How to Write Your Speech Outline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Way back on July 5, 2009 I blogged about how there are Two types of speech outlines: speaking and preparation. The less well-known speaking outline is used when practicing your delivery.

 

The Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas has a three-page pdf article on Outlining Your Speech that discusses both types. Preparation outlines are written with full sentences; speaking outlines are written with key words. Main points are headed by Roman numerals, subpoints by Arabic numbers, and sub-sub-points by capital letters, etc.

 

A web page from the Purdue Online Writing Lab titled Four Main Components for Effective Outlines describes parallelism, coordination, subordination, and division. Parallelism means headings and subheadings should have parallel structure. Coordination means different headings should have the same significance. Subordination means that subheadings should be more specific and headings more general. Division means each heading should be divided into at least two parts.

 

On August 14, 2024 I blogged about Six ways to create an outline for your presentation.

 

My cartoon adapted a scroll from Openclipart.

 

Six ways to create an outline for your presentation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Magic Slides on July 22, 2024 there is a useful article titled How to Create a Presentation Outline: A Step-by-Step Guide with Examples. It describes the following methods:

 

Method 1: Create Your Outline from Scratch

Method 2: Use an AI Presentation Maker

Method 3: The Mind Mapping Technique

Method 4: The Storyboard Approach

Method 5: The Reverse Engineering Method

Method 6: The Comparative Layout

 

I have previously discussed four of these methods. On July 5, 2009 I blogged about Two types of speech outlines: speaking and preparation. And on August 4, 2009 I posted about Mind mapping and idea mapping for planning presentations. Also, on March 17, 2011 I blogged about Use a storyboard to organize your presentation. Finally, on December 11, 2022 I posted about how to Get a bird’s eye view of a presentation with a reverse outline.

 

At Toastmasters International the mandatory Level 1 Pathways project on Writing a Speech with Purpose contains a Speech Outline Worksheet starting on page 22.

 The number six was modified from this image at Openclipart.

 

The Pop-Up Pitch - Dan Roam’s visual storytelling approach to planning presentations

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many different ways to plan a presentation, including outlining, mind mapping, and storyboarding. In 2021 Dan Roam added another with his book The Pop-Up Pitch (The Two-Hour Creative Sprint to the Most Persuasive Presentation of Your Life). A description on his web page claims: 

 

“If you’re busy but you want to create a great presentation, I wrote this book for you.

 

This whole book is about how to spend two hours creating ten pages that will transform your audience in seven minutes, no matter what story you need to tell.

 

Your pop-up pitch combines clear words and simple pictures that evoke specific emotions, so that your story is enjoyable to hear, memorable to see, and inspires the action you need.

 

The next time you have an idea to pitch, try this story line. It works.”

 

Toastmasters typically give five-to-seven-minute speeches, so Dan’s approach may appeal to them.

 

In his book Dan describes two tools, which are THE VISUAL DECODER and THE 10-PAGE PITCH TEMPLATE. Templates for both can be downloaded at his web page. A redrawn version of the Visual Decoder is shown above. It fits on both sides of a single sheet of paper. You fill in each page by drawing a picture. Pages 55 to 63 illustrate how to do this with the example of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

 

The more detailed 10-page pitch template is as follows:

 

P1 TITLE: WHO & WHAT

Title Page:

Give your pitch a Who & What title.

(Emotion = CLARITY)

 

P2 OUR COMMON GROUND

Our Common Ground:

Establish an authentic connection to your audience and the issues that concern them Show them you know them, for real.

(Emotion = TRUST)

 

P3 THE COMING PROBLEM

The Coming Problem:

State the facts and numbers that might be so scary that no one really wants to look at them.

(Emotion = FEAR)

 

P4 AN EMOTIONAL WIN

An Emotional Win:

Paint a picture of what it might feel like to have already solved the problem.

(Emotion = Hope)

 

P5 THE FALSE HOPE

The False Hope:

Admit that the hoped-for simple solution won’t really work at all.

(Emotion = SOBERING REALITY)

 

P6 AN AUDACIOUS NEW REALITY

A Fairly Audacious Reality:

State the bold alternative; the slightly crazy yet potentially viable solution that just might, with courage and commitment, work.

(Emotion = GUSTO)

 

P7 WE CAN DO THIS FOR REAL

We Can Do This, For Real:

Walk through your bold alternative with a grounding sense of real possibility; get into a few key details to show there’s no real reason to fear them.

