For presentations which are complemented with slides, your outline might include slide concepts, but no finer details.
  • Remember that your presentation is much more than your set of slides. Your outline should reflect your speaking elements which the slides complement.
• When sequencing your outline points, try to avoid random order. Seek and extract the meaningful relationship.
  • Chronological – e.g. a biographical speech
  • Spatial – e.g. an entertaining travel speech
  • Cause-effect – e.g. speech relating crime rate to drug use
  • Low to high importance – e.g. reasons to exercise
  • Broad vision to specific details – e.g. a management speech outlining new company direction
• Your outline is not the same as cue cards, but they are related (if you use cue cards). An outline contains high-level speech elements; cue cards might additionally contain selected speech details e.g. transition phrases, key words/phrases, key numbers, or punch lines.

Speech Outline Example — Face the Wind

Here is the original outline that I put together for the Face the Wind speech. Comments follow which represent my thinking at the time of writing the outline.

1. Opening humor – connect with audience as typical home owner
2. Story #1 – Backyard tree battle
   • “Strong roots… strong tree”
   • Foreshadow: neighbour’s monster tree falling
3. Story #2 – Winter storms knock over many trees
   • National news (trees falling on houses), but our house okay
   • Arborists: “Wind came from a different direction”
   • Establish key analogy – Trees cannot face the wind.
4. Story #3 – Baby Maximus
   • Michelle and Lance have strong roots
   • Maximus is born
5. Conclusion
   • Call-to-action: “We must face our problems”

Comments on Face the Wind Outline

At the outline stage, I set up many key elements of the speech. I determined the three main stories, planned humorous opening, identified a few key phrases to incorporate, established contrast (tree/people), used a metaphor (roots of people), and concluded with a call-to-action.

Opening – I wanted to open with humor to offset the drama later in the speech. Also, I wanted to connect with the audience as a homeowner as many in the audience are also homeowners.

Story #1 – I wanted the first story to establish the “strong roots… strong tree” connection. By establishing that trees have strong roots, it makes the fact that they were toppled in the storm (story #2) more dramatic.

Story #2 – This story was essentially an expansion of the “wind came from a different direction” theory of arborists that I picked up several months prior from my friend. The fact that trees cannot face the wind is the key analogy in this speech, although the audience doesn’t know it yet.

Story #3 – This story tells about the struggles which eventually led to the birth of Maximus. The key element here is the contrast between trees and people (who can face the wind).

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The next article in this series discusses the causes of writer’s block and writing the first draft of your speech.