Consider how a poet chooses the words for a sonnet or how a composer uses musical notes to write a song. In these examples, the creators arrange their work within a recognizable structure. Likewise, as a speaker, you can arrange your ideas in a framework that audience members will understand, appreciate, and remember. In this chapter, we focus on two methods for structuring your content—a speech framer and an outline.

You’re probably familiar with outlines, which organize the components of a presentation in a specific order and format. Although outlines are helpful and often required by instructors, some presenters find that outlines constrain their thought processes and restrict the flow of their presentation.¹ The speech framer provides a useful alternative, giving you more flexibility with the contents of your presentation while also serving as the basis for a required outline. One or both of these methods can help you build a sound structure and reliable blueprint for your presentation.