You will enhance your confidence and improve your chances of success if you have a clear organizational plan. To achieve that you will want to develop a three part speech. Chapter Nine examines the specific functions of those three parts: the introduction, body and conclusion.

For this chapter, we will use one thread on the discussion board for your speech preparation cohort in which you will explain your plans for the organization of your speech to the rest of the class.

Check back to the bulletin board for your speech preparation cohort to offer help and recommendations for one another.

As Seiler and Beall observe, organizing your speech is "arranging its parts into a systematic and meaningful whole." There are several key decisions that you will need to make to develop the organizational pattern of your speech..

First, determine the the central idea or thesis of your speech. Do this by summing up your whole speech in one concise sentence?

Next identify the key points you will make in support of the central idea or thesis, and determine the best way to present them.

In Chapter Nine you can see examples of effective and ineffective ways of organizing the main points. Additional examples and material on methods of organization can be found on the Allyn & Bacon Public Speaking Website. First note the page entitled Develop an Organizational Pattern. There you can observe and analyze examples of the types of patterns in use.

With the body of your speech organized so that your thesis is well supported, the next organizational task is to develop your introduction and conclusion. Again, go to the Allyn & Bacon Public Speaking Website for ideas and examples that can guide you in planning your beginning and ending.

After you have thought through how you will organize your outline, go online to the Discussion Board to share with the rest of the class your ideas for organizing your speech. The four points to cover in that post include:

• State the thesis of your speech.
• State three or four main points that you want to develop.
• Describe the pattern of arrangement you intend to use: time sequence, spatial, problem-solution, cause-effect or motivational.
• Explain how you plan to gain attention at the start of the speech and what you plan for your ending to give your speech closure.

It is useful to think of this phase of our speech preparation as "work in progress." By writing about what you plan to do in the class Discussion Board, you can get feedback from others. Armed with that feedback, you can then make further changes in your plans.