Do you know what a hierarchy is? It’s a system that ranks things, usually from most important to least important. In writing, this type of organization is called order of importance, and it’s one way that you can structure your speech.

Other organizational patterns include comparison-contrast, which looks at similarities and differences; classification, which divides topics into categories; problem-solution, which proposes possible fixes for an issue; chronological, which describes events in the order they happened; and cause-and-effect, which shows how something is caused by something else.

To select an organizational pattern for your presentation, look back at your thesis statement. Which organizational pattern would best help you deliver the details that support your claim? Are you proposing a solution to a problem? Are you comparing two or more things? Do you want to demonstrate different categories of a broader topic? The claim you hope to make, along with the kinds of details you will provide, should determine which organizational pattern you choose. It’s also quite possible that different parts of your speech will use different patterns.

Once you know, in a general sense, how your speech’s details should be arranged, it’s time to create an outline. You may know that the purpose of any outline is to show the “bones,” or most important points, of a speech or essay. An outline can also help you unify your ideas around a thesis statement. Here’s an outline for the speech about mushrooms that you heard at the beginning of this lesson.