The Lost Art of the Great Speech: How to Write It * How to Deliver It

Working in thought modules

Using thought modules is simply a way of breaking a speech down into small, manageable units. A thought module consists of a single idea and all necessary supporting material. For example, if you take the passage you've just read and add supporting material such as an interesting statistic, a pertinent quotation, or an anecdote, you have a thought module. I don't want to make this too complicated, but a whole speech can be considered a thought module, with the thesis as the single basic idea. Stated another way, every thought module is composed of smaller modules.

The idea behind constructing thought modules is to force yourself to think logically about what you write and to develop the habit of keeping related material ...