Introduction
At this point, you have assembled a whole lot of information. You have spent a lot of time thinking about what has happened and what needs to happen. Hopefully, you understand who you are as a presenter and what your limits are. And most importantly, you know your audience and your material. Now it's time to put everything together. Earlier in this course, we talked about the famous ancient speakers, the people whose words are still quoted today, and who spoke without the help of any technology or note cards. These speakers somehow managed to remember all the key points they needed to make during a speech--and a lot of their success was a result of keeping their organizational style simple, with single overarching themes and a basic point that people could remember after a while. Think of Patrick Henry: "Give me liberty or give me death." Most people don't remember any of the rest of that speech, but we do remember that one simple line, and that is all we need to remember to understand the basic point--and we are able to recall it hundreds of years after Henry spoke it.
If you have ever been in a meeting, or a classroom, chances are you have experienced at least one meeting where you left without being able to recall what the speaker's purpose was, or what the outcome of the meeting was. Don't let this happen to you--spend some time organizing all your thoughts. Make a list of the things your audience absolutely must know before they leave. These are your key points.