This lecture explains the process of developing effective purpose statements for speeches, focusing on narrowing a broad topic into a manageable and audience-focused message, particularly for informative speeches. It emphasizes the "rule of three" as a fundamental principle for structuring and retaining information.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
this lecture talks about purpose
statements which is the process of
finding a topic which you already have
and then figuring out how to narrow it
so that it's doable in a short amount of
speech time for this first informative
speech you have six to seven minutes
which is not very much time and so um
the purpose statements and finding uh
the correct way to phrase your ideas
actually will
help you narrow down your speech uh so
that it will be kind of more clear to an
audience remember good communicators are
always focused on making sure that their
audience can follow their ideas okay so
here this will be a discussion about how
to narrow that
idea so um for at the top of every
outline and for all of your speeches
you're going to follow this process of
narrowing your speech so if you have a
topic let's say U I want to talk about
the solar
system um you could talk about uh that
persuasively you could make an argument
about it or you could inform us about it
and this first speech obviously is to
provide information to teach us
something about it so the general
purpose will help narrow that huge topic
of solar systems down to something that
we are going to in this case inform so
the general purpose will will be
provided for each of the assignments so
you are don't have to worry about that
okay and that for this first one is to
inform and then once you have a specific
per I mean sorry a general purpose then
you follow the specific purpose and the
specific purpose is actually targeted on
the audience what's what do you want to
communicate to the audience or what do
you want your goal to be as I'll show
you in just a moment and then the third
thing that you do is you come up with a
thesis statement which further Narrows
that idea and the thesis statement
clearly articulates the three specific
ideas that you're going to cover in your
speech that's what the thesis statement
is so before I kind of develop each of
these I want to talk about the rule of
three because you will have three main
points for each of your speeches in this
class and three main points is not
something arbitrary that I dreamt up one
today okay the rule of three is what is
guiding our understanding about why you
would have three ideas it's a very
powerful tool to help you communicate
your ideas to others so the rule of
three should be something that you
follow from now until forever right that
you should have three main points the
rule of three holds that things are more
pleasing they're easier to follow
they're more Salient they're more
powerful they're more memorable when
threes three is the smallest amount of
information that's needed to create a
pattern okay and so it's therefore the
easiest way to retain information is to
do it in
threes so the rule of three actually
reflects the ways that humans process
information so that's why you will have
three main points it's not because I
dreamt it up but it's because the rule
of three is something that we've our
brains have been trained to process
things in groups of three even think
about going to the grocery store and if
you have 10 things you might put it you
know in your mind you might put them in
the idea of oh I need three things in
the dairy right I need milk I need
butter I need cream and then I need
three kinds of vegetables because that's
how we can remember and process lots of
information and just look at these
examples that we've been trained about
we talk about Blood Sweat and Tears we
talk about rock paper scissors being
calm and cool and collected to stop drop
and roll to stop look and listen life
liberty and the pursuit of happiness to
reduce reuse recycle Goldilocks and the
Three Bears the Three Little Pigs The Three
Three
Musketeers new Newton's three laws of
physics uh the rule of thirds in art or in
in
photography right so that's how we break
down information so you'll use this rule
of three when you're developing your
specific purpose statement as well as
statements so you'll identify three
parts or three aspects or three steps of
the topic that you're going to talk
about okay and that further Nar Narrows
the information right so with the
general purpose we know that if we're
talking about the solar system already
we've narrowed it because we're only
going to inform about it right so all
the topics about trying to persuade us
to think a different way are now now
irrelevant right for our purpose and now
we're going to focus on the specific
purpose statement and I can't talk about
all the planets in our solar system for
example so I might talk about three
planets in our solar system although
between you and me that topic is still
too big so I might talk about maybe
three parts of
mercury okay uh but in any event the
idea is that you will use the term three
in your specific purpose statement to
help you further narrow I can't talk
about a hundred things I can only talk
about three things what are the three
that are most interesting most relevant
um most
compact so the three specific things
then that you will identify about
Mercury for example then will be spelled
out or delineated specifically in your thesis
thesis
statement so to be clear we've narrowed
things down the topic helps narrow ideas
we're not going to talk about everything
we're just going to talk about planets
in our solar system right the general
purpose which is always provided for you
helps further narrow to
inform the specific purpose is audience
