The big takeaways that I was able to obtain from chapters 11 and 12, for chapter 11 main points I was able to make sure that your audience can understand and know where you are going with your information. Also, minimize the about of many points that you use because the audience will tend to start losing interest or get distracted by what you’re trying to say within your speech. In Chapter 12 I discovered the importance of arranging your speech points, being able to arrange and organize your main arguments is very important to make sure that your speech has more effect and impact. Doing this can make your speech sound and flow better binding your key points and connecting them with the arrangement you’re trying to make. Wrapping everything up in my option I think these are the best key points that were stated in chapters 11 and 12, providing skills and insights on how your speech can impact and leave an impact and keep your audience engaged.
Chapter 11-
Chapter 11 talks about the structuring of a speech and what to do and look for to make the best speech possible. In the chapter the importance of transitions is mentioned and different wording to make those transitions better. I like how the chapter mentioned the importance of transitions because I feel is the hardest part of the speech to get right. The book also mentions full sentence transitions which I feel can be both effective or not depending on how the sentence is formatted. I feel the best transitions are ones that don’t feel like you are moving from point to point but are all connected. The chapter also mentions the importance of sub points. All speeches to be should add multiple mini points in your speech to help all the main points feel more fletched out. Overall, the chapter puts a big focusing on the overall structure of the speech however I wish it dived more int how to get that structure.
Chapter 12
Chapter 12 talks about selecting an organizational pattern. This chapter highlights the different way to structure the order of topics within your speech. I love how the book highlights so many different arranging styles that both can be used for all types of speeches but show how some arrangements help speeches flow more then other arrangements do. The chapter also gives you a check list to help determine the best organizational pattern. Reading through this checklist was very interesting to be because it made me think about some of my pervious speeches to see if I picked the right pattern. I also love how it helps with also formatting with the speech where you can make sure some if not all these questions are answered. The checklist can also be used as a pre plan for the speech to help determine some key points and helps to get a organizational pattern before fully fleshing out the speech.
Chapter 11 teaches us the importance of main and supporting points and transitional words and phrases. One idea that I really liked that the chapter talked about is the idea that every main point needs at least two supporting points and I liked how they used the table analogy saying that “ the main point is the tabletop and the supporting points are the table legs; without at least two legs the table cannot stand.” I thought that the checklists that this chapter included were super helpful as well as the transition examples they included. One thing that I have a hard time doing is restricting the number of main points in my public speaking and the chapter helped me understand better what a main point is and how to identify them. Another Idea that helped me think about main points is the tip that the book gave that “Express each main point as a declarative sentence, one that asserts or claims something.” I never thought about main points in that way and this will help me to separate them from subpoints.
Chapter 12:
This chapter talks all about the six different organizational patterns for speeches which are chronological, spatial, casual, topical, narrative, and the problem solution. Before this reading I had no idea that there were organizational patterns that are typically used in speech giving so the whole chapter was all new information for me. I think even though I didn’t know about these organizational patterns I have used them all subconsciously once or twice and it’s good to be able to recognize what organizational patterns my past work fell into so that I can keep that In mind when I’m working on speeches in the future. I also think that the examples of the different patterns were crucial for me to help me understand the differences between the patterns. I would say that 9 times out of 10 when I write a speech I do a mix of the organizational patterns and I do my main points in the narrative pattern and my subpoints in the cause and effect pattern.
The largest take aways from both chapter 11 and chapter 12 is organization within your speech. Chapter 11 goes over the basics; introduction, body and conclusion. However it dives deeper into the understanding of how to lay out your main and supporting points in these introductions, body and conclusion in an outline compared to a script, as we discussed previously in class. These main points should be mutually exclusive of one another. So there are supporting points, coordination and subordination. The supporting points is the organization of video you have gather to explain or justify the main points in you speech. The coordination and sub-coordination is the logical placement of ideas and how they are relative to the importance of one another, and the meaning of the speech, that you want to get across. Then for the closing, is the internal summary which just reminds the audience of what was just covered.
Chapter 12 goes deeper into the patterns of which your speech should be in, giving examples throughout the entire chapter, as well as two full pages just being examples. The ones that stuck our to me where chronological patterns of arraignment, causal patten of arrangement, and the problem solution pattern. Chronological patterns of arraignment is the following of natural squeals in initial order of the main points of the speech you want to get too, such as points in time. The causal pattern of arrangement causes the effect, and the problem solution pattern, the most interesting to me; is the organization that aims to demonstrate the nature and the signification problem followed by a proposed solution. For example; the problem (causes), effects of problem (why it’s a problem), solutions that haven’t worked and purposed solutions. These chapter benefitted me as it helped me put into perspective as too what I want my next speech to be like, and specifically how I want to organize it. It gets me ready to set in stone the organizational aspect of how I want my future speech to be, and I am excited to use these techniques to better my said future speech.
