0:03 this lecture talks about purpose
0:06 statements which is the process of
0:08 finding a topic which you already have
0:10 and then figuring out how to narrow it
0:13 so that it's doable in a short amount of
0:16 speech time for this first informative
0:19 speech you have six to seven minutes
0:23 which is not very much time and so um
0:26 the purpose statements and finding uh
0:28 the correct way to phrase your ideas
0:30 actually will
0:33 help you narrow down your speech uh so
0:35 that it will be kind of more clear to an
0:38 audience remember good communicators are
0:40 always focused on making sure that their
0:43 audience can follow their ideas okay so
0:45 here this will be a discussion about how
0:48 to narrow that
0:51 idea so um for at the top of every
0:54 outline and for all of your speeches
0:56 you're going to follow this process of
0:59 narrowing your speech so if you have a
1:02 topic let's say U I want to talk about
1:03 the solar
1:07 system um you could talk about uh that
1:09 persuasively you could make an argument
1:11 about it or you could inform us about it
1:14 and this first speech obviously is to
1:16 provide information to teach us
1:18 something about it so the general
1:21 purpose will help narrow that huge topic
1:24 of solar systems down to something that
1:28 we are going to in this case inform so
1:30 the general purpose will will be
1:32 provided for each of the assignments so
1:34 you are don't have to worry about that
1:39 okay and that for this first one is to
1:42 inform and then once you have a specific
1:44 per I mean sorry a general purpose then
1:46 you follow the specific purpose and the
1:49 specific purpose is actually targeted on
1:51 the audience what's what do you want to
1:53 communicate to the audience or what do
1:55 you want your goal to be as I'll show
1:58 you in just a moment and then the third
2:00 thing that you do is you come up with a
2:03 thesis statement which further Narrows
2:05 that idea and the thesis statement
2:08 clearly articulates the three specific
2:10 ideas that you're going to cover in your
2:13 speech that's what the thesis statement
2:17 is so before I kind of develop each of
2:19 these I want to talk about the rule of
2:21 three because you will have three main
2:24 points for each of your speeches in this
2:27 class and three main points is not
2:29 something arbitrary that I dreamt up one
2:33 today okay the rule of three is what is
2:35 guiding our understanding about why you
2:38 would have three ideas it's a very
2:41 powerful tool to help you communicate
2:45 your ideas to others so the rule of
2:46 three should be something that you
2:48 follow from now until forever right that
2:52 you should have three main points the
2:55 rule of three holds that things are more
2:58 pleasing they're easier to follow
3:00 they're more Salient they're more
3:03 powerful they're more memorable when
3:09 threes three is the smallest amount of
3:12 information that's needed to create a
3:14 pattern okay and so it's therefore the
3:18 easiest way to retain information is to
3:20 do it in
3:23 threes so the rule of three actually
3:26 reflects the ways that humans process
3:28 information so that's why you will have
3:30 three main points it's not because I
3:33 dreamt it up but it's because the rule
3:35 of three is something that we've our
3:37 brains have been trained to process
3:39 things in groups of three even think
3:41 about going to the grocery store and if
3:44 you have 10 things you might put it you
3:46 know in your mind you might put them in
3:48 the idea of oh I need three things in
3:50 the dairy right I need milk I need
3:53 butter I need cream and then I need
3:56 three kinds of vegetables because that's
4:00 how we can remember and process lots of
4:02 information and just look at these
4:05 examples that we've been trained about
4:07 we talk about Blood Sweat and Tears we
4:10 talk about rock paper scissors being
4:13 calm and cool and collected to stop drop
4:17 and roll to stop look and listen life
4:20 liberty and the pursuit of happiness to
4:24 reduce reuse recycle Goldilocks and the
4:27 Three Bears the Three Little Pigs The Three
4:28 Three
4:31 Musketeers new Newton's three laws of
4:35 physics uh the rule of thirds in art or in
4:36 in
4:39 photography right so that's how we break
4:41 down information so you'll use this rule
4:44 of three when you're developing your
4:47 specific purpose statement as well as
4:52 statements so you'll identify three
4:56 parts or three aspects or three steps of
4:57 the topic that you're going to talk
5:00 about okay and that further Nar Narrows
5:02 the information right so with the
5:06 general purpose we know that if we're
5:08 talking about the solar system already
5:10 we've narrowed it because we're only
5:12 going to inform about it right so all
