 What's the last vacation or road trip you took? When planning a vacation most of us don't just hop on a vehicle and start driving randomly in hopes that we'll end up somewhere We enjoy we pick out a destination and plan out the details like how we'll get there What we'll do along the way how long we'll spend there what we're gonna do over that time and in what order? In some respects public speaking isn't all that different from a vacation. It should involve planning and purpose Once you've selected a topic or destination for your speech It's important to take care with the details and make sure that your content is going to line up with the purpose of the speech in This video will discuss the process of developing a general purpose statement specific purpose statement and central idea statement for a speech Aligning the purpose of your speech with the content begins with the development of a general purpose statement Deciding on a general purpose for your speech is like deciding on the basic idea for your vacation Are we going to travel somewhere far away? Stay closer to home for a staycation Use the time to work on some projects around the house a general purpose statement simply articulates the goal of your speech in the broadest possible terms So in the most basic way it answers the question. What are you trying to accomplish with this speech as? As a result the general purpose statement always starts with the word to and then follows with the overall goal of the speech There are dozens of different general purpose statements used in public speaking to inspire to entertain To celebrate and to mourn named just a few possibilities the three most common however are to inform to persuade and To commemorate or mark a special occasion Once you have identified the general purpose for your speech You can zoom in a little more through the creation of a specific purpose statement If we go back to the idea of planning a vacation the specific purpose would be the equivalent of identifying a more specific destination like St. Louis or Chicago in Public speaking a specific purpose statement starts with the general purpose and then provides further detail about the goals of the speech The basic formula for the specific purpose statement is to restate the general purpose Identify the specific audience for the speech and then detail what it is you want the audience to learn do Reconsider or agree with at the conclusion of the speech One example of a specific purpose statement would be to inform my classmates about the political career of Ronald Reagan To inform states the general purpose my classmates identifies the audience in question and About the political career of Ronald Reagan gives an appropriate amount of detail on the subject to be discussed Think about a speech coming up for you. Can you identify an appropriate general purpose for the speech? Once you have a general purpose write a specific purpose statement for that speech go ahead I'll give you a moment if you need more time to work on your general purpose or specific purpose statements Feel free to pause the video now Otherwise, let's continue Now that you have the general purpose and specific purpose statements in hand you can develop the central idea statement for your speech This is also sometimes called a thesis statement To go back one more time to our vacation comparison the central idea statement is like determining the major activities of your trip Let's say we decided to travel to st. Louis because let's face it who would go to Chicago if it wasn't absolutely necessary While we're there we might plan to visit Grant's farm Go to a Cardinals game and go to the top of the arch In the same way the central idea statement should identify the major stops in your speech It's very similar to something that you might do for an English paper, but there are some key differences The central idea statement should essentially summarize your entire speech Ideally, this will include a recitation of the main points of your speech Unlike the general purpose and specific purpose statements, which are really sentence fragments that would make your English teacher cringe The central idea statement should be a full and proper sentence The central idea should be expressed in a single sentence and be a declarative statement a Central idea statement on the same topic as before the political career of Ronald Reagan might go something like Even though Ronald Reagan lost his first presidential bid in 1976 He was still a very accomplished politician serving both as governor of California from 1967 to 1975 and later as president of the United States From 1981 to 1989 Time to try your own hand at creating a central idea statement Following up on the general purpose and specific purpose statements that you created write a central idea statement for that same speech I'll give you a moment to work on writing your central idea statement If you need more time to work on your central idea statement, feel free to pause the video now Otherwise, let's continue In this video, we discussed the process of developing a central purpose statement specific purpose statement and central idea statement for a speech Remember to take the same care in planning the destination and details of your speech that you will for your next vacation Check out some of our other videos for more insight into the public speaking process