Once you have captured the attention of the audience and given them a reason to listen to the speech, you will want to give them a brief preview of what to expect. This allows your audience to get into a proper mental framework with which to anticipate the speech.

We also know that human beings only remember about 25-33% of what they hear, so if you have any hopes of the audience remembering the important stuff, they need to hear it at least three times. To accomplish this task, the last step of the introduction is to tell the audience exactly what you will talk about in your three main points.

This will probably be pretty obvious and could very well sound like: 'today I'm first going to talk about dragonfly species, next I'll discuss their migratory patterns, and finally I'll discuss them as a vital part of the ecosystem.'

This will be roman numeral #4 in your introduction.

Test yourself: Where does the preview appear on the sample outline we discussed in class? What are the speakers three main points based on this preview?

Organizational Patterns