5:14 the topics about trying to persuade us
5:17 to think a different way are now now
5:20 irrelevant right for our purpose and now
5:22 we're going to focus on the specific
5:24 purpose statement and I can't talk about
5:27 all the planets in our solar system for
5:30 example so I might talk about three
5:32 planets in our solar system although
5:34 between you and me that topic is still
5:35 too big so I might talk about maybe
5:37 three parts of
5:40 mercury okay uh but in any event the
5:43 idea is that you will use the term three
5:45 in your specific purpose statement to
5:47 help you further narrow I can't talk
5:49 about a hundred things I can only talk
5:51 about three things what are the three
5:54 that are most interesting most relevant
5:56 um most
5:59 compact so the three specific things
6:01 then that you will identify about
6:04 Mercury for example then will be spelled
6:07 out or delineated specifically in your thesis
6:09 thesis
6:12 statement so to be clear we've narrowed
6:15 things down the topic helps narrow ideas
6:17 we're not going to talk about everything
6:18 we're just going to talk about planets
6:21 in our solar system right the general
6:24 purpose which is always provided for you
6:26 helps further narrow to
6:30 inform the specific purpose is audience
6:32 centered right and says this is what I
6:34 want my audience to get out of the
6:36 speech or how I want to communicate this
6:39 idea to the audience and then the thesis
6:42 statement identifies the three specific
6:43 things that you're going to develop in
6:46 your speech so the general purpose is
6:49 always provided for you let's now talk
6:52 about the specific purpose and specific
6:55 purpose statements so here the language
6:57 of specific purpose statements is
6:59 audience centered and you combine that
7:02 notion of being audience centered with
7:04 the purpose of the assignment remember
7:06 in this case the purpose of the
7:09 assignment is to inform right so in this
7:12 case you would say I want to inform my
7:13 audience about
7:16 three I don't know what are you talking
7:19 about three parts of mercury
7:23 perhaps or you could also focus on the
7:26 outcome of the speech so what does an
7:28 informative speech do it produces
7:30 understanding so so at the end of the
7:32 speech I want my audience to understand
7:36 the three parts of mercury for
7:39 instance okay so you can either say I
7:41 want to inform my audience about three
7:44 something or I want my audience to
7:46 understand that three something okay and
7:48 that's what your specific purpose
7:50 statement will be so already we're
7:53 narrowing and providing you with pretty
7:55 Specific Instructions about how to
7:58 phrase that specific purpose statements
8:00 specific purpose statements will often
8:03 vary right according to the specific
8:07 assignment that you have so this is what
8:10 I'm going to go forward with is only
8:11 talking about the informative speech
8:13 because that's the upcoming speech but
8:15 when you get to the second speech the
8:17 argumentative one you will talk about
8:20 the general purpose being to argue or to
8:24 convince right to inform to understand
8:27 and the persuasive will be to persuade
8:30 or to activate
8:31 okay so we'll talk about those things
8:34 later in the semester but this is the
8:36 focus here on what you want the audience
8:39 to do based on the speech or your desired
8:46 outcome so how do we find the term three
8:50 right the pairing the idea of three with
8:52 your specific purpose statements because
8:54 that's the first place that you'll see
8:56 three specific purpose statements will
8:58 identify the three things that you're
9:02 going to discuss things is not a very
9:06 clear or specific term okay so you will
9:08 want to find a better term than this
9:11 idea of things instead you'll want to
9:14 find a term that better explains or
9:18 describes the thread between the three
9:22 ideas and so that term that um you're
9:24 going to use is called a unifying term
9:27 so what is the unifying term that helps
9:30 connect those three IDE is so three
9:33 parts of mercury aren't that interesting
9:35 or really that helpful but maybe I would
9:40 talk about three um
9:43 um three parts of the landscape right so
9:47 three different Landscapes on Mercury or
9:49 three um
9:55 different um layers to Mercury okay and
9:57 that's better than three things about
10:00 Mercury so you want to find a unifying
10:04 term and that term is often based on the
10:06 structure that you select for your
10:09 speech okay I'm going to talk more about
10:11 structuring in a lecture just a couple
10:13 lectures away from now but I'm going to
10:16 show you kind of how that works for your
10:18 specific purpose statements and then how
10:22 it leads naturally to your thesis
10:24 statement so one way that you can
