Organizing the Impromptu Speech

The speech-bubble is a Creative Commons image from Flickr.

Good impromptu speakers know many different ways to organize their thoughts even before they know their topic. They quickly mentally review possible organizational patterns when they know they must speak in a few moments. Being familiar with such patterns will enable you to choose the best method of organizing ideas for your particular topic. It will make it easier for you to think of things to say and examples to present. You will be able to choose an organizational pattern and start developing it mentally or on paper in the few moments you have before getting up to speak.

Use:

• Past-Present-Future to describe how something once was, how it has changed, and how it will be in the future.
• Time to describe chronological events or processes in sequential order.
• Problem-Solution to describe a problem and ways to solve it.
• Location to divide a topic into different geographical settings.
• Cause-Effect to describe a situation and its effects.
• Effect-Cause to describe a situation and its causes.
• Related Subtopics to divide a topic into different parts.
• Advantage-Disadvantage to describe positive and negative aspects of a topic.

From: Paulette Dale & James C. Wolf. 2006. Speech Communication Made Simple. 3rd Ed. Pearson-Longman.