(Emotion = COURAGE)

 

P8 CALL TO ACTION

Our Call To Action:

List the five things that need to get done first to make it happen. Take personal responsibility for two. Request help with the other three.

(Emotion = COMMITMENT)

 

P9 EARLY BENEFITS

Early Benefits:

State at least two near-term measurable benefits that getting started now will trigger.

(Emotion = REWARD)

 

P10 THE LONG WIN

The Long Win:

Close with an unexpected giant win that could truly come to pass once the new solution becomes the new normal.

(Emotion = TRUE ASPIRATION)

 

The three core components are the Beginning (P2, P3, P4), the Middle (P5, P6, P7) and the End (P8, P9, P10).

 

There is a thirty-minute YouTube video by Kelly Kingman at Kingman Ink titled VBQ O1: Dan Roam Explains the 10-Page Pitch Template.

 

I haven’t tried his 10-Page Pitch Template yet.

 

Get a bird’s eye view of a presentation with a reverse outline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Articles on planning what to write typically say to begin by constructing an outline. But there is another way to use an outline.

 

Wikipedia has an article on Outline which also contains the following description:

 

“A reverse outline is an outline made from an existing work. Reverse outlining is like reverse engineering a document. The points or topics are extracted from the work, and are arranged in their order of presentation, by section, in the outline. Once completed, the outline can be filled in and rearranged as a plan for a new improved version of the document.”

 

This week I am reading Ron Friedman’s 2022 book Decoding Greatness – How the best in the world reverse engineer success. Starting on page 35 he describes agonizing over having to write his first journal (academic magazine) article. Then Ron discussed reading a half-dozen articles by a psychologist he had admired. After he reverse outlined them, he got a blueprint for constructing his own. Notes in the back of his book refer to a post by Aaron Hamburger in the New York Times – Opinionator Blog on January 21, 2013 titled Outlining in Reverse.

 

You can find an excellent discussion in a web page from the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin titled Reverse outlines: a writer’s technique for examining organization. It links to a ten-page .pdf from August 2012 titled Reverse Outlines: Take apart your paper to put it together right.

 

When was reverse outlining used first? I found a discussion of it in Roy Peter Clark’s 2008 book Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, under Tool #24: Work from a plan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He says:

 

“…Here was my problem. I could never see far enough ahead to plot what the third part of section C was going to be. I had to write my way to that point; I had to discover what I was going to say. And so, as a survival mechanism, I invented the reverse outline. I would write a full draft of the story and then create the outline. This turned out to be a useful tool: if I could not write the outline from the story, it meant that I could not discern the parts from the whole, revealing problems of organization.”

 

I used a cropped version of Theodore Robinson’s 1889 painting of A Bird’s Eye View from Wikimedia Commons.

 

Recent advice on using note (cue) cards

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I looked up some advice about using note (cue) cards for presentations. One recent set of advice comes from a post by Rosemary Ravinal at The Master Communicator Blog on August 22, 2022 titled Eight ways to use note cards during a presentation. Another set of advice comes from an October 6, 2021 five-minute YouTube video by Ryan Guy titled 5 Tips for Using Note Cards During a Speech.

 

Rosemary’s eight ways are:

 

Pick the right-sized cards.

Write only what is essential.

Refrain from using your smartphone for notes.

Memorize the first ten seconds of your talk.

Print a copy of your presentation, just in case.

Resist the temptation to read verbatim.

Word of caution about virtual teleprompters.

Know when to turn the page.

 

As shown above, she suggests you either use 5.5”x8.5” cards (8.5”x11” sheets of card stock cut in half) or 4”x6” cards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under Write only what is essential she says that:

 

“Short bullets can serve as the outline of your talk. Write down keywords to jog your memory and keep you from going astray. Are there numbers, statistics, and complex names that are necessary for your content to resonate? Write those down. Do not telegraph that you are using note cards. Glance gently at them and return your eyes to the audience right away. Hold your cards in your non-dominant hand. That way, when you speak and gesture, you are not fanning yourself with the cards and calling attention to them.”

