 An outline is a valuable tool in creating a speech. It's like the blueprints an architect follows when they build a house. They follow the blueprints to avoid making mistakes and to ensure someone's house is structurally sound and beautiful. When giving a speech, an outline helps you organize your thoughts, make your arguments and best of all keep you from aimlessly rambling. We've all seen those speakers. All speeches are organized around purposes and a central idea. These include the general purpose. This tells your audience whether you're going to inform, persuade, or entertain them. The specific purpose. This tells your audience your topic. What do you intend to inform, persuade, or entertain them about? And the central idea. This sentence tells your audience what you want them to remember or what point you're going to make. Once you've defined your purpose and central idea, you can organize your information using a topic outline. This is a systematic arrangement of ideas. It uses words and phrases for headings and subheadings. It starts by using Roman numerals to identify each main point in your speech. Then you indent and mark your next level of supporting materials using capital letters. Next, indent again and move to Arabic numerals under each capital letter and finish off by indenting one final time and adding more details using lower case letters. Use parenthesis with numbers and letters if you need to be more detailed. Each heading should have at least two subdivisions or not at all. For every A, you need a B, and for every one, you need a 2. And remember each time you subdivide a point, you indent. Most outlines have the following parts because this is what needs to be covered in your speech. The parts include the title. Your outline should have a title, but you don't say it in your speech. The purpose and central ideas. These include statements to keep you focused on your speaking task or goal. The introduction and conclusion. These elements are so important that they deserve special attention. The intro and conclusion are independent of the body of your speech and have their own numbering sequence. The body. Each main point is identified using Roman numerals. The transitions. These are words, phrases, or sentences that help your listener understand the logical connections between ideas and thoughts. Transitions are labeled and placed in parenthesis. Transitions are not included in the numbering system of an outline. The bibliography. This section lists the sources you used in preparing the speech. It's prepared using a standard format. And visual aids. Here you briefly describe the visual aids you plan to use. Let's see the topic outline in action. Say you're giving a persuasive speech on why chocolate is the best flavor. We'll start by writing our main points using Roman numerals. Then we'd add all our supporting materials under each main point by indenting and using capital letters. Next, we use Arabic numerals under each bit of supporting material to provide details. Remember, you may not have something for every level of your outline, but the more details you can supply, the more organized you'll be and the easier it will be to give your speech. If you needed more detail, you would indent again and use lower case letters, A, B, and C. You can also use parentheses with numbers and letters if you need to be more detailed. This outline would get us started on our speech. It would keep us organized, ensure we cover all the important points, and keep us from rambling. It would also convince anyone in our audience that chocolate really is the best flavor. In this module, we covered how to organize a speech. We talked about the critical purpose statements, the content that's included, and how to write a topic outline. You've completed writing a topic outline.