Preview and Structure the Speech
Preview and Structure the Speech
The thesis statement lets the audience know what the speech is about and what you as speaker want to accomplish. The preview statement lets the audience know HOW you will develop the speech. A preview can be understood as a roadmap—a direction for the speech that leads to a successful conclusion. A preview lets the audience know what will come first, what comes next, and so on, to the end of the speech.
The preview is essentially an outline—an oral outline—of the basic organizational pattern of the speech. Previews allow the audience to pay attention to the content because they already know the structure. Remember, though, that the basic structure of a speech is not linear, it is circular. Organizational patterns have the conclusion, as we will see later in this section, bringing us back to the beginning.
Taking as an example the thesis statement from above, a sample preview for that speech could appear as the following:
To see how we can end our dependence on fossil fuels, we will first take a look at why we as a society are so dependent upon fossil fuels in the first place, and then secondly find out what continues to cause this dependence, and third, see how ethanol as a fuel supplement will help end this dependence, and finally discover how simple it will be to implement this solution and make the world a better place for all of us.
