having a well-written outline will set you up nicely to do well in your presentation so in this video I'll teach you how to write your outline so that you can perform best let's start off with what an outline is not so that if your outline looks like any of these you can visually see right away that you're on the wrong truck you need to go to your materials and put yourself on the right track your outline will never be one big body of text and outlining has similar Concepts to essay writing but visually they'll look very different now let's get into what an outline is starting with the general outline structure we have three parts an introduction a body and a conclusion it's important to write your outline in complete sentences so that the general idea of your speech is very clear if you only write your outline in bullet points the ideas will be incomplete and they'll change to too much each time you present the speech now let's go over the steps you'll take to write your outline the first thing you'll think of is your topic once you think of your topic you'll create your thesis this is one sentence where you state the speech topic for example today I will talk about the benefits of completing a communication course anytime you see EG like that that means example don't overthink the thesis it should be very simple and con prise like this this will help your audience understand the overall speech topic once you write your thesis begin with the body section here you'll have main points these are Big Ideas based on the thesis and you want to write these in one sentence your main points will explain the thesis to the audience there'll be different reasons different examples for my thesis of the benefits of taking a communication course my two main points could be it will improve improve your personal life and your career after you determine your main points you'll write out your supporting points these will go under each main point and these are anything you need to explain the main point to your audience so there'll be stories further explanation or pieces of research you'll need a minimum of two supporting points for each main point you can have as many supporting points you feel necessary until that main point is fully explained to your audience and for your main points you'll have two to three but usually we'll have three main points here is a general outline of a main point you would have the main section labeled here it's the body main point number one where we would write in one sentence what our first main point is about and then at minimum supporting points that explain the main point to our audience now you can use dashes like I have here you can use bullet points whatever symbol you decide to use to to identify these different parts doesn't really matter but what does matter is this the section labels your main sections introduction body conclusion should be written out like this your main points with the correct number and all the supporting points with the correct number should be there as well and a colon right before you put in your information when you're building a main point think of an upside down triangle where your main point is the broadest most general idea then as you build on it with your supporting points you get more and more specific since everything supports that main point let's try building a main point together here's my thesis my topic I'll share more about me and then we have three random points one of them is a main point one of them is supporting point one and the other is supporting point two pause the video put the numbers in the correct order then press play when you want to hear the answers here are the answers Point number two is the main point since it's the broadest most general idea then supporting Point number one would be point three and then supporting point two would be Point number one so the correct numbers would be two three and then one with a main point think show instead of tell my audience so give us different stories give us different examples to illustrate these points that you're talking about rather than just stating these things we can see here that number two is the most broad idea and then we get more and more specific as we get down into the into the supporting points our upside down triangle our main point I played soccer since I was five our first supporting point I would always try hard during practice and that built my self-confidence here I'm showing the audience how playing soccer influenced me as a person it helped build my self-confidence and then I give it even more specific example of how soccer built my self-confidence with my supporting Point number two in the form of a story I remember wanting to give up but my drive to improve motivated me after you build all of your main points you'll move on to the introduction here's the general structure of the introduction you have your main section introduction labeled and then we have three parts you want to write your thesis first and build your main points before writing the introduction so that this is easier to write since you already have two of these you already have your thesis your one sentence where you're clearly stating your topic to your audience you just plug it in and then you have a preview of main points here we're listing the main points in one sentence in the same order order they would appear in the body you want to have your main points fully developed before building your preview so that you have a better idea of what the whole main point is about that way you can summarize it and put it into your preview you don't want to list anything in your thesis because then it'll confuse the audience and we'll start thinking that you're previewing your main points and then we have an attention getter as soon as your speech starts you say what you have planned as your creative attention getter we will never start with saying our name stating our topic or saying hi to the audience if we want to greet the audience or introduce ourselves say it at the end of your planned attention getter but make it one whole section then go into your thesis and and as far as distinguishing the different parts of your introduction you want the main section label and the different parts of the speech labeled as well attention getter thesis and preview main points like like I have here you could use dashes or whatever you decide but keep it all cohesive an example introduction would look like this on your outline and it would sound like this authenticity is power I'm Professor L and I'll share more about me in this speech