A Note about Outlining Your Speech

Have you ever made a grocery list before visiting the grocery store? Have you ever been to the grocery store without one? Lists can be helpful in a successful grocery visit, ensuring you pick up all your necessities. Let’s say you need milk, eggs, bread, pasta, toothpaste, green beans, yogurt, chicken, cheese, bananas, carrots, shampoo, avocadoes, Pop-tarts, cereal, coffee, and soda.  If you organized your list by department – Produce, Meats, Dairy, Pre-packaged foods, and Toiletries – and then listed your items according to their department, you would be one organized shopper!

Believe it or not, a speech outline is like a grocery list. To ensure effective speech delivery, we must organize our thoughts and research. The following chapter will discuss how to organize your thoughts into a coherent speech outline.