The Body of Your Speech

The body of your speech is where most of your  content, sources, support, and other information

is developed and presented to your audience. While  there aren't specific parts of the body of your

speech, like in the introduction and conclusion,  there are some things that you need to consider

as you're organizing your main points and other  content. In this video, we're going to look at two

considerations to keep in mind as you put together  the body of your speech. The first thing to

consider when developing the body of your speech  is your main points. Now, you should already

have a good sense of what your main points are,  however, there's a couple specific issues related

to main points I want to discuss here. First,  the body of your speech should always include

between two and four main points. If you only  have one main point in the body of your speech,

then you're not really structuring your  speech, you're not showing your audience

how ideas relate to each other. As a result, you  should always have more than one main point to

establish organization and structure. However,  on the flip side of that, you should never have

more than four main points. Having too many main  points often leads to confusion and disengagement,

since it makes it harder for your audience to  follow and remember. Two to four main points,

I typically recommend three, seems to be the  sweet spot where you have enough main points

to give your speech structure and clarity, but  not so many main points that your speech becomes

overly complex and difficult to follow. That means  as your time limit increases, instead of adding

more main points, instead use that extra time to  better develop and support the main points you

already have. The second issue related to main  points should be that these main points need to

follow a clear organizational pattern. With any  speech topic, there's a wide range of main points

you could discuss. However, effective speakers  don't just pick any main points randomly. Instead,

they select main points that not only best support  their thesis statement, but also relate to each

other in a clear, effective, and strategic way.  There's six primary organizational patterns

that you can choose from, and the one that you  ultimately choose for any particular speech will

depend on your topic as well as your overarching  goal. For example, some of these patterns are more

geared towards informative speaking and others  towards persuasive speaking. The most commonly

used organizational pattern is topical. When  using topical organizational patterns each of your

main points is related to each other, not through  some underlying relationship, but simply by their

connection to the main topic itself. For example,  if I was going to give a speech on Disneyland,

a topical organizational pattern might include  main points like rides, food, shows, characters,

parking, costs, the business of Disneyland, and  other things. While there may be some overlap,

functionally, they're autonomous separate  points that only really relate to each other

underneath the broader topic. I could also  use a chronological organizational pattern.

Unsurprisingly. chronologically organized main  points connect through their relationship to time

or steps in a process. So, using the Disneyland  example, if I was going to choose chronological

main points I could have my first main point  be what Disneyland was like in the early years,

a second main point on Disneyland in the middle  years, and then finally a main point on Disneyland

today. Another chronological option would be to  provide a sequence of steps that audience members

could take while visiting the theme park.  A third organizational pattern is spatial.

Spatially organized main points are arranged  either geographically or in relationship to

their relative position in space. Here, my main  points about Disneyland could include a spatial

walkthrough of the theme park, looking at  Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, Adventureland,

and so on. Topical, chronological, and spatial  organizational patterns are very common, but

they're primarily used for informative speaking.  When speaking persuasively, there's some other

organizational patterns that can be used to  account for the different underlying purpose

of these types of speeches. Due to the persuasive  focus on reasoning and argument, cause and effect

and problem-solution organizational patterns are  common in these types of speeches. For example,

if I was trying to persuade my audience about  the best time of year to visit Disneyland,

I could use a problem-solution organizational  pattern in which I have two main points,

the first main point establishes the problems  with visiting at a certain time of year and the

second main point would present alternative times  of year as a solution to this problem. A causally

organized speech would be organized similarly,  where I would focus on various causes or effects

and either causes we want to stop or effects we  want to avoid. The final organizational pattern

that is used almost exclusively in persuasive  speaking is the motivated sequence. This type of

organizational pattern is specific to generating  action and is a bit more complicated in its

format. We're going to be looking specifically  at this organizational pattern later in the term,

so I'm not going to discuss it in detail at this  time. So, these are the organizational patterns

that you can use to structure your main points.  Always make sure that your main points follow a

consistent and clear organizational pattern,  so your audience can follow along with your

content easily and effectively. For example, one  of the biggest mistakes that students often make

with organizational patterns is that they will  blur things like topical and chronological. In

your speech I don't want to have a main point  on the history or background of your topic and

then a main point on like the benefits or ways  we can use it, because talking about the history

or background is inherently chronological and time  oriented and there's not an effective flow between

that and the main point on benefits or use of your  topic. Beyond considering main points, the body

of your speech also needs to make careful use of  transitional statements. A transitional statement

is a single sentence that organizationally links  various parts of your speech together and prepares

the audience for what's to come. Consequently,  these transitions need to be included between each

major section of your speech and between each main  point in your speech so the audience can follow

along more easily. Transitional statements always  begin with what we call a "signpost." A signpost

is either a word or a series of words that signal  what's to come. They signal a directional shift

or change in your speech content. Signpost words  can come in a variety of forms, depending on where

they are in your speech and what their purpose is.  Signpost words can be ordering or chronological,

that would include words like "first," "second,"  "third," "next," "after." They can also be

reinforcing or contrasting words, that would  include things like "similarly," "conversely,"

or "in addition to." They can be causal, that  would be words like "therefore," "consequently."

Or they can be summarizing. This would include  things like our "in conclusion," but also words

like "finally" or "to wrap things up." Beyond the  signpost, the transitional statement also needs to

signal what came previously and what is coming up  in the speech. This reinforces and clarifies its

structural position in the speech. For example, a  full transitional statement might sound something

like this, "Second, now that we have looked at  some of the rides you can enjoy at Disneyland,

let's move on and discuss some other experiences  you can enjoy while you're in the park." Notice

here that the wording of the transition  does not redundantly state the next main

point that's coming up. Instead, it signals what  came before and then ambiguously highlights that

there's going to be a new main point coming soon.  So, when developing the body of your speech,

careful selection and organization of main points,  as well as the integration of clear transitional

statements, establish the structure you need to  keep your content easy to follow and organized.