So, overall from what I can tell, a speech is very similar to a traditional essay with an introduction, main point, and conclusion being very similar to that in a regular essay. This chapter specifically is about how to structure the main point section of the speech and how to properly lay out your main points. I feel like I already have a good grasp on their section about restricting how long a main point should be. And I also feel good about how the main points should be structured. On their point about using transitions between speech points, I feel like I also already do that, but I also know I have a tendency to overuse transitional words and phrases in both my writing and what few speeches I do give. The one thing I don’t think I use enough that they cover in this chapter is the internal previews and summaries.
I feel like this section is more freeform in what it gives you. Where it doesn’t tell you what to do and what not to do and instead is a collection of different ideas that you could use. I quite like this format and can see uses for all of these points. However, as shown in the last two pages of the chapter, each different pattern has completely different ideas governing their structures and points they are trying to make. I will keep this one in the back of my mind as I go forward and might use a couple of these strategies as they do seem useful.
Chapter 11:
To improve the speech structure, one should focus on the main points, supporting points, and transitions to strengthen the body of the speech. Main points express key ideas/claims supporting the thesis and should be limited to 2-5 points, stated as declarative sentences and in parallel for clarity. The main points in my first speech expressed key ideas about my personal communication style and past influences on it. Supporting points, organized as evidence (ex. narratives, facts, etc.), justify the main points. Some of my supporting points consisted of comments made by past teachers and specific mannerisms, such as rambling when under pressure. Coherence ensures ideas are organized logically, while balance ensures proper phasis among main points. (this is the organization of my speech. Transitions connect ideas and guide listeners from one idea to the next. I need to work on incorporating more transitions to guide my ideas smoothly. Previews and summaries help keep the audience engaged and on track, with previews signaling upcoming maternal and internal summaries reviewing previous content. Both work in tandem to maintain flow and clarity.
Chapter 12:
Organizational patterns are key in public speaking as they help structure ideas, link points together, and make it easier for the audience to follow. There are six common patterns: chronological, spatial, causal (cause-effect), topical, narrative, and problem-solution, each serving a different way to structure a speech effectively. I found that the Chronological pattern is the easiest to use because it mirrors how we naturally process events. The problem-solution pattern also stood out as it is quite effective for persuasive speeches when defining a problem before offering solutions. When writing my first speech, I was a bit lost when trying to structure and organize it in an engaging and logical way. I could have applied the Chronological pattern to my speech by providing a few examples of speaking opportunities I’ve taken on starting in middle school, then highschool, and ending with the most recent one then comparing my strengths/weaknesses in each. Another pattern that I could have used is the flexible topical pattern to divide my speech into more distinct categories. Organization is as crucial in public speaking as it is in my essay writing, ensuring audience relatability and connection as well as satisfying flow.
Chapter 11 of our book spoke about the proper structure of what to write for when you are presenting a speech. A lot of the things It talks about in this chapter are things I’ve already implemented into what I write for a speech including having defined sections for an introduction, body and conclusion, along with keeping each individual idea into its own point as to not get two ideas mixed into one. Some things I would like to take away from this and use in speeches in the future would be to have supporting points to my main points, such as examples or similar / relating ideas to the main point. There is also such thing as too many main points and its important to narrow it down to only the ones that support your main claim the strongest and to make sure you’re using as many as you need, but not too many to get your point across clearly and concisely.
Chapter 12 of our book spoke about organizational patterns and the different kinds of patterns that are most used amongst people. It states that the way you organize your ideas can affect your audiences understanding of them so using a good organizational pattern can make or break a speech. Some speeches that may need story telling or to tell a series of events would need to make use of arranging your speech points chronologically for the full story to make sense. These organizational patterns can vary depending on the type of speech you’re trying to give, like stated before parts of a speech that may need to tell a series of events can utilize arranging the speech points chronologically or arranging them in a narrative pattern to better tell a story. Other speeches that need to describe the physical arrangement of a location may need to utilize using a spatial pattern to better describe the area around them. All of these patterns are important, and I hope to be able to better implement them into my speeches in the future.
