12.3: Organization

Have you ever been frustrated while searching for something important in your junk drawer, piles of paper on your desk, or unlabeled boxes in the basement? We don’t like chaos. Chaos can make us uncomfortable not only in our physical surroundings but also in our communication. Communicating works better when we follow a few basic organizing principles so our audience knows what to expect. The way we organize our messages makes a big difference for our audience. If you’ve ever put a jumbled stream of thoughts into a voicemail, text message, or email, you’ve made the same mistake as the first sequence of letters above. Your message will require a lot of deciphering and may never be understood.

In the workplace, disorganized messages also reflect poorly on your professionalism and tarnish your company’s image. Your colleagues may perceive you as careless or lazy, perhaps even incompetent. Customers or other stakeholders may think less of your organization, resulting in direct financial losses. The work of organizing begins long before you put any words on a page, screen, or slide — just as planning a vacation can take weeks of effort before you begin the trip. Knowing your desired destinations is a start, but you also need an itinerary — a detailed plan for each leg of the journey. Constructing a solid message begins with establishing a communication itinerary, also known as an outline.

Top-Down Outline: Outlining as Discipline

Suppose you work for a high-end retailer, and your manager brings you a list of best practices for in-person sales pitches. She asks you to turn the list into a slide deck to show at the next meeting. Because you’re a polished communicator, you start with an outline before creating your first slide.

Below is a sample top-down outline for a sales pitch. (Image 12.3.2)

A top-down outline is perfect for this scenario. You have a clear idea of what your manager wants to say. All you need to do is put her ideas in logical order and provide sufficient support for each idea.

Bottom-Up Outline: Outlining as Creation

A wonderful antidote for writer’s block, bottom-up outlining can be used when writing alone or in a group. Follow three steps: brainstorm, cluster, and sequence.

1. Brainstorm. Think about your idea and write down whatever comes to mind. Don't hold back. Capture all the facts, keywords, concepts, stories, analogies, diagrams, and related ideas you can think of.

2. Cluster. Next, look for patterns in your brainstormed list. Group related items together. Make clusters of meaning, and stay open to new ideas. Notice any unusual associations between facts.

3. Sequence. Finally, look at your clusters and sequence them in the way that will best achieve your purpose. Your sequence must be logical, and different organizing logics demand different sequences.

The following example illustrates the three steps in a bottom-up outlining process. (Image 12.3.3) The writer is a project manager creating an informative message describing changes to his organization’s project reporting process. His audience is everyone in the tech support department.

Beginning and Ending Your Presentation

Developing a Meaningful Introduction

Introductions are important so that the audience obtains a concise picture of the rest of the presentation. Keep the audience’s attention and pique their interest:

• Express details to keep the audience’s attention.

• Put the most important information at the beginning of the introduction. This placement will help to “hook” your audience.

• Use one or two of these attention grabbers for an unconventional presentation introduction:

  • • Involve your audience

    • Ask a question that requires audience participation

    • Tell a story/anecdote

    • Relate a personal experience

    • Use humor…if the context warrants it

    • Create suspense

    • Use a quotation or poem

    • Use a visual aid

    • Give a startling fact or statistic

Your introduction should be up to 5% of your entire presentation. Once you’ve set the tone and informed your audience what you’ll be discussing, segue to the first part of your presentation body.

Developing a Meaningful Conclusion

Like introductions, conclusions should comprise around 5% of your presentation time. A presentation's basic structure is not so linear as it is circular: Speeches should take you in a circle from A to Z. Therefore, your conclusion should take your audience back to the introduction—with an enhanced understanding of the topic. Here are some meaningful cues you can use to signal the eminent closing of your presentation:

• Language cues (“Now that we have seen that we can solve this problem effectively, we can review the entire situation.”)

• Movement cues (Physically move back to the center of the room where you began your speech.)

• Paralinguistic cues (Slow your rate of speech and use more pauses.)

