you may have seen an awesome video recently the compared speech
organization to sloppy joes and blts if you haven't it's definitely worth a
watch the overall message is that your speech like a BLT ought to have clearly
defined layers and not run altogether doing so means you need to carefully
craft your main and supporting points in this video we'll discuss some tips for
organizing the main points and subordinate points of your speech
let's start with some general tips for developing main points in your speech
first you should have somewhere between two and five main points overall
audiences will have trouble following and retaining more than five main points
if you find that you have more than five
you may need to consider grouping organizing things a bit differently for
example let's imagine that you're giving a speech on how to change a car tire you
might determine that there are 16 different steps involved in changing a
tire you don't really want 16 main points but it's not like you can just
leave something like tighten the lug nuts on the tire out of the speech right
instead you can consider grouping those steps under the umbrella of broader main
points you might determine that the first five steps are things you do
before you put the car up on the jack the next seven are things that you do
while the car is on the jack and the last four are things that happen after
the car is down off of the jack those 16 steps then become sub-points and you
have a speech that's easier for the audience to follow and retain next you
should think of your main points a sort of mini thesis statements each should be
a declarative sentence and support the main thesis in some way you will also
want to use parallel construction whenever possible aligning language of
your main points will help them stand out more for the audience a speech about
adopting a dog for example might use parallel wording like before adopting a
puppy
you should consider the breed before adopting a puppy
you should consider the space needs and before adopting a puppy
you should consider the cost
your main points should also be balanced within reason why they don't have to be
exactly equal you don't want one main point that's five minutes long and one
that's 20 seconds long
the shorter one doesn't get enough time to be fully developed and it becomes
totally overshadowed by the larger one if it's important enough to talk about
then find the time if it's not then consider getting rid of it you want to
be cautious about using the word and in a main point because it can indicate
that you're combining two ideas that should really be separated main points
should be distinctive and clearly defined if you find an and in one of
your main points then carefully consider whether it's truly just one idea or if
it's really two things that should be pulled apart finally keep the
communication principles of primacy and recency in mind when developing your
main points
this essentially means that the audience is most likely to remember what they
hear first
and what they hear last as a result the most critical or important main point of
your speech should either come first or last
once you have your main points well-organized you can consider how to
best organize the information that will be supporting each of those items we
have a few simple tips for organizing supporting points as well first much
like main points supporting points should be in the form of a declarative
sentence each supporting . should also work to support the main point to which
it is connected and finally supporting points should follow the principles of
coordination and subordination the principle of coordination means that
your main points sub-points and sub-sub-points should be aligned in such a
way that they have comparable letter or number designations subordination places
the supporting points of a given main point under the heading of that .
coordination and subordination will be discussed more thoroughly as a part of
our video on outlining as you organize your next speech remember that well
crafted main points and supporting points will keep the structure of your
speech from resembling a sloppy joe
where everything runs together in a big mess instead you'll have a tasty BLT
with clear and distinct layers and defined separation in this video we
discussed some tips for organizing the main points and subordinate points of
your speech check out some of our other videos for more insight into the public
speaking process