![The template open in Strokes: a banner picture of an empty lectern on a stage in a quiet hall, above the title “Speech outline: [Title]”.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-light.3b534631.webp&w=3840&q=75)
![The template open in Strokes: a banner picture of an empty lectern on a stage in a quiet hall, above the title “Speech outline: [Title]”.](/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fhero-dark.d2210286.webp&w=3840&q=75)
When to use it
- Class speeches: informative, persuasive and demonstration assignments with a strict time limit
- Conference talks and keynotes that need a clear spine before anyone opens the slide deck
- Proposals delivered out loud to a board, a council, a committee or a client
- Short spoken slots where every minute counts: a team update, a pitch in a meeting, a two-minute public comment at a council meeting
How to use this template
- Decide what the audience should do afterward
Finish the sentence under Purpose: after this speech, the audience will know, believe or do something. Know makes it an informative speech. Believe or do makes it persuasive. That one verb decides the ending, a takeaway or a call to action, so settle it before you write the hook. Both ends have their own guides: how to start a speech and how to end a speech.
- Budget the minutes before you write
Copy your time limit into the time budget and plan to finish a little under it. Applause, a slow clicker and a late start all eat time. Multiply each section's minutes by 130 to 150 to get its word target. A target per section prevents the classic failure: a long, loving first point and a rushed third.
- Give each point support and a story
Each main point is one sentence. Under it goes the support that makes it true (a figure, an example, a quotation with its source) and one story that makes it stick: a person, a moment, a scene. The audience forgets the figure by the parking lot and remembers the nurse who worked a double shift. If no story fits a point, ask whether the point belongs in this speech.
- Test the skeleton, then cut it to notes
Read only the thesis, the three point sentences and the transitions aloud, in order. That is a one-minute version of the speech. If it makes sense on its own, the structure works. Rehearse from the full outline, then cut it down to keywords for delivery. The open textbook Stand Up, Speak Out suggests five 4 × 6 cards for a three-point speech: one for the opening, one per point and one for the close.
Speech length in words and minutes
Conversational American English runs at about 150 words a minute, according to the National Center for Voice and Speech. Speeches tend to run slower: you pause after the thesis, wait for a laugh, click to the next slide. VirtualSpeech, a presentation-training company, puts a comfortable presentation pace at 100 to 150 words a minute. Plan at 130 to 150 and let your own timed run-through overrule the table.
| Speech length | Words to write | Opening · each point · close |
|---|---|---|
| Speech length2 minutes | Words to write260–300 | Opening · each point · close0:15 · 0:45 (two points) · 0:15 |
| Speech length3 minutes | Words to write390–450 | Opening · each point · close0:25 · 0:45 · 0:20 |
| Speech length5 minutes | Words to write650–750 | Opening · each point · close0:40 · 1:15 · 0:35 |
| Speech length7 minutes | Words to write910–1,050 | Opening · each point · close0:50 · 1:50 · 0:40 |
| Speech length10 minutes | Words to write1,300–1,500 | Opening · each point · close1:15 · 2:35 · 1:00 |
| Speech length15 minutes | Words to write1,950–2,250 | Opening · each point · close1:45 · 4:00 · 1:15 |
| Speech length20 minutes | Words to write2,600–3,000 | Opening · each point · close2:15 · 5:20 · 1:45 |
If a timed run-through comes in long, cut a whole support item or a story rather than trimming words everywhere. One fewer example sounds deliberate. The same words said faster sound rushed.
Writing for the ear
A reader who loses the thread can go back a paragraph. A listener can't, so a speech has to work in one pass. The draft will look plain and repetitive on the page, which is how it should look.
- One idea per sentence. If you can't say a sentence in one breath, split it. Put the important word last, where your voice lands.
- Signpost everything. Tell the audience where they are: "The second reason is cost." "Here's the catch." The template gives every transition its own line so you write them on purpose instead of improvising "So, anyway, moving on."
- Repeat the thesis. Say it in the opening, echo it in the transitions, restate it in the close. On the page that is padding. Out loud it is a handrail.
- Round the numbers. "38.6 percent" is gone before anyone can hold on to it. "Nearly two in five" survives. Name the source in a phrase ("according to the city's own audit") instead of reading a citation.
- Talk in your own tone of voice. Use the words you would use with this audience across a table. A sentence you would never say out loud sounds read, because it is.
