2.4 – Outlining and flowing

From the "Introduction to Public Speaking" course by Dr. Matt McGarrity (University of Washington) https://www.coursera.org/learn/public-speaking

>> Before we go too much further, I
want to

talk about two very important concepts,
outlining and flowing.

And I want to talk about these, because I
think these are going to

be very useful in general for you as
you're delivering and developing speeches.

But also, we're going to be doing this a
lot in the impromptu specifically.

So, outlining, you're probably familiar
with.

You've probably been doing this a lot.

It's just basically preparing a speech in
a hierarchical structure.

Now we're going to, when we get to

the persuasive, we'll actually do some
more manuscript stuff.

But to start with, for the impromptu
speech and the informative speech,

we're working in an outline format, and
why are we doing this?

Because, I think outlines really set you
up to extemporize well.

So, last week of course we talked about

why and how reading manuscripts can get
you

into trouble in terms of adopting more of

a performance orientation, maybe having
some mono tone issues.

But we're going to start of our study of
speech by working in

a format that really allows you to
carefully plan what you're going to say.

An outline gives you that sort of, amount
of control.

So it, it's going to allow you to
carefully prepare what you want to

say, but it also enables you to easily to
engage in a communication orientation.

So what might one of these sample outlines
look like?

Well, for the impromptu, it's probably
going to look a little bit like this.

Right, we've got a basic introduction.

I've got what, probably, my opening device
is going to

be, what my thesis is, preview of my main
points.

I've got the body of the speech, my two
main points.

I've got sort of what the language is of
those

main points, and we'll get to that later
this week.

And then I've kind of mapped out what my,
what my examples are.

So I kind of know which way I'm running in
that speech.

But, working off of an outline I can
extemporize it.

I can have those words, emerge at

that moment in response to the specific
situation.

So, that's a basic outline.

Now that's probably something you're
fairly familiar with.

The other concept that I want to talk
through is flowing.

Flowing is just the flip side of
outlining.

Flowing is taking notes on a speech in an
outline format.

So, why are we going to be flowing?

Well, flowing is very useful as an
evaluative and analytical tool.

Because it allows you as a listener to
track where the speaker is

clear, where they're unclear, where the
argument

is strong, where the argument is weak.

So we outline our speeches and we're
going to flow the speeches of others.

And I think both of these work together to
sort

of, help you prepare speeches better and
analyze speeches more critically.

And being aware of the various moving
parts in each speech.

So what we’re going to do now is we’re
going to watch a

sample speaker, and you’ll see the, you
know, split screen here.

And on one side is going to be the speaker
doing

a sample impromptu, a student that I had
who volunteered to

help me out, doing a sample impromptu
speech; and then the

other hand, the other side will be, you’ll
see my flow.

That’s my ugly hand and my terrible
handwriting.

So you’ll see kind of how I’m listening.

I hadn’t heard the speech before so I’m
just sort of on the fly.

Taking notes in an outline format, I do
apologize for the handwriting,

by the way, that's good for me so I've
made huge advancing, advancements.

But it's just, it's awful, it's just
terrible.

But we're going to go ahead and take a
look at that now and then I'll come back

and sort of talk a little bit more about

how outlining and flowing can really help
you out.

>> So, in these times of struggling
economies, many

universities are looking towards ways to
save money and one

of these ways that universities are
looking to cut from

the budget is cutting small departments
with few student majors.

And I believe that we should not enact
this policy.

For two main reasons.

Firstly because it is harmful for students

and secondly because it doesn't guarantee
savings.

But first let me go into the why this
[UNKNOWN] will be harmful for students.

Well, firstly it will hinder student
interest.

If a student passion and future career
goal

is dance, and the, and the department is
cut.

Well, that student can no longer pursue
their career option.

And so it is harmful for students who

already know what they may want to be
pursuing.

Which may be more unique fields of
opportunity.

The second reason why this policy'd be
harmful for

students is because it does not cater to
post-university goals.

And what I mean by this is that
competitive markets,

such as graduate schools and jobs, are
looking for students.

Who bring in unique backgrounds and one
great way of

doing so is having an out of the ordinary
educational upbringing.

Now if we eliminate these small
departments,

students are funneled into these larger,
more

popular educational backgrounds and
therefore do not

look as appealing to schools and jobs.

And so because this policy would not cater
to student interests.

Nor to future student opportunities, we
can see

that this policy simply wouldn't be
beneficial to enact.

But moving on to why this policy would not
guarantee monitoring savings.

I believe this firstly because we would
see a decrease intuition revenue.

Students will be looking towards the small
departments and excited about these small

majors would now be looking toward

other schools to fulfill their educational
needs.

And therefore, we may see decrease
enrollment

rates, and since student tuition is such a

huge part of university budgets today, we

would see an incredible decrease in
university revenue.

So, secondly, universities would also have
to accommodate for larger departments.

These students that were originally in

small departments and small majors would
be

funneled into these existing departments
and

therefore increase class sizes and majors
sizes.

And so as a result, universities would
have to hire more

professors, more teaching assistants and
more

faculty to accommodate these larger
departments.

And so, because of this, in this
increasing need in

the university budget, we wouldn't nece,
necessarily see monetary savings.

And so, because, we would see a decrease
in tuition revenues and, an increased need

for accommodating larger departments, we
can see that

enacting this policy would not necessarily
save money.

And so in conclusion, universities need to
find a better way to save money.

Cutting these small departments and small
majors

simply isn't a beneficial option for
anyone.

Firstly because it is harmful for
students,

and secondly because it does not guarantee
savings.

[INAUDIBLE]
>> So, that was my flow of the speech.

Again, apologies for the handwriting, but,
I would imagine your

flow of that speech looks more or less the
same.

So I would recommend that you start
flowing speeches in general.

Because I really do believe it changes how

you listen to, and interact with, a
speech.

And it, it, the reason this is, I think is
because there's

so many things going on in a speech,
outlining and flowing allow

you to see these various components and
analyze those various components in

isolation as well as how those various
components interact with one another.

So in the next lecture, we're going to
take up the key

elements of argument that you're going to
be using in the impromptu speech.

But I did think it was important to sort
of talk

to both outlining and flowing at this
stage in the class.