If you have not yet written a specific purpose for your current speech, please go ahead and write one now. Before you can think strategically about organizing the body of your speech, you need to know what your specific purpose is.
In each of these three examples, you’ll notice that the general topic is the same-open-source software-but the specific purpose is different because the speech has a different general purpose and a different audience.
To entertain members of a business organization with a mock eulogy of for-pay software giants as a result of the proliferation of open-source alternatives To persuade a group of college students to make the switch from Microsoft Office to the open-source office suite OpenOffice To inform a group of school administrators about the various open-source software packages that could be utilized in their school districts
In this section, we will discuss how to take your speech from a specific purpose to creating the main points of your speech. To avoid being seen as disorganized, we want you to start thinking critically about the organization of your speech. When that happens, audience members are left confused and the reason for the speech may get lost. Too often, new speakers just throw information together and stand up and start speaking. We like the word strategic because it refers to determining what is important or essential to the overall plan or purpose of your speech. In this section, we’re going to discuss how to think strategically about the body of your speech. The real “meat” of your speech happens in the body. The introduction establishes the topic and whets your audience’s appetite, and the conclusion wraps everything up at the end of your speech. When creating a speech, it’s important to remember that speeches have three clear parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Explain how to prepare meaningful main points.Be able to narrow a speech from all the possible points to the main points.