centered right and says this is what I
want my audience to get out of the
speech or how I want to communicate this
idea to the audience and then the thesis
statement identifies the three specific
things that you're going to develop in
your speech so the general purpose is
always provided for you let's now talk
about the specific purpose and specific
purpose statements so here the language
of specific purpose statements is
audience centered and you combine that
notion of being audience centered with
the purpose of the assignment remember
in this case the purpose of the
assignment is to inform right so in this
case you would say I want to inform my
audience about
three I don't know what are you talking
about three parts of mercury
perhaps or you could also focus on the
outcome of the speech so what does an
informative speech do it produces
understanding so so at the end of the
speech I want my audience to understand
the three parts of mercury for
instance okay so you can either say I
want to inform my audience about three
something or I want my audience to
understand that three something okay and
that's what your specific purpose
statement will be so already we're
narrowing and providing you with pretty
Specific Instructions about how to
phrase that specific purpose statements
specific purpose statements will often
vary right according to the specific
assignment that you have so this is what
I'm going to go forward with is only
talking about the informative speech
because that's the upcoming speech but
when you get to the second speech the
argumentative one you will talk about
the general purpose being to argue or to
convince right to inform to understand
and the persuasive will be to persuade
or to activate
okay so we'll talk about those things
later in the semester but this is the
focus here on what you want the audience
to do based on the speech or your desired
outcome so how do we find the term three
right the pairing the idea of three with
your specific purpose statements because
that's the first place that you'll see
three specific purpose statements will
identify the three things that you're
going to discuss things is not a very
clear or specific term okay so you will
want to find a better term than this
idea of things instead you'll want to
find a term that better explains or
describes the thread between the three
ideas and so that term that um you're
going to use is called a unifying term
so what is the unifying term that helps
connect those three IDE is so three
parts of mercury aren't that interesting
or really that helpful but maybe I would
talk about three um
um three parts of the landscape right so
three different Landscapes on Mercury or
three um
different um layers to Mercury okay and
that's better than three things about
Mercury so you want to find a unifying
term and that term is often based on the
structure that you select for your
speech okay I'm going to talk more about
structuring in a lecture just a couple
lectures away from now but I'm going to
show you kind of how that works for your
specific purpose statements and then how
it leads naturally to your thesis
statement so one way that you can
organize your speeches as you'll learn
is by chronology or the times sequence
of events right the three things in
history that happened three parts to um
the this battle three steps so terms
unifying terms that you might use for
Chronological uh structures might be
three steps or three versions of or
three times that this
happened another way to structure an
idea is according to space okay so you
could describe um an object for example
and if you do that then your unifying
term might be Parts three parts of or
three pieces of or three places
on okay and then finally you could
organize things according to topical
ideas right or those are just sort of
three General parts to there are many
more parts but there's three that I'm
going to talk about right right so
you've just selected three and so if
you're doing a topical structure you
might use a unifying term saying three
aspects of or three interests of or three
three
types or three abilities or three
traits okay aspects interests types
abilities traits these are all better or
more clear words than
things okay same with the chronological
unifying terms and the spatial unifying
terms you might have a better or
different term for your topic these are
not exclusive right you can there there
are many more that you could use but the
idea is you want to be more specific
about your unifying term the thing that
connects your three ideas than
things okay so just starting points so
start thinking about how you might
connect your three ideas is and then
actually interestingly you're going to use
use
transitions that will help move between
these three things that will connect to
the structure that you're going to use
in your speech and we talk about
transitions uh several lectures down the
road but start thinking because that's
again how audiences can really
understand how all three of your steps
or your interests or your traits fit together
together
so now we're going to talk about thesis
statements because we understand purpose
statements right they are I want my
audience to understand or I want to
inform my audience
about and the thesis statements then
build on that specific purpose statement
and delineates the specific ideas that
you're going to cover in the body of
your speech so you build from the
specific purpose statement taking that
last phrase and then you identify the
three things that you're going to cover
in your speech the three specific things
so by the time you have a thesis
statement you know what the body of your
speech will be because there'll be these
three main points okay so once you've
narrowed your speech down from to the