10:26 organize your speeches as you'll learn
10:29 is by chronology or the times sequence
10:32 of events right the three things in
10:36 history that happened three parts to um
10:39 the this battle three steps so terms
10:42 unifying terms that you might use for
10:45 Chronological uh structures might be
10:49 three steps or three versions of or
10:53 three times that this
10:55 happened another way to structure an
10:59 idea is according to space okay so you
11:03 could describe um an object for example
11:05 and if you do that then your unifying
11:09 term might be Parts three parts of or
11:13 three pieces of or three places
11:16 on okay and then finally you could
11:20 organize things according to topical
11:22 ideas right or those are just sort of
11:26 three General parts to there are many
11:28 more parts but there's three that I'm
11:29 going to talk about right right so
11:32 you've just selected three and so if
11:34 you're doing a topical structure you
11:37 might use a unifying term saying three
11:42 aspects of or three interests of or three
11:44 three
11:48 types or three abilities or three
11:52 traits okay aspects interests types
11:54 abilities traits these are all better or
11:58 more clear words than
12:01 things okay same with the chronological
12:03 unifying terms and the spatial unifying
12:05 terms you might have a better or
12:07 different term for your topic these are
12:10 not exclusive right you can there there
12:12 are many more that you could use but the
12:15 idea is you want to be more specific
12:17 about your unifying term the thing that
12:21 connects your three ideas than
12:25 things okay so just starting points so
12:27 start thinking about how you might
12:31 connect your three ideas is and then
12:33 actually interestingly you're going to use
12:33 use
12:36 transitions that will help move between
12:39 these three things that will connect to
12:41 the structure that you're going to use
12:43 in your speech and we talk about
12:45 transitions uh several lectures down the
12:48 road but start thinking because that's
12:51 again how audiences can really
12:54 understand how all three of your steps
12:57 or your interests or your traits fit together
13:00 together
13:01 so now we're going to talk about thesis
13:04 statements because we understand purpose
13:06 statements right they are I want my
13:08 audience to understand or I want to
13:10 inform my audience
13:12 about and the thesis statements then
13:16 build on that specific purpose statement
13:19 and delineates the specific ideas that
13:22 you're going to cover in the body of
13:24 your speech so you build from the
13:26 specific purpose statement taking that
13:29 last phrase and then you identify the
13:31 three things that you're going to cover
13:35 in your speech the three specific things
13:36 so by the time you have a thesis
13:38 statement you know what the body of your
13:40 speech will be because there'll be these
13:43 three main points okay so once you've
13:46 narrowed your speech down from to the
13:48 specific purpose statement to just talk
13:51 about these three steps involved in
13:53 right then you say the first step the
13:55 Second Step the third step in your thesis
13:56 thesis
13:59 statement so what the three things are
14:01 right or the three unifying terms the
14:04 three steps the three parts the three
14:07 traits that is what you're going to then
14:08 develop in your
14:11 speech and then that uses uh that's
14:14 articulated in the thesis statements and
14:18 you use numbers in your thesis statement
14:20 first second and third and you do that
14:24 in your speech and you say it out loud
14:26 now you might have been taught in um
14:29 writing that you don't do that but
14:31 remember writing is different than
14:34 speech and audiences don't have notes in
14:35 front of them and they don't have your
14:38 paper or your essay so you have to
14:41 provide those signposts or those numbers
14:44 to help us follow those three ideas we
14:46 don't see say Goldilocks and the Bears
14:48 we say the three bears and then we say
14:50 the first bear is Baby Bear right and
14:53 the second Bear right that's how we do
14:57 that so you need those numbers uh for
14:59 the audience to be able to follow those
15:02 ideas these numbers are called signposts
15:04 and they are absolutely vital for an
15:06 audience and we're going to say that
15:09 repeatedly this semester so please be
15:12 aware that this is a critical component
15:15 of being effective as an oral
15:17 Communicator so let's look at some
15:19 sample purpose
15:22 statements let's start with this purpose
15:25 statement of making pizza I want to my
15:27 audience to understand how to make pizza
15:31 so the general purpose is to inform the
15:33 specific purpose is I want my audience
15:37 to understand three steps in making