I'll first talk about my hobbies then my friends and then I'll end with my dream job you understand right away what my speech is about I'm very succinct into the point there and you know exactly the main points of my speech are because I clearly list them for you here you don't really want to expand on your main points and you'll do all that explaining and expanding in the body of your speech your introduction should take about 5% of the overall time of your speech so if your speech is about 5 minutes long your introduction should take about 45 seconds at this point you have a fully outlined body an introduction section now we just need the conclusion here here's an example you would have the main section labeled conclusion here I'm continuing the theme of using dashes to distinguish my different points of the speech my section is labeled review of main points thesis and Clincher now let's talk about what those things are think of the conclusion as the reverse of the introduction we're now starting with reviewing our main points when in the introduction we ended with previewing the main points so in the review we're restating our main points for our audience relisting them in the same order they they were discussed in our body section then we have our restated thesis it could sound very similar to how you have it in the introduction and then a clincher it's very similar to an attention getter where it's something creative and relevant to your speech but the Clincher is something to have your audience continue to think about your topic after you've given your speech here's what an example conclusion would look like and sound like in your speech I talked about my hobbies my friends and I ended with my dream job in my speech I let you know more about me whenever you feel insecure remember authenticity is power here are some examples of different types of attention getters and clinchers remember it's anything creative meaning I could tell you put some effort and thought into it and relevant to your speech topic for example you can say a short story another example would be a quote if you decide to go with a quote get it from an actual Source from the actual video or article or source that you're looking at I do not suggest looking at pictures of quotes or quote websites because we can never really confirm that that person actually said that and once we get into citing your sources that will become much harder to do so if you're getting a quote get it from the direct source the next example would be an ambiguous statement where it's something that doesn't really make sense until you get into the speech for example grilled cheese and cats today I'm going to talk about my favorite things two of them being grilled cheese and cats it didn't really make sense until I got into my thesis you can also have a shocking statement maybe a shocking fact a interesting statistic we see this a lot on social media as a way to grab the attention so that we continue to watch the video for example did you know you're brushing your teeth wrong and then we watch the rest of the video to find out jokes always great especially if you know your audience and you can find something that they will genuinely find funny with jokes try to find ones that relate to your audience then we have creative questions the key word here is creative meaning it took some effort and some thought we do not want to just say have you heard of X and then X is our topic so we don't want something like have you ever heard of soccer we generally want to avoid simple yes or no questions questions that are more rhetorical tend to work better because they get us thinking rhetorical questions don't necessarily have an answer for example what makes you you next is imagery where we use vivid language to explain something in detail sort of putting our audience members in a scene here's an example it's raining outside it's dark and gray you're all warm and your bed cozy it's quiet then you hear your mom knocking loud on your door telling you to wake up and help her clean I'm building the scene for my audience using some of the five main senses touch sight so on to build a more Vivid picture and then call to action where we encourage our audience members to do something here's an example next time you're walking around on campus stop and take a moment to appreciate the different plants around you this one works really great as a clincher because it's a way to get your audience to continue to think about your speech after you've given it these are just some examples you don't have to do something on this list I highly suggest looking at other videos like Ted Talks on YouTube and getting inspiration for how other people begin and end their speeches with our outline we have an introduction a body and a conclusion section we use transitions to link those three pieces together so our speech has an overall flow and we're not jumping from topic to topic a transition is one complete sentence that lets your audience know you're ending with one idea and introducing the next think of it like a bridge that connects your two ideas here are two examples of poor transitions something like in conclusion would not work because it's not a complete sentence and it only tells the audience where we're going next in our speech we're never ending our previous idea the next example that brings me to my next Point again this one just shows the audience where we're going next in the speech it doesn't quite connect the ideas I highly suggest avoiding this phrase that brings me to my next point and then just going to the next point because you're not really connecting anything there show the audience how the ideas connect instead of just telling us that it brings you to your next one two things to check if your transition is effective first is it a complete sentence next does it end one idea and introduce the next it has to do both if you're ever having trouble thinking of a transition use what the ideas have in common to connect them since all of your ideas should follow the theme of your overall topic they should connect in some way here's an example let's say my speech is all about Nicki Minaj my first main point is about her as a rapper and my second main point is about her life as a music producer a transition would sound like this not only is Nicki Minaj an Innovative rapper she is a creative music producer her creativity Innovation are what the ideas have in common between these two main points so that's what I use to connect them and it's a complete sentence you do not want your transition to be more