Chapter 11 focuses on the structure of a speech and how to achieve this structure. A speech consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction leads us to the body where you hit key points to support your introduction. The body with key points then leads us to the conclusion where we restate the main point in the introduction and close off the speech. However, when hitting main points, it is important to take into consideration how much information your audience can take away from your speech. Typically, audiences can comfortably take in between two and seven main points. This may be more or less depending on who your audience actually is. Main points should be mutually exclusive to one another, meaning they should not be going off other main points. Those would be subpoints. You should use subpoints to back up your main points, but try not to confuse subpoints with main points. Chapter 11 also mentions using transitions between speech points. This will make your speech smoother and easier to follow. Chapter 12 focuses on how we can organize our speech points. It starts off with how to organize your speech points chronologically. The chronological pattern of arrangement follows the natural sequential order of the main points. This means your topic would include a series of events that can be followed in a timeline or develop in line with a set pattern of options. There is also a spatial pattern of organizing points. The spatial pattern of arrangement is used to describe the physical arrangement of a place, scene, or an object. This chapter also mentions a casual cause and effect pattern. You would arrange your speech starting with the cause and then follow that up with the effect. The problem-solution pattern of arrangement organizes the main points to show the significance of the problem then with the solution to said problem. Lastly, this chapter mentioned the categorical topical pattern. This is used when a main point can be presented as a subtopic or category of the speech topic.
The main takeaway from chapter 11 and 12 was that to give an effective speech you must have a well-structured speech/outline. Including an introduction, body, and conclusion but they also need to have a main point to get the key point across in the speech. Chapter 11 also points out that main audiences will only take in about 2-7 key points in a speech. We also need to make sure we support all the main points we speak about. It is also very important that we have good organization to be able not to confuse the listeners/audience. Overall, I learned how important it is to be able to get a solid point across while being professional and loud as well as confident. Being confident on the inside and the outside are very different things, a perfect example of this is when we gave our in-class speeches. Several people said they were extremely nervous, but they did very well in their speeches, and you couldn’t tell most of them were nervous.
Chapter eleven holds an emphasis on speech structure. One of the things I connected with, is that in a way, public speaking is just like writing essays, which I happen to be fairly good at. Although possibly slightly less formal in order to engage an audience, public speaking and creating a speech with structure is akin to writing an essay. Things like creating a creative hook, a thesis, body paragraph points with subsections, it is exactly like writing an essay. Akin to writing an essay, chapter eleven also suggests using transition phrases/words between speech points as if you were writing an essay. This is all something I can connect to, as writing a speech in my head sounds far more difficult than writing an essay, which is second nature. Later in the chapter, there is even an example of a working outline, which in a way, resembled an essay, but in speech form.
Chapter 12:
Chapter twelve holds an emphasis on arranging speech points throughout the structure. This entails patterns such as chronological (my preferred method that I used in speech one), spatial, causal (cause and effect), topical, and narrative (which I also used a bit of in my first speech in a way). Although I used chronological order to explain my communication styles in speech one, I want to go through and point out other methods, and how I could have used them in speech one. For example, I could have used spatial by possibly creating a “tour” of events that happened with Conner and Liam, that led to the change of my communication style. Or even better, I could have used causal (cause and effect) patterns in my speech. Although I may have used them ever so slightly by telling my audience how Conner and Liam changed my communication style, I could have done a “trickle” effect where each even caused me to change a communication style flowing throughout my speech.
Chapter 11 discusses how to structure a speech. The authors start out by explaining how to use main points to structure your claims in a speech. It is suggested that a speech has between 2 and 7 main points, as research has shown that is how many an audience can take in. Each main point should also only address one idea, and be separate from one another. The thesis statement can also be used as an outline for what your main points should be. Supporting points will help back up your main points. Supporting points can consist of examples, quotes, facts, statistics, etc. Supporting points should be placed relative to their importance. Coordinate points should be assigned equal weight and subordinate points should be assigned less weight. A speech should only have points implied by the thesis statement, it should be organized clearly and logically, and appropriate weight should be given to each part of the speech relative to other parts. Transitions will also ensure that the speech flows smoothly.
Chapter 12 talks about the importance of organization of a speech. There are different ways to organize a speech. You could arrange the main point chronologically, according to when they occurred. You could arrange your speech using a spatial pattern, arranging the points in order of physical proximity relative to one another. You could arrange the speech using a cause and effect pattern, listing the causes followed by the effects. You could use a problem-solution pattern, showing the importance of a problem and then suggest a solution. You could arrange the points categorically, so it doesn’t matter what order they are in. And you could use a narrative pattern, using a storytelling technique.
