Helping you say what you want to say… Creating an Outline! Helping you say what you want to say…

An outline is the written structure for a speech or paper. Outlines are useful for speeches because they help guide you through each segment of your speech in an organized way, without prompting you word for word. What’s an Outline?

Building Blocks of an Outline HEADINGS TOPICS SUBTOPICS

Headings are major sections. A good speech has 3-5 of them Headings are major sections. A good speech has 3-5 of them. Think BIG categories. Headings are represented by Roman numerals (I, II, III). Example: Types of Birds. HEADINGS

Topics are supporting elements within a heading Topics are supporting elements within a heading. These are indented one tab beneath a heading, represented by capital letters (A,B,C). Examples: Birds of prey. TOPICS

Subtopics are details of a topic, indented two tabs below topics Subtopics are details of a topic, indented two tabs below topics. They are represented by lowercase Roman numerals (i, ii, iii). Example: Owls, hawks, falcons. SUBTOPICS

Looks like this: Introduction: Types of birds Birds of prey are birds that stalk and kill small animals Owls - silent flyers Hawks – deadly talons Falcons – swift divebombers Songbirds are beautiful and colorful backyard buddies Cardinals – once rare, now flourishing Goldfinches – attracted to certain flowers Bluejays – known to attack smaller species Looks like this:

Make sure… Headings, topics, and subtopics should not be reduced to one word only… that’s not enough to prompt you while you’re speaking Nor should they be full paragraphs. The idea is to give you enough to get started, not tell you word for word what to say.

Try to make an outline of the following speech as you watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_klein_on _the_intelligence_of_crows.html Reverse Outline