15:40 pizza that's the outcome based you could
15:43 say I want to inform my audience about
15:45 the three steps in making pizza but
15:48 please notice here we have three steps
15:50 because that is the unifying term and it
15:53 is three which is the magic number so in
15:55 this case three steps do you know the
16:00 structure of this purpose statement
16:01 okay I'll hold on to it for a few
16:04 minutes but start thinking about it uh
16:06 the thesis statement then would say that
16:08 three steps in making pizza are first
16:11 making the crust second assembling the
16:14 ingredients and third baking it in a
16:15 very hot
16:18 oven okay so that's you'll notice that
16:20 we've got the one the two and the three
16:22 which are the signposts you'll also
16:24 notice we have kind of parallel
16:28 structure making assembling baking we
16:30 wouldn't want to say
16:33 um making the
16:37 crust putting on the ingredients and
16:39 throwing it in an oven right because
16:41 those are are not actually the steps
16:43 right the steps are make you make the
16:46 crust then you assemble the ingredients
16:49 and then you bake it so the ing words
16:54 really help to um an for an audience to
16:56 follow the three steps so that parallel
16:59 language is very important that's in
17:02 your reading by the way so in this case
17:03 the structure is chronological the three
17:06 steps you don't start with baking it
17:07 right you have to start with making the
17:09 cross that's the first
17:12 step another sample purpose statement in
17:16 this case I want to talk about the flute
17:17 I don't want to talk about playing the
17:19 flute instead I want to inform my
17:23 audience about the parts of the
17:26 flute okay so do you know the structure
17:29 for this but in this case I've got three
17:32 parts so it's very clear that I'm going
17:34 to talk I'm not going to talk about like
17:37 how to form my lips to make the sound or
17:38 three songs that I could play on the
17:40 flute I'm talking about the parts of it
17:43 I'm going to describe the object so in
17:46 this case my thesis statement would be
17:49 the three parts of the flute see I'm
17:51 taking that end statement the three
17:54 parts of the flute are this case it's
17:57 the head joint the body and the foot
18:01 joint so so you the specific purpose
18:04 statement I uh to understand the three
18:06 parts of the flute or I want to inform
18:08 my audience about the three parts of the
18:11 flute the thesis statement then takes
18:14 that the three parts of the flute right
18:16 and then it delineates what they are the
18:18 head joint the body and the foot joint with
18:19 with
18:22 signposts any guesses on the
18:25 structure it's
18:28 spatial finally we have another example
18:30 of a purpose statement in this case
18:32 we're going to talk about dog training
18:34 the general purpose everyone knows this
18:37 by now because it's the same is to
18:41 inform the specific purpose is I want my
18:45 audience to understand three kinds of dog
18:46 dog
18:50 training or I want to inform my audience
18:54 about three kinds of dog training three
18:57 kinds then is the unifying term that you
19:01 use right and you build on that in the
19:03 thesis statement to
19:07 say three kinds of dog training are
19:11 behavior training obedience training and activity
19:12 activity
19:14 training and you'll notice that the
19:18 language here is parallel I'm not saying
19:21 three types of dog training are uh
19:23 training according to their behavior
19:26 obedience training and working on their
19:29 activities okay in case I this case I'm
19:31 using very parallel language so that
19:34 it's easy for me to remember Behavior
19:37 obedience and activity any guesses on
19:39 the structure
19:42 here so it's topical
19:44 structure so I'm just going to give you
19:46 a list of purpose statements that you
19:49 might look at all of the topics that I
19:52 have on the next slide are huge and you
19:54 would need to narrow them down right
19:57 according to uh what specific thing you
19:59 wanted to talk about and what you could
20:04 inform us about and then focusing in on
20:07 finding a characterizing term so let me
20:09 just show you the slide and then you can
20:13 look at it these are just ideas that I
20:15 generated of things that I could talk
20:17 about that what might be interesting so
20:19 you should look at them and think about
20:21 how you might structure a purpose
20:24 statement hopefully you have your topic
20:26 by now or these might help you spur a
20:28 couple of topics that you could talk
20:30 about and then you should practice
20:33 writing your general purpose which is to
20:37 inform your specific purpose I want to
20:40 inform my audience about three and then
20:44 your thesis statement the three types of