Chapter 11:
After reading chapter 11, I found a great deal of information found inside the chapter to be quite fascinating and significant towards preparing better speeches. First off, I found pages 78-82 significant towards creating a better speech because those pages dived deeper into how you to properly structure a speech through usage of an introduction that includes a solid thesis statement, a good body portion of your speech that includes solid main points to support your thesis, and a conclusion that wraps up all of those main points that were brought up and reminds the audience of the thesis. Another thing I found to be very useful was how this chapter described the usage of points to bring up in your speech. This chapter explained that you should only have between 2-7 main points that should be introduced as a new idea that you’re bringing to the table, and that only 2-7 main points are appropriate because any more than that makes the main points harder to follow from an audience perspective. Instead, what you should do is mention supporting points and sub-supporting points that back up the main points that you presented during your speech. You should have about 1-2 supporting points and about 1-2 sub-supporting points for every main point that you bring up during your speech. Overall, I found the contents of chapter 11 to be quite interesting and useful towards anyone trying to become a better public speaker and I will definitely implement what I’ve learned in this chapter into my speeches.
Chapter 12:
After reading chapter 12 of our book, it really put into perspective just how important certain aspects of a speech really are, even the aspects that don’t get thought about too often. First off, chapter 12 really covered the major importance of both organization patterns and formatting, and showed just how important they really are to the overall speech. Chapter 12 went into detail about how without good formatting and patterns to your speech, your speech may become hard to understand and follow from an audience perspective because the speech you’ll be giving will be all over the place, making it hard for the audience to understand the points that you’re trying to make. In conclusion, chapter 12 went into detail about all the different ways of formatting a speech and how each one of them applies to certain scenarios and the information that I learned from chapter 12 I’ll definitely carry with me when making future speeches.
Chapters 11 and 12 of A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking really helped me understand how the structure and evidence of a speech work together to create something impactful. In Chapter 11, the authors dove into how important it is to organize your speech effectively. They stress that a clear structure-introduction, body, and conclusion-keeps your audience engaged and ensures your message is understood. I particularly liked how outlining was not only presented as a way of organizing but also as a means of clarifying the main points and making sure every part of the speech serves a purpose. The different organizational patterns, such as chronological or causal, really made me consider how the structure of a speech can change with the message and audience.
Chapter 12 then addresses ways you can support your speech with good evidence. One thing this chapter made clear is that credible sources are not just about authority, but rather about making an argument more convincing. I also really enjoyed the section about testimony—whether it be expert or peer testimony, it just makes it all seem and feel so much more human and relevant. They pointed out that it is just not enough to stack facts, but one should use distinct types of supports in a balanced manner to make the speech both compelling and credible: statistics, examples, testimonies. That made me understand how much thought goes into the type of evidence presented and how to present it. Combined, both chapters made a real point that a well-structured speech, supported by valid and diverse evidence, really enhances how well you communicate.
Chapter 11 of the book was all about how to properly format main points and the evidence that goes with them, along with how to correctly use transition words to make your speech flow smoothly. Something that stuck with me from this chapter is you have to make sure you allot appropriate amounts of time to the different sections of your speech. For example, having at least two subpoints for your main point is one of the things that helps “balance” your speech. If you fail to do this, you may spend more time talking about one of your main points and not spending enough time on one of your other main points. In my opinion, this would throw off the so-called “balance” of the speech because it may make it seem like you didn’t complete enough research about one of your talking points.
Chapter 12 was about organizing your speech into a pattern, the pattern you will want to use somewhat depends on what type of speech you are giving, and the main talking points of that speech. So what I really got away from this chapter is that there is no one “right way” to write and deliver a speech. At the end of the day the same main points all stand, but there are so many different ways to put that information together that there are many unique ways two people could give a speech about the same thing. I think this stuck with me because throughout my life I have been very conscious of doing things “the right way,” so having the comfort that there are many “correct” ways to write a speech helps me with some of my anxieties when it comes to writing and delivering speeches.
Chapter 11 demonstrated the proper ways to present the main points within a speech. A well-delivered speech will have proper transitions from one topic to the next that blend well with each other, a well-structured format that makes the evidence of your points clear and understandable, and how to present your speech in the correct amount of time for each topic and section. Overall, this chapter gives the basic details of constructing a well-spoken and well-written speech and makes it easy for anyone to understand. Chapter 12 goes deeper and discusses the more structural elements of a speech. This chapter demonstrates ways to keep your speech from becoming messy and confusing for the audience. Organization is one of the most important aspects of creating a good speech. Without it, you could go from topic to topic in the completely wrong order and confuse those who are listening.
