THE FOURTH RULE:

Create an Outline

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A speech should never be a treasure hunt for your audience. They should not have to work hard to understand your ideas. You can help them and yourself by organizing a structure that ensures that they won’t get lost. The heart of that structure begins with the outline—a speechwriter’s best friend. The outline strips away the camouflage of words and leaves only the essence of the concepts, so that you can inspect how they all fit together—their logic and sequence within the speech.

This chapter will focus on the outline in detail. Specifically, it will discuss: First, who should use an outline and why; and second, ...

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