Determine why your subject is important to your audience and what your objective is
• Select a theme; if one is assigned, analyze it
• Gather informative, helpful material
• Identify your main points
• Organize your material; keep only the best
• Prepare an interest-arousing introduction
• Plan a motivating conclusion
• Review your talk; refine
Preparing an outline helps you to organize your thoughts. Using it for delivery makes it easier for you to be conversational and to speak from the heart.
THE prospect of speaking from an outline makes people feel more secure if everything they are going to say is down on paper or memorized.
Yet, in reality, every day we all speak without a manuscript. We do it in conversation with family and friends. We do it when sharing .
When you deliver a talk, does it make a difference whether you use a manuscript or an outline? While reading from a prepared script can help to ensure accuracy and the use of choice wording, it has its limitations in reaching hearts. When you read more than a few sentences, you will usually adopt a pace and a pattern of inflection that differ from your spontaneous conversational style. If your attention is focused more on your papers than on your audience, many may not listen as intently as they would if they felt that you were really thinking about them and adapting your material to their circumstances. For a truly motivating talk, extemporaneous delivery is the best.
With good preparation, you will find that an outline, either mental or written, is usually sufficient to remind you of the main thoughts that you want to discuss.
Organize Your Thoughts. In order to use an outline when speaking, you need to organize your thoughts. This does not mean selecting the words that you plan to use. It simply means thinking before you speak.
In daily life, an impetuous person may find himself blurting out things that he later wishes he had not said. Another person may speak somewhat aimlessly, wandering from one idea to another. Both of these tendencies can be dealt with effectively by pausing to formulate a simple mental outline before beginning to speak. First fix your objective in mind, next select the steps that you need to take in order to achieve it, and then start to talk.
(1) As an introduction, you might mention something that is of concern to many people in your community. (2) Have in mind something specific that you could share on the subject.
Remember that an outline is meant to help you recall ideas. You may feel that it would be beneficial to write out a few sentences for use as an introduction. But after that, focus on ideas, not words. If you put those ideas down in the form of sentences, favor short sentences. The few main points that you plan to develop should stand out clearly in your outline. This can be achieved by writing them in capital letters, underscoring the points, or marking them in color. Under each main point, list the ideas that you want to use when developing it. Make note of illustrations that you want to use. You may also have some significant secular quotation that is appropriate. Make your notes extensive enough to have specific facts to present. The outline will be easier to use if it is neat
Look at the theme, read each of the main points, and state to yourself the connection that each of those main points has to the theme. Make note of how much time can be devoted to each main point. Now go back and study the first main point. Review the arguments,. Consider what you could omit. Focus on the ideas, not the words. Do not memorize the talk