16 thoughts on “JOURNAL # 4”
The big takeaways that I was able to obtain from chapters 11 and 12, for chapter 11 main points I was able to make sure that your audience can understand and know where you are going with your information. Also, minimize the about of many points that you use because the audience will tend to start losing interest or get distracted by what you’re trying to say within your speech. In Chapter 12 I discovered the importance of arranging your speech points, being able to arrange and organize your main arguments is very important to make sure that your speech has more effect and impact. Doing this can make your speech sound and flow better binding your key points and connecting them with the arrangement you’re trying to make. Wrapping everything up in my option I think these are the best key points that were stated in chapters 11 and 12, providing skills and insights on how your speech can impact and leave an impact and keep your audience engaged.
Chapter 11-
Chapter 11 talks about the structuring of a speech and what to do and look for to make the best speech possible. In the chapter the importance of transitions is mentioned and different wording to make those transitions better. I like how the chapter mentioned the importance of transitions because I feel is the hardest part of the speech to get right. The book also mentions full sentence transitions which I feel can be both effective or not depending on how the sentence is formatted. I feel the best transitions are ones that don’t feel like you are moving from point to point but are all connected. The chapter also mentions the importance of sub points. All speeches to be should add multiple mini points in your speech to help all the main points feel more fletched out. Overall, the chapter puts a big focusing on the overall structure of the speech however I wish it dived more int how to get that structure.
Chapter 12
Chapter 12 talks about selecting an organizational pattern. This chapter highlights the different way to structure the order of topics within your speech. I love how the book highlights so many different arranging styles that both can be used for all types of speeches but show how some arrangements help speeches flow more then other arrangements do. The chapter also gives you a check list to help determine the best organizational pattern. Reading through this checklist was very interesting to be because it made me think about some of my pervious speeches to see if I picked the right pattern. I also love how it helps with also formatting with the speech where you can make sure some if not all these questions are answered. The checklist can also be used as a pre plan for the speech to help determine some key points and helps to get a organizational pattern before fully fleshing out the speech.
Chapter 11:
Chapter 11 teaches us the importance of main and supporting points and transitional words and phrases. One idea that I really liked that the chapter talked about is the idea that every main point needs at least two supporting points and I liked how they used the table analogy saying that “ the main point is the tabletop and the supporting points are the table legs; without at least two legs the table cannot stand.” I thought that the checklists that this chapter included were super helpful as well as the transition examples they included. One thing that I have a hard time doing is restricting the number of main points in my public speaking and the chapter helped me understand better what a main point is and how to identify them. Another Idea that helped me think about main points is the tip that the book gave that “Express each main point as a declarative sentence, one that asserts or claims something.” I never thought about main points in that way and this will help me to separate them from subpoints.
Chapter 12:
This chapter talks all about the six different organizational patterns for speeches which are chronological, spatial, casual, topical, narrative, and the problem solution. Before this reading I had no idea that there were organizational patterns that are typically used in speech giving so the whole chapter was all new information for me. I think even though I didn’t know about these organizational patterns I have used them all subconsciously once or twice and it’s good to be able to recognize what organizational patterns my past work fell into so that I can keep that In mind when I’m working on speeches in the future. I also think that the examples of the different patterns were crucial for me to help me understand the differences between the patterns. I would say that 9 times out of 10 when I write a speech I do a mix of the organizational patterns and I do my main points in the narrative pattern and my subpoints in the cause and effect pattern.
Word Count: 351
The largest take aways from both chapter 11 and chapter 12 is organization within your speech. Chapter 11 goes over the basics; introduction, body and conclusion. However it dives deeper into the understanding of how to lay out your main and supporting points in these introductions, body and conclusion in an outline compared to a script, as we discussed previously in class. These main points should be mutually exclusive of one another. So there are supporting points, coordination and subordination. The supporting points is the organization of video you have gather to explain or justify the main points in you speech. The coordination and sub-coordination is the logical placement of ideas and how they are relative to the importance of one another, and the meaning of the speech, that you want to get across. Then for the closing, is the internal summary which just reminds the audience of what was just covered.
Chapter 12 goes deeper into the patterns of which your speech should be in, giving examples throughout the entire chapter, as well as two full pages just being examples. The ones that stuck our to me where chronological patterns of arraignment, causal patten of arrangement, and the problem solution pattern. Chronological patterns of arraignment is the following of natural squeals in initial order of the main points of the speech you want to get too, such as points in time. The causal pattern of arrangement causes the effect, and the problem solution pattern, the most interesting to me; is the organization that aims to demonstrate the nature and the signification problem followed by a proposed solution. For example; the problem (causes), effects of problem (why it’s a problem), solutions that haven’t worked and purposed solutions. These chapter benefitted me as it helped me put into perspective as too what I want my next speech to be like, and specifically how I want to organize it. It gets me ready to set in stone the organizational aspect of how I want my future speech to be, and I am excited to use these techniques to better my said future speech.