specific purpose statement to just talk
about these three steps involved in
right then you say the first step the
Second Step the third step in your thesis
thesis
statement so what the three things are
right or the three unifying terms the
three steps the three parts the three
traits that is what you're going to then
develop in your
speech and then that uses uh that's
articulated in the thesis statements and
you use numbers in your thesis statement
first second and third and you do that
in your speech and you say it out loud
now you might have been taught in um
writing that you don't do that but
remember writing is different than
speech and audiences don't have notes in
front of them and they don't have your
paper or your essay so you have to
provide those signposts or those numbers
to help us follow those three ideas we
don't see say Goldilocks and the Bears
we say the three bears and then we say
the first bear is Baby Bear right and
the second Bear right that's how we do
that so you need those numbers uh for
the audience to be able to follow those
ideas these numbers are called signposts
and they are absolutely vital for an
audience and we're going to say that
repeatedly this semester so please be
aware that this is a critical component
of being effective as an oral
Communicator so let's look at some
sample purpose
statements let's start with this purpose
statement of making pizza I want to my
audience to understand how to make pizza
so the general purpose is to inform the
specific purpose is I want my audience
to understand three steps in making
pizza that's the outcome based you could
say I want to inform my audience about
the three steps in making pizza but
please notice here we have three steps
because that is the unifying term and it
is three which is the magic number so in
this case three steps do you know the
structure of this purpose statement
okay I'll hold on to it for a few
minutes but start thinking about it uh
the thesis statement then would say that
three steps in making pizza are first
making the crust second assembling the
ingredients and third baking it in a
very hot
oven okay so that's you'll notice that
we've got the one the two and the three
which are the signposts you'll also
notice we have kind of parallel
structure making assembling baking we
wouldn't want to say
um making the
crust putting on the ingredients and
throwing it in an oven right because
those are are not actually the steps
right the steps are make you make the
crust then you assemble the ingredients
and then you bake it so the ing words
really help to um an for an audience to
follow the three steps so that parallel
language is very important that's in
your reading by the way so in this case
the structure is chronological the three
steps you don't start with baking it
right you have to start with making the
cross that's the first
step another sample purpose statement in
this case I want to talk about the flute
I don't want to talk about playing the
flute instead I want to inform my
audience about the parts of the
flute okay so do you know the structure
for this but in this case I've got three
parts so it's very clear that I'm going
to talk I'm not going to talk about like
how to form my lips to make the sound or
three songs that I could play on the
flute I'm talking about the parts of it
I'm going to describe the object so in
this case my thesis statement would be
the three parts of the flute see I'm
taking that end statement the three
parts of the flute are this case it's
the head joint the body and the foot
joint so so you the specific purpose
statement I uh to understand the three
parts of the flute or I want to inform
my audience about the three parts of the
flute the thesis statement then takes
that the three parts of the flute right
and then it delineates what they are the
head joint the body and the foot joint with
with
signposts any guesses on the
structure it's
spatial finally we have another example
of a purpose statement in this case
we're going to talk about dog training
the general purpose everyone knows this
by now because it's the same is to
inform the specific purpose is I want my
audience to understand three kinds of dog
dog
training or I want to inform my audience
about three kinds of dog training three
kinds then is the unifying term that you
use right and you build on that in the
thesis statement to
say three kinds of dog training are
behavior training obedience training and activity
activity
training and you'll notice that the
language here is parallel I'm not saying
three types of dog training are uh
training according to their behavior
obedience training and working on their
activities okay in case I this case I'm
using very parallel language so that
it's easy for me to remember Behavior
obedience and activity any guesses on
the structure
here so it's topical
structure so I'm just going to give you
a list of purpose statements that you
might look at all of the topics that I
have on the next slide are huge and you
would need to narrow them down right
according to uh what specific thing you
wanted to talk about and what you could
inform us about and then focusing in on
finding a characterizing term so let me
just show you the slide and then you can
look at it these are just ideas that I
generated of things that I could talk
about that what might be interesting so
you should look at them and think about
how you might structure a purpose
statement hopefully you have your topic
by now or these might help you spur a
couple of topics that you could talk
about and then you should practice
writing your general purpose which is to
inform your specific purpose I want to
inform my audience about three and then
your thesis statement the three types of
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