A readability check is a quick first pass: a paragraph that scores as hard to read will be harder still to follow by ear. Reading it aloud is the real test.
Written for the page: "Although the proposed reallocation of the parks budget, which the council will vote on in March, would reduce maintenance costs by an estimated 12 percent over three years, residents of the east side, where most of the affected playgrounds are located, have raised concerns about safety."
Written for the ear: "In March, the council votes on the parks budget. The plan saves money: about an eighth of the maintenance bill over three years. But most of the playgrounds it cuts are on the east side. And east-side parents have one question. Is it safe?"
Persuasive and informative outlines
The same template works for both. Three things change: the purpose verb, the order of the main points and the ending. If you still need a subject, browse persuasive speech topics or informative speech topics.
| Part | Informative speech | Persuasive speech |
|---|---|---|
| PartPurpose | Informative speechThe audience will know or understand | Persuasive speechThe audience will believe or act |
| PartThesis | Informative speechWhat they will learn, stated plainly | Persuasive speechA claim someone could disagree with |
| PartMain points | Informative speechTopics, steps or stages in time order | Persuasive speechProblem, cause and solution, or reasons with the strongest last |
| PartSupport | Informative speechExamples, definitions, demonstrations | Persuasive speechEvidence, plus an answer to the main objection |
| PartClose | Informative speechA takeaway: one thing to remember or try | Persuasive speechA call to action: one thing to do, and when |
A persuasive speech can also run as Monroe's motivated sequence, the structure Alan H. Monroe developed at Purdue University in the 1930s. It fits this template without renaming a heading. Attention is the hook. Need is main point 1: the problem, and why it touches this audience. Satisfaction is main point 2, your solution. Visualization is main point 3: what changes if they act, and what happens if they don't. Action is the call to action.
An informative outline is simpler. For a five-minute talk on recycling, the thesis might be "Your recycling makes three stops before it becomes something new." The points follow it in time order: the truck, the sorting line, and the mills that turn the bales into new cans and boxes. The close is a takeaway: one thing to stop putting in the bin.
Speech outline example
A five-minute talk at a neighborhood meeting, outlined with the template and Monroe's sequence.
Purpose: The Maple Street Neighborhood Association votes to open a tool library, and ten people sign up to staff it.
Audience: About forty neighbors at the monthly meeting. Most have a garage full of tools, and few have heard the idea.
- Hook: "Raise your hand if you own a ladder. Keep it up if you used it more than twice this year."
- Thesis: "Between us, we already own a hardware store. A tool library would let us use it."
- Preview: "Three things: the tools we already own, how sharing them would work, and what changes when we do."
- Point 1, need: Our tools sit idle. Support: in last month's survey, four households in five own a power drill, and most said theirs comes out less than once a month. Story: Dana's tile saw, bought for one bathroom and untouched since.
- Point 2, satisfaction: How it works: the church basement, Saturdays from 9 to noon, a sign-out sheet, $10 a year. Support: the church has already offered the room. Story: the first Saturday, told through Mr. Reyes, who borrows the hedge trimmer at 9:05 and has it back by noon.
- Point 3, visualization: What a year of sharing looks like. Support: what forty households save when they stop buying duplicates. Story: the Okafors' fence goes up with a borrowed post-hole digger.
- Transitions: "So the tools exist. The question is how to share them." Then: "That's the plan. Here's what it changes."
- Call to action: Vote yes tonight, and sign the sheet by the door for one Saturday a month.
- Last line: "You can put your hands down now. Bring the ladders."
Notice that the last line answers the hook, and that every point has a story with a name in it. When the outline holds up, turn it into a script. The guide on how to write a speech covers drafting and rehearsal.
Frequently asked questions
How many words is a 5-minute speech?
About 650 to 750 words at a typical speaking pace of 130 to 150 words a minute. Time yourself reading the draft aloud. If you naturally speak faster or slower, change the word target, not your pace.
How many main points should a speech have?
The open textbook Stand Up, Speak Out recommends two main points for speeches under three minutes and three for speeches of three to ten minutes, because listeners remember fewer points better. Longer talks can carry a fourth. Whatever the number, give each point roughly the same time.
Can I use this template for a presentation with slides?
Yes. Outline first, then make slides only for the moments that need a picture, a chart or a number the audience must see. The outline decides what you say. The slides show what is hard to say.