So, overall from what I can tell, a speech is very similar to a traditional essay with an introduction, main point, and conclusion being very similar to that in a regular essay. This chapter specifically is about how to structure the main point section of the speech and how to properly lay out your main points. I feel like I already have a good grasp on their section about restricting how long a main point should be. And I also feel good about how the main points should be structured. On their point about using transitions between speech points, I feel like I also already do that, but I also know I have a tendency to overuse transitional words and phrases in both my writing and what few speeches I do give. The one thing I don’t think I use enough that they cover in this chapter is the internal previews and summaries.
I feel like this section is more freeform in what it gives you. Where it doesn’t tell you what to do and what not to do and instead is a collection of different ideas that you could use. I quite like this format and can see uses for all of these points. However, as shown in the last two pages of the chapter, each different pattern has completely different ideas governing their structures and points they are trying to make. I will keep this one in the back of my mind as I go forward and might use a couple of these strategies as they do seem useful.
Chapter 11:
To improve the speech structure, one should focus on the main points, supporting points, and transitions to strengthen the body of the speech. Main points express key ideas/claims supporting the thesis and should be limited to 2-5 points, stated as declarative sentences and in parallel for clarity. The main points in my first speech expressed key ideas about my personal communication style and past influences on it. Supporting points, organized as evidence (ex. narratives, facts, etc.), justify the main points. Some of my supporting points consisted of comments made by past teachers and specific mannerisms, such as rambling when under pressure. Coherence ensures ideas are organized logically, while balance ensures proper phasis among main points. (this is the organization of my speech. Transitions connect ideas and guide listeners from one idea to the next. I need to work on incorporating more transitions to guide my ideas smoothly. Previews and summaries help keep the audience engaged and on track, with previews signaling upcoming maternal and internal summaries reviewing previous content. Both work in tandem to maintain flow and clarity.
Chapter 12:
Organizational patterns are key in public speaking as they help structure ideas, link points together, and make it easier for the audience to follow. There are six common patterns: chronological, spatial, causal (cause-effect), topical, narrative, and problem-solution, each serving a different way to structure a speech effectively. I found that the Chronological pattern is the easiest to use because it mirrors how we naturally process events. The problem-solution pattern also stood out as it is quite effective for persuasive speeches when defining a problem before offering solutions. When writing my first speech, I was a bit lost when trying to structure and organize it in an engaging and logical way. I could have applied the Chronological pattern to my speech by providing a few examples of speaking opportunities I’ve taken on starting in middle school, then highschool, and ending with the most recent one then comparing my strengths/weaknesses in each. Another pattern that I could have used is the flexible topical pattern to divide my speech into more distinct categories. Organization is as crucial in public speaking as it is in my essay writing, ensuring audience relatability and connection as well as satisfying flow.
Chapter 11 of our book spoke about the proper structure of what to write for when you are presenting a speech. A lot of the things It talks about in this chapter are things I’ve already implemented into what I write for a speech including having defined sections for an introduction, body and conclusion, along with keeping each individual idea into its own point as to not get two ideas mixed into one. Some things I would like to take away from this and use in speeches in the future would be to have supporting points to my main points, such as examples or similar / relating ideas to the main point. There is also such thing as too many main points and its important to narrow it down to only the ones that support your main claim the strongest and to make sure you’re using as many as you need, but not too many to get your point across clearly and concisely.
Chapter 12 of our book spoke about organizational patterns and the different kinds of patterns that are most used amongst people. It states that the way you organize your ideas can affect your audiences understanding of them so using a good organizational pattern can make or break a speech. Some speeches that may need story telling or to tell a series of events would need to make use of arranging your speech points chronologically for the full story to make sense. These organizational patterns can vary depending on the type of speech you’re trying to give, like stated before parts of a speech that may need to tell a series of events can utilize arranging the speech points chronologically or arranging them in a narrative pattern to better tell a story. Other speeches that need to describe the physical arrangement of a location may need to utilize using a spatial pattern to better describe the area around them. All of these patterns are important, and I hope to be able to better implement them into my speeches in the future.