than one sentence then will start to get confused if you're getting into your main point if you notice that the ending of your transition sounds almost exactly like the next part of the speech make the ending of your transition broader remember we're just introducing the next idea not giving it away completely so what you want to look out for is something that would sound like this here's the transition not only is Nicki mge an Innovative rapper she is a creative music producer then the next main point that follows sounds like Nicki Minaj is a creative music producer where I'm repeating creative music producer in both the ending of the transition and the main point broadening the end of the transition would solve that and it would sound like this not only as Nicki knowledge an Innovative rapper she was creative in other areas of her career Nicki min knowledge was a creative music producer and then I go into my supporting points there are sometimes in our presentations where the ideas don't clearly connect like that in those situations we can use the transition formula it sounds like this now that I talked about X I'll cover Y and then you just plug in your two ideas into the X and into the Y an example of the transition formula would sound like this in your speech now that I discussed all my main points let's review them it's an effective transition because it's one sentence it ends my previous idea I discussed all my main points and it introduces the next let's review them you can change up the wording but it will still follow that same general idea of now that I talked about this let's talk about that here are the different outlining steps you'll first think of your topic then then you'll put that topic into the thesis format you'll think of your main points and go on with the rest of the outline this is the most effective way to write the outline although you start the speech saying the attention getter it could be difficult to have that as the first thing you write if you don't really know what your speech is about so when you're writing your speech follow this order after you write out your complete outline you want to write some note cards to use during your presentation so that you don't have to memorize your entire speech that's unnecessary and could cause you some stress also so you're not reading your speech I definitely do not want to see anybody simply reading their outline to us that's not giving a speech and one of the main points of this class is gaining presentation skills you'll have your outline that we just learned how to write you'll practice your speech from this outline a few times start by reading out the attention getter than adding in the thesis and adding in each new part once you feel familiar with the previous once you feel sort of familiar with the entire outline where you could speak on the ideas from memory but you don't have the ideas necessarily memorized you can begin writing your note cards use brief phrases and key wordss to remind yourself of what to say during your speech you do not want to write out your entire outline that will be very timec consuming plus it won't really help you during the speech because there's no way that you're going to find the information you need quick enough in a big body of texts like that plus you'll probably be very tempted to read your note cards to the audience if you do that and that's not what we want I highly suggest writing your note cards with your hand to help you connect that information to your memory you can format your note cards generally however you want again they're just for your own benefit to use during your speech but you want to follow these General ideas here use index cards you don't want to use a big piece of paper if you use index cards you can hold them in one hand that way you can still use your hands to gesture make them easy to read so you can find the information easily during your speech and number each card at the top just in case they get out of order you can easily put them back in order on the left is an example of what you do not want on your note card there's a lot of information and it's just very hard to read what we do want is on the right side where it's very easy to read just enough to remind us of what we need to say during our speech I Have material on canvas to help you with your outline the first would be an example outline this is under our module section I have the different sections of the speech labeled introduction attention getter thesis and so on I decided to distinguish those different parts of the outline with a dash you can use anything to distinguish it but just keep it the same throughout your entire speech but what does matter are those labels they should be the same as the example and then right next to the labels I have my different parts of the speech so if I were to say what's on this outline it would sound very similar to what I'm saying during my speech but it's okay if it's not exactly word for word and notice everything is written in complete sentences which is important so that you have a more complete idea of what your speech will sound like and one of the biggest things that will help you write your outline is the outline template under our helpful resources module you'll find a page titled outline template select that once you're on this page it'll look like this there's instructions for how to use the template and how to submit the temp template on canvas use this template to write all of your outlines for this class you'll select this link and it'll open up a Google Document is the outline template make sure you make a copy of it and edit on that copy not on the template that will directly come up after that link and I show you how to make a copy of it on canvas the template has the overall structure for you already listed and it tells you what goes in each of those sections of the speech out line just in case you forget all you'll have to do is erase all the information to the right of the colon the two dots erase it plug in your information that you plan on saying in your speech and then filling out the entire outline when it becomes time to write your speech have these three things pulled up your outline template the outlining lecture slides and the third thing you should have pulled up when you're writing your outline is the example you just so that you can check your own work with the example if you don't write your outline in the correct format that we just covered you'll most likely do poorly in your speech as well so set yourself up for success and write your outline correctly