Most bad speeches are not bad because the speaker lacked ideas. They are bad because the ideas arrived in no particular order. The audience could not tell where he was going, could not tell when he had arrived, and walked away remembering nothing.
The orators of Rome solved this problem two thousand years ago. In his treatise On Invention, the young Cicero set out the parts of a persuasive speech in a fixed order, and the same scheme appears in the Rhetorica ad Herennium. Arrangement, or dispositio, is the second of the five canons of rhetoric, and this six-part structure is its backbone. It still works for a closing argument, a sales pitch, a sermon or a toast.
The six parts of a classical speech
- Exordium: the introduction
- Narratio: the statement of facts
- Partitio: the division, or roadmap
- Confirmatio: the proof
- Refutatio: the answer to objections
- Peroratio: the conclusion
1. Exordium: win the room
The purpose of the introduction, the handbooks say, is to make the audience well disposed, attentive and ready to learn. You are not yet arguing. You are earning the right to be heard.
Cicero distinguished two kinds of opening. The direct opening goes straight at the subject when the audience is already sympathetic. The subtle approach (insinuatio) eases into a subject when the audience is hostile or tired. Know which room you are in. His First Oration against Catiline is the most famous direct opening in history: he begins not with pleasantries but with an accusation in the form of a question, “How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?”
Modern use: open with a question, a short story, a striking fact or a word about why this matters to these particular listeners. Never open with an apology.
2. Narratio: tell them what happened
The statement of facts lays out the situation the speech responds to. The ancient rule was that it should be brief, clear and plausible. Give the audience exactly enough background to understand your argument, and no more.
Modern use: in a work presentation, this is the problem statement. In a eulogy, it is the story of the life. Keep it short and concrete.
3. Partitio: show them the map
The division tells the audience what you will argue and in what order. It is the most neglected part of modern speeches and the one that most helps listeners. An audience that knows the route can follow it.
Modern use: “I want to make three points tonight.” Then name them. Three is the classic number: easy to remember, and enough to feel complete.
4. Confirmatio: make your case
The proof is the heart of the speech, where you present your arguments and evidence. This is where the work of invention pays off. Arrange your arguments deliberately: the handbooks advised placing strong arguments at the beginning and the strongest at the end, with weaker ones in the middle where they draw least attention.
Modern use: give each point a claim, a reason and an example. Stories and specifics persuade more than abstractions.
5. Refutatio: answer the objections
The refutation addresses the arguments against you. Amateur speakers ignore objections and hope no one thinks of them. Skilled speakers raise them first and answer them, which disarms opponents and shows the audience that the speaker has thought honestly about the question.
Modern use: “Some of you are thinking this will cost too much. Here is why it will not.” One or two objections, answered fairly, are enough.
6. Peroratio: send them out moved
The conclusion has two jobs: to sum up the argument so it is remembered, and to stir the emotions so the audience acts. This is where the grand style belongs. The Roman handbooks taught three parts for a conclusion: summing up, amplifying the stakes, and appealing to the feelings of the hearers.
Modern use: restate your three points in a sentence, tell them what is at stake, and end on a line worth remembering. Then stop. A speech should end once, not three times.
It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
Abraham Lincoln, the Gettysburg Address
A short example: Lincoln at Gettysburg
The Gettysburg Address is under three hundred words, yet it moves through a clear order. It opens by recalling the founding (“Four score and seven years ago”), states the present situation (a great civil war, a battlefield, a cemetery to dedicate), turns on an apparent objection (we cannot truly dedicate this ground, because the dead have already done so), and closes with a grand peroration calling the living to finish their work so that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Past, present, future: arrangement made audible.
The short version for short speeches
Not every speech needs all six parts. For a two-minute toast, a meeting update or an impromptu answer, compress them into three:
- Open with why it matters (exordium).
- Make your point with one reason and one example (confirmatio).
- Close with a memorable line that calls for something (peroratio).
This compressed structure is also the secret to speaking well without preparation, which we cover in impromptu speaking tips. And once your structure is set, you can hold it in mind with the memory palace.
Learn it by doing it
Structure is learned by building speeches and hearing them critiqued. That is the work of the Orators Club, Meriwether Academy’s public speaking club for men in Nashville, where prepared speeches are built on the classical order and judged by the brothers in the room.
The Orators Club is Meriwether Academy’s public speaking club for men in Nashville, built on the classical rhetoric of Demosthenes and Cicero. The Nashville chapter is in development.
Join the CorrespondenceCicero won the consulship and saved the Republic with speeches built on this plan. To see arrangement at work in the ancient world, read the Funeral Oration of Pericles and Plutarch’s Life of Cicero.