Learning Objective
- Understand five basic principles of outline creation.
As with any part of the speech process, there are some pretty commonly agreed upon principles for organizing speeches and creating outlines. Now that we’ve examined the basic organizational patterns, there are some important factors to consider when creating an organized, logical, and coherent outline: singularity, consistency, adequacy, uniformity, and parallelism.
Singularity
For the sake of clarity, make sure the thesis statement expresses one idea only. Only in this way will it be optimally useful to build the outline. After narrowing the topic skillfully, focus the thesis statement as one central point. For example, with a thesis statement suggesting the Second Amendment protects gun ownership rights but most people are unaware of the responsibility involved, it's clear the thesis statement focuses on two different issues. It’s crucial to choose just one issue, saving the other perhaps for a different speech.
The same holds true for the main points: they should each express one clear idea. For the audience's sake, maintain clarity. If many different ideas are required in order to build a complete message, handle them in separate sentences with the use of such transitions as “at the same time,” “alternately,” “in response to that event,” or some other transition that clarifies the relationship between two separate ideas.
Consistency
The entire point of framing a thesis with one clear focus is to maintain consistency throughout the speech. Beyond the grammatical requirements of subject-verb agreement, we want to maintain a consistent approach. For instance, unless our speech has a chronological structure that begins in the past and ends in the future, we should choose a tense, past or present, to use throughout the speech. Similarly, we should choose language and use it consistently. For instance, use humanity instead of mankind or humans, and use that term throughout.
Similarly, define terms and use those terms only to designate the meanings in the definition. To do otherwise could result in equivocation and confusion. For instance, if we use the word “right” in two or three different senses, we should change our language. The word “right” can be applicable to right to a good education; the ethical difference between right and wrong; and the status of a statement as right, or accurate and correct. By the same token, in a health care setting, saying that a medical test had a positive outcome can be confusing. Does the patient test positive for the presence of disease, or does the test reveal some good news?
Adequacy
To make sure the audience will understand the speech, we need to set aside the assumption that what is obvious to us is also obvious to your audience. Therefore, pay attention to adequacy in two ways: definitions of terms and support for main points.
Use concrete language as much as possible. For instance, if we use the word “community,” we are using an abstract term that can mean many things. We might be referring to a suburban neighborhood; to a cultural group, such as the Jewish community; to an institutional setting that includes an academic community; or to a general sense of overarching mainstream community standards for what materials should or should not be broadcast on television, for instance.
Adequacy is also a concern when using evidence to support main points. Evidence of the right kind and the right weight are needed. For instance, if we make a substantial claim, such as a claim that all printed news sources will be obsolete within ten years, we need expert sources. This means we need at least two well-known experts from the institutions that provide news (newspapers, television news, or news radio). They should be credible sources, not sources with extreme views whose contact with reality is questioned. This will provide us with the right kind of evidence, and a large enough amount of evidence.
A full-sentence outline readily shows if we are giving “equal time” to each of our main points. For example, are we providing three pieces of evidence to support each main point? It should also show whether each main point is directly related to the thesis statement.
Parallelism
Parallelism refers to the idea that the three main points follow the same structure or make use of the same kind of language. For instance, in the sample outline we used previously, we see that each of the main points emphasizes the topic, smart dust.
Parallelism also allows us to check for inconsistencies and self-contradictory statements. For instance, does anything within main point two contradict anything in main point one? Examining the text for this purpose can strengthen the clarity of the message. For instance, if in main point one we claim that computer crime leaves an electronic trail, but in main point two we claim that hackers often get away with their crimes, we have some explaining to do. If an electronic trail can readily lead to the discovery of the electronic felon, how or why do they get away with it? The answer might be that cyber-crime does not fall within the jurisdiction of any law enforcement agency or that the law lags behind technology. Perhaps there are other reasons as well, and we must make sure we don’t leave our audience confused. If we confuse them, we will sound confused, and we will lose credibility. There is no doubt that a full-sentence outline provides the most useful opportunity to examine a message for the details that either clarify or undermine a message.
Key Takeaways
- For an outline to be useful, it’s important to follow five basic principles: singularity, consistency, adequacy, uniformity, and parallelism.
Exercises
- Look at an outline you’ve created for your public speaking course. Did you follow the five basic rules of outlining? How could you have changed your outline to follow those five basic principles?
- Write an outline for your next speech in your course, paying special attention to the structure of the outline to ensure that none of the principles of outlining are violated.
