1. Outlining Speeches and other useful information
SPEECH WRITING AND PRESENTATION
Outline format:

2. SPEECH PREPARATION How to Prepare Your Presentation
Select Your Speech Topic
Plan Your Speech Outline
Writing Your First Draft
Editing Your Speech
Add Speech Impact with Rhetorical Devices
Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety
Practicing Your Presentation
Self-Critique: Preparation for Next Time

3. Writing a Speech Outline Basic Speech Outline Speech Outline Variants
Writing an outline is, unfortunately, a step that many skip. The most common excuse is simply “No time.” This is unfortunate because time spent on an outline is time well spent. It is necessary to ensure that you craft a coherent and focussed presentation.
Contents
Writing a Speech Outline
Basic Speech Outline
Speech Outline Variants
Outline Writing Tips
Speech Outline Extended Example

4. An outline is a blueprint for your presentation.
It highlights the key logical elements. i.e. what points are being made to logically support the core message?
It highlights the key structural elements. e.g. introduction, body, conclusion, stories, high-level concepts
It links these elements together in a sequence, perhaps allocating very rough timings.
It can also map out the transitions between elements, although this may be deferred to a later stage of preparation.

5. The basic speech outline template for structural elements is:
Introduction
Body
Conclusion
Similarly, the basic speech outline template for logical elements is the familiar advice:
Tell them what you’re going to say
Tell them
Tell them what you’ve said
Put these together, and you have the start of a generic speech outline:
Introduction — Establish topic and core message; list supporting points
Supporting Point One
Supporting Point Two
Supporting Point Three
Conclusion — Recap main points; summarize core message; call-to-action

6. Story format
Attention grabbing opening which introduces the topic and core message
Tell a story.
Make a point
Tell another story.
Make another point.
Make another point
Memorable conclusion which ties together all three stories to support the core message.

7. Scientific Material
The outline for many scientific talks mirrors the scientific method:
Define the problem needing a solution
Describe the hypothesis which will explore one aspect of the problem
Describe the experiment performed to test the hypothesis
Detail 1 — schematic
Detail 2 — photograph
Detail 3 — description
Show the data collected and subsequent data analysis
Data analysis 1 — chart
Data analysis 2 — chart
Data analysis 3 — table
Draw conclusions relating back to the hypothesis
Suggest future actions

8. Business Proposal Example: Business Proposal to Investors
Be direct: “Invest $___ for %___ of the shares”
Story to illustrate the need for the product XYZ
Story to describe the vision of how product XYZ improves lives
Demo of product XYZ
Benefit #1 (focus on benefits, not features)
Benefit #2
Benefit #3
Invest now and make product XYZ possible
Story illustrating strength of the team
Market analysis
Financial projections
Repeat call-to-action: “Invest $___ for %___ of the shares”

9. Sample Speech Outline Example — Face the Wind
Here is the original outline that I put together for the Face the Wind speech. Comments follow which represent my thinking at the time of writing the outline.
Opening humor – connect with audience as typical home owner
Story #1 – Backyard tree battle
“Strong roots… strong tree”
Foreshadow: neighbour’s monster tree falling
Story #2 – Winter storms knock over many trees
National news (trees falling on houses), but our house okay
Arborists: “Wind came from a different direction”
Establish key analogy – Trees cannot face the wind.
Story #3 – Baby Maximus
Michelle and Lance have strong roots
Maximus is born
Conclusion
Call-to-action: “We must face our problems”

10. At the outline stage, I set up many key elements of the speech
At the outline stage, I set up many key elements of the speech. I determined the three main stories, planned humorous opening, identified a few key phrases to incorporate, established contrast (tree/people), used a metaphor (roots of people), and concluded with a call-to-action.
Opening – I wanted to open with humor to offset the drama later in the speech. Also, I wanted to connect with the audience as a homeowner as many in the audience are also homeowners.
Story #1 – I wanted the first story to establish the “strong roots… strong tree” connection. By establishing that trees have strong roots, it makes the fact that they were toppled in the storm (story #2) more dramatic.
Story #2 – This story was essentially an expansion of the “wind came from a different direction” theory of arborists that I picked up several months prior from my friend. The fact that trees cannot face the wind is the key analogy in this speech, although the audience doesn’t know it yet.
Story #3 – This story tells about the struggles which eventually led to the birth of Maximus. The key element here is the contrast between trees and people (who can face the wind).