 

Ryan instead advises that you use 3”x5” palm-sized cards. He suggests limiting yourself to five cards – introduction, three main points, and conclusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both Rosemary and Ryan suggest numbering your cards. Why? As is shown above, Murphy’s Law means you might trip while stepping up to the stage or dais, and drop your cards. In a blog post on February 12, 2020 titled Using note cards confidently I suggested that you also chain or tie your cards together.

 

Another blog post by David Meerman Scott on July 29, 2020 titled Cue Cards in 2020: A powerful analog presentation tool adapted from the Apollo Lunar Program discusses using larger cards for Zoom presentations.  

 

Note (cue) cards are not the only way to keep track of a speech. Back on August 4, 2009 I blogged about Mind mapping and idea mapping for planning speeches. If you have a mind map, then you could leave it on the lectern to glance at as needed.   

 

The image of Rosa Di Belmonte holding a hand fan was adapted from one at Wikimedia Commons, as was a falling warning sign.

 

Using note cards confidently

On February 10, 2020 at Inc. there was an article by Deborah Grayson Riegel titled How to use notes when public speaking without losing your audience and subtitled Your notes shouldn’t become the focus of your presentation. Her ten tips have the following headings:

 1] Look polished

 2] Write big

 3] Number them

 4]Practice

 5]Plan your moves

 6] Choose the right (or left) hand

 7] Don’t read

 8] Distract from the notes

 9] Challenge your assumption

10] Don’t apologize

Deborah admitted that she rarely refers to notes. It’s always dangerous to give advice on something you do not do. Her detailed advice for the third point, Number them says to:

“Write large page numbers on each sheet of paper or index card. That way, if they get shuffled or out of order, you can quickly find your place.”

Deborah’s advice won’t keep you out of trouble if you get nervous and drop those cards. Back on April 19, 2017 I blogged about how You never should have to worry about shuffling or dropping your cue cards. Just chain (or tie) them together as shown above.

In her second paragraph she also says:

“And if you’re not lucky enough to have a ‘confidence monitor’ (that flat screen at the foot of the stage that allows the speaker to see his slides without breaking eye contact with the audience) you may have to rely on old-fashioned paper to bring up with you.”

I always print out my PowerPoint slides at six per page and then staple those few pages together as my emergency backup. If the projector doesn’t work I can still use notes to speak without the slides.

Back on October 3, 2015 I blogged about how Outline notes are a visual aid for the speaker.

Be careful when you count out your points

At The Buckley School web site on May 10, 2019 there was a useful article titled Questionable presentation advice:  count out your points. Enumerating your ideas is useful because it shows your plan and guides your audience from one idea to the next. As shown above by the auctioneer selling a pitchfork, when you have just four points it is easy for both the audience and you to get a handle on each of them.

There are pitfalls though. First, a speaker might promise some number of points but not deliver them distinctly so the audience becomes confused.

Second, the speaker might fail to deliver all the points he said he would. (That might also come from bad planning).

Even worse he might keep adding additional ones. There is a classic comedy sketch on Monty Python’s Flying Circus where the Spanish Inquisition appears and their leader says:

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise, surprise and fear, fear and surprise. Our two weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency. Our three weapons are fear and surprise, and ruthless efficiency, and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope. Our four…Amongst our weapons…”   

Third, when there are multiple speakers on a program the tendency to enumerate can be contagious and its repeating bore the audience.

Fourth, the speaker might promise an overwhelming number of points (perhaps 24) and actually deliver them. Then, as shown above, the speech will have a structure like a comb. Without more of a hierarchy the audience can get hopelessly lost. Back on March 22, 2011I blogged about Speech geometry: lines, circles, forks, and combs.

The auctioneer image came from the Library of Congress.  

Six steps to presenting an excellent speech

Recently I found an interesting PowerPoint slide about the speech preparation process titled Teaching Communication Preparation Circular Model on a web page covering My Teaching Speech Class Tips for Instructors at Jim Peterson‘s Speech Topics Help website. He illustrated the following five steps using arrows in partial circles:

Selecting

Researching

Outlining

Writing

Delivering

I liked that Jim showed a meandering series of steps rather than the usual  bullet point list or boxes linked by straight arrows. I disliked that he forgot to include Rehearsing as a necessary step before Delivering.

So, as is shown above, I redrew his slide with that missing step included, and an even more meandering path from Selecting (a topic) to Delivering (the speech).
  