Chapter 11 focuses on the structure of a speech and how to achieve this structure. A speech consists of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The introduction leads us to the body where you hit key points to support your introduction. The body with key points then leads us to the conclusion where we restate the main point in the introduction and close off the speech. However, when hitting main points, it is important to take into consideration how much information your audience can take away from your speech. Typically, audiences can comfortably take in between two and seven main points. This may be more or less depending on who your audience actually is. Main points should be mutually exclusive to one another, meaning they should not be going off other main points. Those would be subpoints. You should use subpoints to back up your main points, but try not to confuse subpoints with main points. Chapter 11 also mentions using transitions between speech points. This will make your speech smoother and easier to follow. Chapter 12 focuses on how we can organize our speech points. It starts off with how to organize your speech points chronologically. The chronological pattern of arrangement follows the natural sequential order of the main points. This means your topic would include a series of events that can be followed in a timeline or develop in line with a set pattern of options. There is also a spatial pattern of organizing points. The spatial pattern of arrangement is used to describe the physical arrangement of a place, scene, or an object. This chapter also mentions a casual cause and effect pattern. You would arrange your speech starting with the cause and then follow that up with the effect. The problem-solution pattern of arrangement organizes the main points to show the significance of the problem then with the solution to said problem. Lastly, this chapter mentioned the categorical topical pattern. This is used when a main point can be presented as a subtopic or category of the speech topic.
The main takeaway from chapter 11 and 12 was that to give an effective speech you must have a well-structured speech/outline. Including an introduction, body, and conclusion but they also need to have a main point to get the key point across in the speech. Chapter 11 also points out that main audiences will only take in about 2-7 key points in a speech. We also need to make sure we support all the main points we speak about. It is also very important that we have good organization to be able not to confuse the listeners/audience. Overall, I learned how important it is to be able to get a solid point across while being professional and loud as well as confident. Being confident on the inside and the outside are very different things, a perfect example of this is when we gave our in-class speeches. Several people said they were extremely nervous, but they did very well in their speeches, and you couldn’t tell most of them were nervous.
Chapter 11:
Chapter eleven holds an emphasis on speech structure. One of the things I connected with, is that in a way, public speaking is just like writing essays, which I happen to be fairly good at. Although possibly slightly less formal in order to engage an audience, public speaking and creating a speech with structure is akin to writing an essay. Things like creating a creative hook, a thesis, body paragraph points with subsections, it is exactly like writing an essay. Akin to writing an essay, chapter eleven also suggests using transition phrases/words between speech points as if you were writing an essay. This is all something I can connect to, as writing a speech in my head sounds far more difficult than writing an essay, which is second nature. Later in the chapter, there is even an example of a working outline, which in a way, resembled an essay, but in speech form.
Chapter 12:
Chapter twelve holds an emphasis on arranging speech points throughout the structure. This entails patterns such as chronological (my preferred method that I used in speech one), spatial, causal (cause and effect), topical, and narrative (which I also used a bit of in my first speech in a way). Although I used chronological order to explain my communication styles in speech one, I want to go through and point out other methods, and how I could have used them in speech one. For example, I could have used spatial by possibly creating a “tour” of events that happened with Conner and Liam, that led to the change of my communication style. Or even better, I could have used causal (cause and effect) patterns in my speech. Although I may have used them ever so slightly by telling my audience how Conner and Liam changed my communication style, I could have done a “trickle” effect where each even caused me to change a communication style flowing throughout my speech.
Chapter 11 discusses how to structure a speech. The authors start out by explaining how to use main points to structure your claims in a speech. It is suggested that a speech has between 2 and 7 main points, as research has shown that is how many an audience can take in. Each main point should also only address one idea, and be separate from one another. The thesis statement can also be used as an outline for what your main points should be. Supporting points will help back up your main points. Supporting points can consist of examples, quotes, facts, statistics, etc. Supporting points should be placed relative to their importance. Coordinate points should be assigned equal weight and subordinate points should be assigned less weight. A speech should only have points implied by the thesis statement, it should be organized clearly and logically, and appropriate weight should be given to each part of the speech relative to other parts. Transitions will also ensure that the speech flows smoothly.
Chapter 12 talks about the importance of organization of a speech. There are different ways to organize a speech. You could arrange the main point chronologically, according to when they occurred. You could arrange your speech using a spatial pattern, arranging the points in order of physical proximity relative to one another. You could arrange the speech using a cause and effect pattern, listing the causes followed by the effects. You could use a problem-solution pattern, showing the importance of a problem and then suggest a solution. You could arrange the points categorically, so it doesn’t matter what order they are in. And you could use a narrative pattern, using a storytelling technique.
