Some people take forever to heat up a bagels, or burn it to a charred crisp. But not me.
I’m a real toastmaster.
[Vivaldi’s Spring, interrupted by rude thump]
In 1908, an article in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail quoted a local Birmingham preacher
named J H Jowett, who described a fellow preacher’s foolproof method for structuring a sermon:
“I take my text, and divide my sermon into three parts. In the first part I tell ’em
what I am going to tell ’em; in the second part—well, I tell ’em; in the third part
I tell ’em what I’ve told ’em.” This rhetorical strategy, often called “The Three
T’s,” is probably familiar to anyone who’s been tasked with putting together a presentation
or a lecture - it’s sometimes framed as the *only* acceptable strategy for conveying
a point to one’s audience.
Of course, that’s why John F Kennedy’s entreaty to the American people to support
the space program concluded sensibly with: “I have described some of the motivations
we share in achieving difficult feats of science and engineering.” It’s why Winston Churchill
wrapped up his address to Parliament by saying: “To reiterate: I have assumed the office
of Prime Minister, and I humbly ask for your assistance in the war effort.” It’s why,
when another preacher began one of the most famous and influential speeches of all time,
he started it off by saying: “I would like to describe the injustice of racial segregation
in the United States, and my vision for a more unified future.”
All kidding aside, these speeches may have a different flavor than most university lectures
or company presentations, but they are inarguably masterpieces of public speaking, making clear
points and arguments, supporting those points with evidence, and lodging them the memory
of each person listening, effecting incredible change in the world as a result. Only the
most absurd mental gymnastics could convince you that they take any page from J H Jowett’s
much-lauded rhetorical playbook, but they are still powerful and convincing.
Of course, not everyone can aspire to those lofty heights in every bit of public speaking,
and not every scenario requires that style of rhetoric. Trying to get your sixth-grade
math class to understand long division probably demands a slightly different strategy than
Churchill’s wartime address...although I’d certainly love to see an honest effort at
such. The popularity of the Three T’s approach stems from the simple way it captures a few
useful & nearly universal ideas, encouraging certain virtues in presentation even if the
person wielding the strategy is completely inept at public speaking - if you don’t
have a knack for speech-writing, it at least gives you *something* to go on.
Unfortunately, its popularity as a go-to strategy has turned it into a bit of a red flag. Faced
with the unique terror of giving a speech, many inexperienced communicators will *broadcast*
their T’s, desperately highlighting that they’re telling you what they’re going
to tell you and hoping you’ll recognize and appreciate how closely they’re following
“the rules” for a good speech. That frantic reliance on Jowett's formula is the refuge
of those who have no other ideas for how to deliver a decent talk, who are hoping that
the mystic power of the T’s will convey their ideas safely. It’s kinda like asking
someone on a first date with a dozen roses, a box of chocolates and a Hallmark greeting
card - does it really look like you know what you’re doing?
Instead of relying on some bit of folk wisdom to make us effective communicators, maybe
we should ask what it is about good public speaking that the Three T’s are *supposed*
to encourage, why leaning on that framework often produces better results for inexperienced
presenters than simply winging it. First and most apparent is the stress on repetition
as a means of highlighting key points. Ideally, a speech or lecture should convey your ideas
to the widest possible cross-section of your audience, and driving home important takeaways
can ensure that a broad range of attention spans and interest levels will at least remember
those bits. Repetition can be an effective way to achieve that goal, but using it naively
can kill a presentation. It can be patronizing. It can be boring. Perhaps worst of all, it
can be redundant in a way that invites an audience to tune out - why should they hang
on every word if half of those words are the same?
All the important speeches I’ve cited use repetition, but only when it serves the point
being made. Martin Luther King repeats: “I have a dream.” and each time he does, it’s
a hammer blow, an incessant, pounding reminder of the difference between that noble vision
and the reality of a segregated America. JFK’s speech invokes the metaphor of explorers enduring
hardship in several places, harping on the idea that the United States is a country descended
from brave adventurers willing to do anything in the name of discovery. Even paying slightly
higher taxes. Churchill repeats only two words: Victory, and Survival. The repetition ranges
from subtle to overt, from literal to abstract, but it’s always used to drive something
important home, not as a pleading reminder of what the speech is about.
Technical explanation and other sorts of pedagogy benefit from structure, because giving students
a framework they can use to map new information makes it easier to remember. Everyone has
had a teacher whose lessons are meandering to the point of being useless, and it’s
not hard to imagine why the Three T’s would be a welcome rule in such situations - at
the very least, to tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, you need to know what
it is you’re going to tell ‘em ahead of time. The structure of your talk can be part
of what makes it interesting and engaging...or, if it’s tediously predictable, a great way
to lose your audience in places they figure will be unimportant. The Wadsworth Constant
suggests that the first 30% of any YouTube video can be safely skipped without missing
any critical content. Hmpf.
Obviously, there are numerous ways of creating structure in a talk, and communicating that
structure clearly can make the ideas you’re trying to convey stick better. For example,
the Problem-Solution format is a compelling way to frame new information in a memorable
fashion - you pose some question then proceed to answer it, explaining all the tools and
facts you’re using as you apply them. Not only does this provide a practical context
to ground those ideas, it organizes them in a stepwise process of problem-solving and
motivates your audience to absorb them. The TV series Mythbusters is rightly credited
with teaching a whole generation of kids science without them having any idea that they were
learning, simply by invoking a very carefully engineered problem-solution framework for
the lessons.
Good speeches have some sort of arc or rhythm, building and releasing tension in a way that
engages the audience & steers their attention to the desired conclusion. The Three T’s
approach encourages something like an introduction, development, and summary, a sort of rising
and falling progression. Unfortunately, naive communicators often fail to smoothly transition
between those sections, blasting their beginning and ending without any connection to the rest
of their points. It’s rather like riding in a car that’s shifting without a clutch,
and it makes a talk feel less like a cohesive narrative and more like a series of tangentially-related
statements.
My three examples differ a great deal in length and shape, but they all exhibit masterful
control over flow and pacing. JFK’s Rice address is long and has numerous arcs of rising
and falling energy, interspersed with jokes to break the tension when the mood gets overly
severe. “I Have a Dream” is charged with a sawtooth of rising tension, granting brief
respite only when the subject changes and climaxing in a righteous call to action. Churchill’s
speech is an incredible study of dry British understatement until its final paragraph,
where he states unequivocally that Britain will endure great hardship, and must dedicate
itself to war or perish.
If you’re just starting off in rhetoric or speech-writing, it’s tempting to look
for hard and fast rules about how to present your ideas in a compelling way, and these
sorts of guidelines can help, but there’s also an art to it, something that can’t
be reduced to a checklist. Trying to cram every presentation into the Three T’s framework
doesn’t just limit your palette of rhetorical techniques, it's no guarantee that you’ll
get your point across, and may even invite speculation that you’re simply following
a bit of folk wisdom without any deeper understanding than “This is just how things are done.”
There *are* useful lessons to be gleaned from its popularity, and you might well find that,
without explicitly planning anything of the sort, you can map a decent talk to its rules,
but it’s better to make those decisions deliberately.
. Have you experienced a painfully naive use
of the Three T’s? What are some of your favorite talks or speeches that don’t use
it? Please leave a comment below, and let me know what you THUNK.