23 skeletons for storytelling

Story structure is important. On May 22nd at the new digital magazine web site called Presentation Guru Gavin McMahon posted a very useful article titled Story structure - the hidden framework that hangs your story together. He shows 23 examples by strorytellers ranging from Aristotle to Vonnegut.

The image of a skeleton from leaping horse by Eadweard Muuybridge came from the Library of Congress.

Outline notes are a visual aid for the speaker

On September 16th the web site for Johnson & Hunter, Inc. about Speaking Skills for Lawyers had a web page with an excellent brief article by Marsha Hunter on Notes as Your Visual Aid. Her four rules for a speaking outline are to:

Write big.
Write legibly.
Keep notes simple.
Keep notes handy.




There also is a YouTube video, Notes Are a Visual Aid for the Speaker.

Keep in mind that you could either use a piece of 11”×17″ ledger paper or tape together two 8-1/2” × 11” sheets to create a notes page the size of a restaurant menu.

The Public Speaking Project has a 16-page freely downloadable .pdf Chapter 8 about Organizing and Outlining.

An image of a woman reading a letter was adapted from a painting at Wikimedia Commons.

Writer’s block is like getting your car stuck in mud up to the axles

What comes next? First you need to get unstuck and somehow write a first draft. Why might you get stuck? In a 2013 blog post titled Speech Preparation #4: wrestling writer’s block to write the first draft Andrew Dlugan suggested that the deadly combination is a lack of direction plus perfectionism.

In a March 18th post on his Speak & Deliver blog Rich Hopkins discussed Shatter Your Writer’s Block Pt I: Speechwriting in Reverse. His approach is to practice a speech from a mental or written outline and record it. Then he transcribes to produce his written draft. That’s not how I do it, but there is no best way for everyone. I have blogged about how to Use a storyboard to organize your presentation. 

Then you can begin editing your draft. In her 1995 book Bird by Bird writer Anne Lamott reminds us that:

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something - anything - down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft - you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft - you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth to see if it’s loose or cramped or decayed, or even God help us, healthy.”

Along the way, ask yourself:

A)   Do I have too few points or too many?

B)   Did I cover them with too little detail or too much?

C)   Does the structure for my speech make sense?

The mired car image came from the Library of Congress.

Does your speech have too much content and not enough structure?

Crafting an excellent speech requires giving the content a structure (via a storyboard, mind map, or outline), and deciding how much to say (or not say). Too much content is like a bad Santa overstuffing the stockings.

I just read a humorous story by Stephen Leacock called Save Me From The Man Who Has A Speech To Make from the September 1927 issue of Harper’s Magazine. He told about his series of brief encounters with Mr. Robinson over the course of a month.

First, Mr. Robinson told him that next month he had to speak at a Tuesday evening banquet - to give an after-dinner toast to Our Country. A week later he decided it might be a good idea to say something about the history of the country. After another three days Robinson was sidetracked by reading The Life of Christopher Columbus.

A week before the speech he decided it also might be a good idea to say something about the future of the country. On Monday morning, Robinson stayed home to work on his speech. (A newspaper announcement for the banquet noted there would be fifteen speakers).

On Tuesday morning he was still working, and finally had decided to write it out. Also, he complained that he hadn’t had enough time to work on it before. Just before dinner Robinson decided he’d gotten a touch of bronchitis, gave his text to a friend to present at the banquet, and stayed at home, presumably in bed.

On Wednesday evening he whined that the morning paper had misquoted his text:

“...Where I said ‘This country has a great destiny in front of it,’ they’ve put it, ‘this country has a great destitution in front of it.’ ”

Months later Mr. Robinson was still talking in hindsight about what he should have said, of other ideas that came to him later, and of jokes or gags that could have been included.

The bad Santa was adapted from a 1908 Puck magazine cover.

Speech geometry: lines, circles, forks, and combs

On February 6th John Zimmer blogged about Basic Speech Geometry. He began by noted that many people think of a speech as being something linear, as shown above.

There is no good reason why that line needs to be straight though. A speech could follow some sort of a story arc instead.

Then John continued by saying that instead:

“I believe that a speech should be circular. Not in the sense that you keep going over the same point again and again. Rather, I mean that the conclusion should somehow bring the audience back to the introduction.”

Last Thursday I blogged about how to Use a storyboard to organize your presentation. As you begin by putting note cards or sticky notes into stacks, you will notice that there also should be clear transitions between the main points.