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Chapter 11:
After reading chapter 11, I found a great deal of information found inside the chapter to be quite fascinating and significant towards preparing better speeches. First off, I found pages 78-82 significant towards creating a better speech because those pages dived deeper into how you to properly structure a speech through usage of an introduction that includes a solid thesis statement, a good body portion of your speech that includes solid main points to support your thesis, and a conclusion that wraps up all of those main points that were brought up and reminds the audience of the thesis. Another thing I found to be very useful was how this chapter described the usage of points to bring up in your speech. This chapter explained that you should only have between 2-7 main points that should be introduced as a new idea that you’re bringing to the table, and that only 2-7 main points are appropriate because any more than that makes the main points harder to follow from an audience perspective. Instead, what you should do is mention supporting points and sub-supporting points that back up the main points that you presented during your speech. You should have about 1-2 supporting points and about 1-2 sub-supporting points for every main point that you bring up during your speech. Overall, I found the contents of chapter 11 to be quite interesting and useful towards anyone trying to become a better public speaker and I will definitely implement what I’ve learned in this chapter into my speeches.
Chapter 12:
After reading chapter 12 of our book, it really put into perspective just how important certain aspects of a speech really are, even the aspects that don’t get thought about too often. First off, chapter 12 really covered the major importance of both organization patterns and formatting, and showed just how important they really are to the overall speech. Chapter 12 went into detail about how without good formatting and patterns to your speech, your speech may become hard to understand and follow from an audience perspective because the speech you’ll be giving will be all over the place, making it hard for the audience to understand the points that you’re trying to make. In conclusion, chapter 12 went into detail about all the different ways of formatting a speech and how each one of them applies to certain scenarios and the information that I learned from chapter 12 I’ll definitely carry with me when making future speeches.
Chapters 11 and 12 of A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking really helped me understand how the structure and evidence of a speech work together to create something impactful. In Chapter 11, the authors dove into how important it is to organize your speech effectively. They stress that a clear structure-introduction, body, and conclusion-keeps your audience engaged and ensures your message is understood. I particularly liked how outlining was not only presented as a way of organizing but also as a means of clarifying the main points and making sure every part of the speech serves a purpose. The different organizational patterns, such as chronological or causal, really made me consider how the structure of a speech can change with the message and audience.
Chapter 12 then addresses ways you can support your speech with good evidence. One thing this chapter made clear is that credible sources are not just about authority, but rather about making an argument more convincing. I also really enjoyed the section about testimony—whether it be expert or peer testimony, it just makes it all seem and feel so much more human and relevant. They pointed out that it is just not enough to stack facts, but one should use distinct types of supports in a balanced manner to make the speech both compelling and credible: statistics, examples, testimonies. That made me understand how much thought goes into the type of evidence presented and how to present it. Combined, both chapters made a real point that a well-structured speech, supported by valid and diverse evidence, really enhances how well you communicate.
Chapter 11 of the book was all about how to properly format main points and the evidence that goes with them, along with how to correctly use transition words to make your speech flow smoothly. Something that stuck with me from this chapter is you have to make sure you allot appropriate amounts of time to the different sections of your speech. For example, having at least two subpoints for your main point is one of the things that helps “balance” your speech. If you fail to do this, you may spend more time talking about one of your main points and not spending enough time on one of your other main points. In my opinion, this would throw off the so-called “balance” of the speech because it may make it seem like you didn’t complete enough research about one of your talking points.
Chapter 12 was about organizing your speech into a pattern, the pattern you will want to use somewhat depends on what type of speech you are giving, and the main talking points of that speech. So what I really got away from this chapter is that there is no one “right way” to write and deliver a speech. At the end of the day the same main points all stand, but there are so many different ways to put that information together that there are many unique ways two people could give a speech about the same thing. I think this stuck with me because throughout my life I have been very conscious of doing things “the right way,” so having the comfort that there are many “correct” ways to write a speech helps me with some of my anxieties when it comes to writing and delivering speeches.
Chapter 11 demonstrated the proper ways to present the main points within a speech. A well-delivered speech will have proper transitions from one topic to the next that blend well with each other, a well-structured format that makes the evidence of your points clear and understandable, and how to present your speech in the correct amount of time for each topic and section. Overall, this chapter gives the basic details of constructing a well-spoken and well-written speech and makes it easy for anyone to understand. Chapter 12 goes deeper and discusses the more structural elements of a speech. This chapter demonstrates ways to keep your speech from becoming messy and confusing for the audience. Organization is one of the most important aspects of creating a good speech. Without it, you could go from topic to topic in the completely wrong order and confuse those who are listening.