Public Speaking – Building an Outline

Speaking from an outline allows the speaker to spend less time writing down their topic and more time organizing and practicing the actual speech.  Since it’s not written out word-for-word, it gives the speaker freedom to speak extemporaneously and will give your audience a more interesting and motivating session.

There are a lot of ways to build an outline, and in fact most word processing programs will help you to do it.  Regardless of what tool is used to create it, there are some basic principles that will help you put it together.

First, what are you planning to discuss?  You will need to articulate a specific idea, or theme, that you plan on speaking towards.  How do you develop the theme – or in the case of speaking at a conference, a session title? Start with that you expect your audience to take away from the discussion. If you can articulate that down to a single sentence, you probably have a pretty good topic, or theme you can build from.

The topic goes at the top of the page.

Next, what are the main points you will discuss?  Each of those points should directly support the topic.  Start by building a list of potential main points, then organize them by importance.  Add or eliminate these supporting points to fill your allotted time.  For short discussions, only two or three would be necessary; if the session goes to an hour, five or six would be better.  Just keep in mind that the fewer main points, the more likely your listeners will remember them.

It’s important that these main points be specific.  Don’t be vague or broad, each point should clearly support your main topic.

Once you have your supporting main points created, you have the foundations of your outline finished.  Now you can start to focus on the details under each main point.  What about each main point will pique the interest of your audience?  Add any details under each point, making sure to keep the overall flow balanced and keep an eye on how much detail is needed to fill your allotted time.

Between each main point, build a bridge.  Don’t just abruptly jump from one point to the next; rather, organize your outline in such a way that each topic can build on the next, and you have a clear transition.

Once you have your main points and supporting detail down, review it for flow and if necessary, reorganize it to optimize the delivery.

Finally, once you’re happy with the outline, it’s time to build an introduction and a conclusion.  The introduction can do a few different things, such as ask questions you think the audience would want answered, or go over a quick summary of what you plan to cover during the session.  To conclude, you should reference the question asked in the introduction, and try to motivate everyone to use the points mentioned to solve or answer the initial problem stated by your theme.

Building an effective outline can save you a lot of time, and will help you build skill in speaking extemporaneously.  Everyone is different, so the amount of information needed may vary, but by taking a methodical approach and creatively organizing your thoughts, you can give an effective speech.