A speech with three main points (and an opening and closing) will have a geometry that resembles a fork at this stage of planning.

A complicated speech with many points instead will look more like a comb. During planning you might unconsciously be aware of patterns like these. I think naming them works better.

Use a storyboard to organize your presentation

A storyboard is a shorthand visual script. It is like a comic strip - a series of drawings with words and images that outline and illustrate the points in a presentation. We can begin to make one by listing our ideas on note cards or sticky notes, and arranging them in stacks, as shown above. It’s easy to rearrange them at this stage.

Next we lay them out in sequence and take another look to see if the order makes sense and flows. If it does, then we can go to our computer, open PowerPoint, type in the words, and add the images. For editing we will use the Slide Sorter view to see an equivalent of our storyboard.

A storyboard can begin with a series of 1-1/2 by 2-inch Post-It notes arranged in a file folder, as is shown above for my speech about the Case of the Corroded Computer, which I discussed previously.

I originally give that speech as project #8 (Get Comfortable with Visual Aids) in the Toastmasters Competent Communication manual. For that audience my PowerPoint slides were similar to those shown above. For the medical high school students I had a more detailed version that included things like the chemical reaction used to test for chloride.

Making storyboards with sticky notes was described by Marie Wallace as Picture Your Speech back in 1997. Bert Decker teaches it as the Decker Grid, using a folder with a template as shown here.

You can watch a recent video of Jon Thomas beginning the storyboard process. Nancy Duarte has described how she edited a 40 minute presentation down to an 18-minute TED talk. She discussed how you can go back to a storyboard from the Slide Sorter view in PowerPoint. Nancy noted that when you print slides as handouts with nine per page the images are 1-1/2 by 2-inches, just like those little Post-It notes.

Storyboards have a long history of use in animated cartoons and other films, as described by the following video.

Mind mapping and idea mapping for planning speeches

An outline is not the only way to plan or organize a speech. If you prefer visual thinking, then you can use mind mapping or idea mapping. Draw a diagram with words, images, and lines to show how your central idea is related to your other ideas.

This YouTube video shows basic rules for making a mind map by using colored pens to draw on paper. Another video shows how computer software such as NovaMind can be used to draw and edit a map.

Here are three interesting examples of mind maps for public speaking:

1. Dave Curley shows a template that he uses for quickly creating a speech.

2. Fred E. Miller shows how his No Sweat Public Speaking approach includes both content and delivery.

3. IQ Matrix sells a big colorful mind map illustrating what is involved in Professional Public Speaking. At the very bottom of the page you can download a free black and white version.

Two types of speech outlines: speaking and preparation

 

In Chapter 10 of his textbook on The Art of Public Speaking Stephen E. Lucas defines two different types of outlines used in preparing speeches: a preparation outline and a speaking outline (a structured set of notes).

During the speech preparation process you may create a preparation outline, which is a very detailed outline. It includes: the title, specific purpose, central idea, introduction, main points, subpoints, connectives, conclusion, and bibliography. The main points and subpoints are stated in full sentences.

A speaking outline is just a brief outline used to jog a speaker’s memory during the presentation of a speech. It uses phrases or key words to state main points and sub points.

Other textbooks use slightly different terminology. In Chapter 13 of A Speaker’s Guidebook (2nd edition) by O’Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein they call the detailed outline a working outline (or preparation outline, or rough outline), and they note that a speaking outline also may be called a delivery outline.

A more detailed discussion of outlines appears in Chapter 6 of the online textbook, Fundamentals of Public Communication.

Word processing software can simplify creating outlines. For example, Microsoft Word has an Outline View that can be used to plan presentations, as described by Charles Anderson, and also in the for Dummies series of books. You can learn how to save yourself hours by using Outline View properly.

Outlines are not the only way to organize a speech. You may prefer to start from mind maps or storyboards. 

UPDATE October 3, 2015

Chapter 8 of the Public Speaking Project online textbook has a detailed .pdf file that discusses Organizing and Outlining. An image of Senator Josh Lee came from the LIbrary of Congress. 

A speech needs a skeleton before it can stand up.

A structure from an outline is part of the basic planning process for creating a speech. Eventually that structure must be converted into a sequence of words and images.

There are many approaches to planning and outlining. Andrew Dlugan has one, and Susan Dugdale has another.