Now that you have developed a strong thesis (chapter 12) and organized your main points (chapter 13), you are ready to develop the introduction and conclusion and add transitions. You might wonder why this chapter comes now, after the previous two chapters on organization. Don’t speeches usually start with an introduction? Why not begin with that, then?

It’s hard to introduce something when you don’t yet know what you’re introducing. You need a working outline of your thesis and main points before you write your speech’s opening, or introduction, and closing, or conclusion. Similarly, it’s difficult to write transitions—connectors that move listeners from one point to the next—if you have not yet developed the main points!

In this chapter, we will begin by identifying the primary functions of introductions and conclusions. We will then turn to transitions to help you communicate connections between the sections of your speech. Similarly to the previous two chapters, when we refer in this chapter to the audience, we mean your direct audience: the people who are exposed to and attend to your speech, based on our explanation in chapter 10.

Effective Introductions and Conclusions

How you begin and end a speech can have an outsized effect on how audiences respond to your speech. On the one hand, most listeners make an initial decision about how seriously to take your speech or how much attention to give based on what they hear in the introduction. On the other hand, what you say in the conclusion is what many audiences will best remember.

While there is no easy formula, there are principles and tools that can help you craft effective introductions and conclusions. Of course, because each speech is unique, an approach that is well suited for one speech, audience, or context may be ill suited for another. It can be useful, then, to have a series of tools in your rhetorical toolbox as you craft the introduction and conclusion.

The Functions of Introductions

A popular internet meme declares, “Apparently it’s rude to poke someone in the forehead and say, ‘Skip Intro’ when they start a conversation.” The meme, of course, alludes to the option many streaming services provide to skip the introduction of our favorite shows and immediately start an episode.

Reflecting, however, on why shows offer introductions and—perhaps more tellingly—why we sometimes do watch their introductions highlights what a good introduction should accomplish. Whether for a television show or a speech, most introductions try to accomplish several functions. That is, they try to provide compelling answers to the questions audiences ask themselves as they decide whether or not to pay attention:

• get attention (“Does this sound interesting?”)
• raise a need (“Will this address my interests or concerns?”)
• establish credibility (“Is the person speaking worth listening to?”)
• state your thesis or focal point (“What is this about?”)
• preview the body of the speech (“What’s coming?”)

We address each of these functions in turn.

Get Attention

Your audience members have many things on their minds when you address them. As a speaker, you must find a way to get their attention. To be effective, your method must be appropriate to the occasion, your topic, and the audience. Avoid starting with “Uh, thanks, for, uh, coming” or “My topic today is…” or even “My name is…” These are too bland. Instead, have a clear plan for how to grab their attention with your first words. Several specific strategies for attention-getting introductions appear in box 14.1.

Raise a Need

You are much more likely to hold your audience’s attention if you articulate something they are interested in, need, or are concerned about (broadly defined). You must convince them that they want to listen to your speech because they will learn something important from it or will benefit from it in some way. Briefly but explicitly state what they will gain, and make clear how that benefit directly relates to their interests or needs.

Establish Credibility

Assure the audience you are a credible source on the topic. This does not necessarily mean you are the foremost expert on the topic, but your introduction can give them a sense that you have done your research and know and care about the issue. You might explain that you studied the topic in a previous class, or you conducted multiple interviews with several community leaders involved with the issue.

You can, alternatively, build credibility by making your relationship to, or interest in, the topic clear. If you plan to address child obesity, for example, you might share that you struggled as a child with health issues from being overweight. If you want to advocate to increase salaries for schoolteachers, you might explain that it always bothered you that your favorite middle school teacher had to work a second job to stay afloat financially. When the audience understands your investment in the issue at hand, they are often more willing to listen to what you have to say.

State Your Thesis or Focal Point

Most speeches are thesis driven, meaning the thesis “drives” or determines the route the speech will take. As we discussed in chapter 12, the thesis guides what material stays in the speech and what goes. Consequently, the thesis should be clearly stated in the introduction. Because it is the most important sentence in the speech, you don’t want it to get lost. Articulate it as its own sentence, using the wording you developed to clearly state your central focus or claim.

There are exceptions to stating your thesis in the introduction. In what we might call thesis-seeking speeches, the thesis is reserved for later in the speech. The introduction and main points build up to (or “seek”) the thesis, which comes toward the end. We discussed patterns of arrangement in the previous chapters. Some patterns that are more likely to adopt a thesis-seeking approach include the refutative pattern of arrangement, some uses of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence, and several of the nonlinear patterns.

