INCREDIBLE (BUT INEDIBLE) ARRANGEMENTS

GUIDELINES FOR OUTLINES

Jay Heinrichs introduced you to the classical arrangement for a persuasive talk at the beginning of this unit. Let's take a moment for a quick refresher. He started with a very basic formula:

"Ethos first. Then logos. Then pathos." (Heinrichs, page 283)

Then he set out the classical outline structure, which goes like this:

I. Introduction

II. Narration, or statement of facts

III. Division

IV. Proof

V. Refutation

VI. Conclusion

(If you're having a hard time remembering the details for each of these items, go to page 284 of Thank You For Arguing.)

The classical outline is a lot like Coca Cola Classic. It's super versatile, and it's going to be refreshing and delicious in a lot of situations. But just like with soft drinks, sometimes you need something different, like a Sprite or a Fanta. It's all about figuring out what's going to work best for the situation.

So let's take a look at a few other common ways to arrange a speech. (Don't worry, we're not going to compare each of them to a soft drink. That comparison only goes so far.)

Monroe's Motivated Sequence

Monroe's Motivated Sequence is a well-known outline that was developed in the 1930s by a guy named Alan Monroe. (Okay, he wasn't just any random guy—he was a speech and communications expert at Purdue University.)

The key to this outline is the word "motivated" in its title. The purpose of an outline like this is to motivate an audience to make some kind of change. Here's the basic sequence:

• Grab your audience's attention.

• Convince your audience that change is needed.

• Present a solution that will satisfy your audience.

• Help your audience visualize the benefits of the change.

• End with a specific call to action.

Often, the outline is boiled down to this easy-to-remember list:

• Attention

• Need

• Satisfaction

• Visualization

• Action

Let's say you're a concerned citizen/conspiracy theorist, and your calculations have convinced you that your city is about to be wiped out by a giant meteor. You've been granted time at the next city council meeting, and you really, really want to motivate your audience to make a change—that is, you want everyone to agree to pack up and move far away.

Here's how you might use Monroe's Motivated Sequence to arrange your speech:

• Attention: How many of you want to die within the next week?

• Need: A giant meteor will soon kill us all if we don't do something to save ourselves today.

• Satisfaction: According to my calculations, the meteor's impact will be felt for three miles all around our city. So let's all set up camp in the state park that's five miles away from here.

• Visualization: Instead of being reduced to a pile of smoking rubble, you and your loved ones will basically be going on an extended camping trip.

• Action: So go home right now, get your families, a tent and some camping supplies, and meet me in the forest tonight. I'll have hot dogs for all! (Source)

When is it Logical to Go Chronological?

The chronological way of arranging ideas is pretty self-explanatory: you're ordering your points in chronological order. Essentially, this turns your entire speech into one long story.

For example, here's a chronological outline for a speech entitled "What Happened When Our Entire Town Tried to Live in the Woods:"

• One day, the entire population of our town fled to the woods to avoid being killed by a meteor.

• The first night, we roasted hot dogs and sang songs and had a generally good time.

• By the next day, we started getting on each others' nerves.

• On the second day, a massive brawl broke out.

• Most of us spent the next week in our tents, recovering from our various injuries.

• A week later, one lady went back to our town to see what the meteor had done to it.

• When she got back, she told us that the town was fine, and apparently the whole meteor thing was a hoax we'd all fallen for.

• The entire town packed up and moved back.

• We convened an all-town meeting in which we voted to banish the nut who warned us about the meteor in the first place.

• Life was rough for about a year after this incident, but things have pretty much gone back to normal.

Cause-and-Effect

This is another one whose title pretty much explains what it is. If the subject you're speaking about fits neatly into the cause-and-effect sequence, then you may want to arrange your entire speech in that manner.

Cause: our whole town was bamboozled by a nutty conspiracy theorist.

Effects:

• Living outdoors in tents with almost no privacy led to a massive brawl that caused some long-lasting injuries and damaged several relationships (possibly forever).

• While we spent an entire week living in the woods, people from outside towns took the opportunity to do a whole lot of looting.

• The year-long cleanup effort led to a few more brawls and inspired about half our residents to move away forever.

• We're a smaller, weaker town now, but we're doing okay.

• We're all a bit wiser because of it, and we've all learned to be a bit more skeptical.

While the example is based on a cause and subsequent effects that already happened, you can also use this arrangement for causes and effects that haven't yet happened but that you expect will happen. If you do that, you'll have to work hard to persuade your audience that your predictions are realistic and worth listening to. (Source)

Compare-and-Contrast

It might be that your subject lends itself well to direct comparisons and/or contrasts. Maybe your subject is very similar to (or very different from) another subject. Or perhaps your speech is weighing two options. If that's the case, then you could arrange your whole speech in a compare-and-contrast scheme.

If you choose this kind of outline, you'll want to make sure that the two (or more) things you're comparing and contrasting are extremely relevant and not just two random subjects you plucked from the sky.

For example, let's say you're a sociologist who studies large groups of people's contrasting reactions to conspiracy theories. You choose two different towns that are very relevant because they had very similar situations but reacted to it in very different ways.

Perhaps you'd outline your speech as follows:

• Setup comparison: In both towns, a single resident warned the rest of the town that a large-scale natural disaster was imminent. In Town 1, the resident warned that a meteor would soon flatten the town. In Town 2, the resident warned that the town was about to spontaneously combust.

• Contrasting reactions:

  • Town 1 believed the resident and agreed to move to the woods to avoid the disaster.

  • Town 2 did not believe the resident, and instead looked into psychiatric treatment.

• Contrasting effects:

  • Town 1 struggled for the next year to return to normal.

  • Town 2 went along with life as usual.

• Contrasting outcomes for the resident who initially warned the town of disaster:

  • The resident of Town 1 was banished from the town and now ekes out a living as hermit in the woods.

  • The resident of Town 2 successfully responded well to psychiatric treatment and is now a valuable, contributing member of the town. (Source)

Let's Wrap Up

Phew. We've covered a bunch of options for arranging your speech. Hopefully it's clear by now that it's worth taking the time to try out a few options and find the arrangement that's going to work best for your speech, your occasion, and your subject.

Of course, none of the examples we used above included much evidence beyond eyewitness testimony. That would be a problem if any of these were real speeches. Of course, if any of those example speeches were real, the lack of strong, varied support probably wouldn't be the biggest problem, would it?