Present final appeals to your audience. Depending on your presentation type (if persuasive), you will be asking your audience for something.

• You may ask them to act in a certain way or change their attitude toward a certain person or topic.

• You may ask them to simply understand what you have said.

• Leave your audience motivated positively toward you and your presentation topic.

• Stories can make excellent conclusions as they complete the story that you started in your introduction. You can finish your introduction’s story, OR you can retell the story; this time, the story will reflect what the audience has learned from your presentation.

• If you decide to use humor, make sure that the humor is relevant to the presentation as well as the audience. A little bit of humor goes a LONG way, so don’t overdo it. Additionally, inappropriate use of humor is a very bad idea.

Here are some more transitions that you might find useful: 

Internal summaries: a type of connective transition that emphasizes what has come before and reminds the audience of what has been covered. 

Examples include: as I have said; as we have seen; as mentioned earlier; in any event; in other words; in short; on the whole; therefore; to summarize; as a result; as I’ve noted previously; in conclusion.

Internal previews: a type of connective that emphasizes what is coming up next in the speech and what to expect with regard to the content. 

Examples include: if we look ahead to….; next we’ll examine; now we can focus our attention on; first we’ll look at; then we’ll examine.

Signposts: a type of connective transition that emphasizes physical movement through the speech content and lets the audience know exactly where the speaker is. 

Examples include: stop and consider; we can now address; next I’d like to explain; turning from/to; another; this reminds me of; I would like to emphasize.

Time: focuses on the chronological aspects of your speech order. The use of time is particularly useful in a speech utilizing a story, as this transition can illustrate for the audience the progression of time. 

Examples include: before; earlier; immediately; in the meantime; in the past; lately; later; meanwhile; now; presently; shortly; simultaneously; since; so far; as long as; as soon as; at last; at length; at that time; then; until; afterward.

Compare/contrast: draws a parallel or distinction between two ideas, concepts, or examples. It can indicate a common or divergent area between points for the audience.

Examples include: in the same way; by the same token; equally; similarly; just as we have seen; in the same vein.

Cause and effect or result: illustrates a relationship between two ideas, concepts, or examples and may focus on the outcome or result. It can illustrate a relationship between points for the audience.

Examples include: as a result; because; consequently; for this purpose; accordingly; so; then; therefore; thereupon; thus; to this end; for this reason; as a result; because; therefore; consequently.

Examples: illustrates a connection between a point and an example or examples. You may find visual aids work well with this type of transition: in fact; as we can see; after all; even; for example; for instance; of course; specifically; such as; in the following example; to illustrate my point.

Place: refers to a location, often in a spatially organized speech, of one point of emphasis to another. Again, visual aids work well when discussing physical location with an audience.

Examples include: opposite to; there; to the left; above; below; elsewhere; farther on; beyond; nearby; next to.

Clarification: restates or further develops a main idea or point. It can also serve as a signal to a key point.

Examples include: to clarify; in other words; to put in another way; this means.

Concession: indicates knowledge of contrary information. It can address a perception the audience may hold and allow for clarification.

Examples include: we can see that while; although it is true that; granted that; while it may appear that; I admit that even though.

Attributions:

Content for the "Intro" and "Outlines" sections were modified from the following:

Management Communication Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Thomas, Julie Haupt, and Andy Spackman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution -ShareAlike and made possible by  Management Communications Group, Marriott School Of Business, Brigham Young University.

Information for the "Organizational Orders" section was significantly modified from 

Business Communication for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. 

Content for the "Beginning and Ending Your Presentation" and "Transitions" sections were adapted from the following:

Chapter 12: Developing Presentations Copyright © 2022 by Joseph Williams is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

References:

Transition Words | Style for students online. (n.d.). https://www.e-education.psu.edu/styleforstudents/c1_p14.html

Types of outlines - Purdue OWL® - Purdue University. (n.d.). https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/developing_an_outline/types_of_outlines.html