Preview the Body of the Speech

A preview statement elaborates on your thesis by announcing the main points of your speech in the order you will develop them as the speech progresses. It is a clear indication of how, exactly, the speech will proceed. In many ways, it tells the audience what to listen for.

The preview statement should allow audience members to anticipate the progression of your speech. When they know where you are going, they begin to listen for how your main points build on each other instead of struggling to determine your train of thought.

The Functions of Conclusions

Conclusions, like introductions, play an important role in your speech because they tend to be what audiences remember. Consequently, conclusions share many characteristics with introductions; however, they tend to be shorter.

There are three primary functions of conclusions. They should

• summarize your main points
• restate your thesis or focal point
• end decisively

Again, we look more closely at each of these functions.

Summarize Your Main Points

Your audience hears your speech only once, but with the benefit of a summary, they hear your main points three times: first in the introduction’s preview, then in the body itself, and here again in the conclusion’s summary. This repetition increases the possibility that they will remember your message. Active listening requires an audience’s ongoing effort. The final summary makes that task a little easier.

What do we mean by “summarize”?

The simple renaming briefly reminds your audience of what you said. Also, if someone was distracted during part of your speech, the restatement of your points enables them to review the argument’s progression.

Restate Your Thesis or Focal Point

Because your thesis statement captures the main point of the entire speech concisely and compellingly, state it again in the conclusion. Do so even if you adopt a “thesis-seeking” pattern that holds off on stating your thesis until a main point later in the speech’s body. The thesis is still your central claim or focus. Restating it in the conclusion reinforces your thesis before you finish speaking.

End Decisively

Conclusions should also be decisive. They should make clear that you are at the end of your presentation.

• Avoid ending by simply saying “thank you” or “thank you for your time.” That is gracious but not terribly interesting or decisive.
• Instead, try crafting a unique ending to the speech that is decisive enough that audiences automatically know to begin their applause without needing to hear you say “thank you” or “that’s it.” Use the strategies named in box 14.4 for ideas.

You might think of the conclusion’s decisive ending in relation to your introduction’s attention-getter—like “bookends” for your speech. Consider how your decisive ending might return to your attention-getting device in some way.

Now that you see what your introduction and conclusion can accomplish, add transitions to aid the speech’s clarity and movement.

Clear Transitions

Listening to a speech is unlike reading text. When you read an article or book, you can always go back a few paragraphs if you find your attention wandering, if you are interrupted by a text message, or if you did not catch the relationship between ideas the first time through. We do not have this luxury when listening to a speech. We hear the words only once, and if we miss something, we cannot go back and hear it again.

Box 14.5 Speech Transitions Are like GPS Navigation

Think about the way a GPS operates. As the computerized voice gives you driving directions, it says something like “In two miles, take a left onto Park Place” or “Continue 4.6 miles to exit 14 for Roosevelt Street.” Then as you get closer to your exit or turn, you might get a reminder: “In half a mile, turn left onto…” If the GPS were to wait until you were at the exit and then say, “Get off here!” you would likely miss the exit. You were not prepared for the change in direction.

The same concept applies to public speaking. Transitions supply the verbal hints or signals that your speech is going to take a turn toward a new claim or emphasis.

When you understand how easily listeners can get lost during your speech, you also understand how to help them: Include transitions. Recall we defined transitions as connectors that move listeners from one point to the next. They help audiences navigate your presentation, often summarizing a main point they just heard or providing a clue of where they are going next on their journey. Indeed, transitions typically consist of two elements. First, transitions offer a brief internal summary of what was just said. Second, transitions offer a brief preview of what you will address next.

We often use cuing language, called signposts, to alert audiences to a transition. In Riley’s example in box 14.6, words like “just” (“I have just critiqued”) and “next” (“Next, I will turn to”) notify listeners of what just happened and what’s about to be focused on. Such cuing language functions like actual signposts on the road that indicate where you are within a larger environment. Box 14.7 provides additional examples of transitions with signposting language.

When it comes to connectives like transitions and signposts, the bottom line is that your audience will thank you for using them. They give your listeners handles to grab onto as they travel through your speech with you.

Now that you have examined the goals of organization and the various elements of planning and arranging a speech, in the next chapter we turn to the concrete principles of composing an outline.