Chapter 8
MAKING THE OUTLINE OR BRIEF
Orderly Arrangement. A speech should have an orderly arrangement. The effect upon an audience will be more easily made, more deeply impressed, more clearly retained, if the successive steps of the development are so well marked, so plainly related, that they may be carried away in a hearer's understanding. It might be said that one test of a good speech is the vividness with which its framework is discernible. Hearers can repeat outlines of certain speeches. Those are the best. Of others they can give merely confused reports. These are the badly constructed ones.
The way to secure in the delivered speech this delight of orderly arrangement is by making an outline or brief. Most pupils hate to make outlines. The reason for this repugnance is easily understood. A teacher directs a pupil to make an outline before he writes a composition or delivers a speech. The pupil spends hours on the list of entries, then submits his finished theme or address. He feels that the outline is disregarded entirely. Sometimes he is not even required to hand it to the instructor. He considers the time he has spent upon the outline as wasted. It is almost impossible to make him feel that his finished product is all the better because of this effort spent upon the preliminary skeleton, so that in reality his outline is not disregarded at all, but is judged and marked as embodied in the finished article. Most students carry this mistaken feeling about outlines to such an extent that when required to hand in both an outline and a finished composition they will write in haphazard fashion the composition first, and then from it try to prepare the outline, instead of doing as they are told, and making the outline first. It is easier--though not as educating or productive of good results--to string words together than it is to do what outline-making demands--to think.
Professional Writers' Use of Outlines. Professional writers realize the helpfulness of outline-making and the time it saves. Many a magazine article has been sold before a word of the finished manuscript was written. The contributor submitted an outline from which the editor contracted for the finished production. Many a play has been placed in the same form. Books are built up in the same manner. The ubiquitous moving-picture scenario is seldom produced in any other manner.
Macaulay advised a young friend who asked how to keep his brain active to read a couple of solid books, making careful outlines of their material at the same time. One of these should be--if possible--a work in a foreign tongue, so that the strangeness of the language would necessitate slow, careful reading and close thinking. All good students know that the best way to prepare for an examination is to make outlines of all the required reading and study.
It is just because the making of the outline demands such careful thinking that it is one of the most important steps in the production of a speech.
The Outline in the Finished Speech. If the outline really shows in the finished speech, let us see if we can pick the entries out from a portion of one. Edmund Burke in 1775 tried to prevent Great Britain from using coercive measures against the restive American colonies. Many Englishmen were already clamoring for war when Burke spoke in Parliament upon conciliating the Colonies.
I am sensible, Sir, that all which I have asserted in my detail, is admitted in the gross; but that quite a different conclusion is drawn from it. America, gentlemen say, is a noble object. It is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it is, if fighting a people be the best way of gaining them. Gentlemen in this respect will be led to their choice of means by their complexions and their habits. Those who understand the military art, will of course have some predilection for it. Those who wield the thunder of the state, may have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. But I confess, possibly for want of this knowledge, my opinion is much more in favor of prudent management, than of force; considering force not as an odious, but a feeble instrument, for preserving a people so numerous, so active, so growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable and subordinate connexion with us.
First, Sir, permit me to observe, that the use of force alone is but _temporary_. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
My next objection is its _uncertainty_. Terror is not always the effect of force; and an armament is not a victory. If you do not succeed, you are without resource; for, conciliation failing, force remains; but, force failing, no further hope of reconciliation is left. Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.
A further objection to force is, that you _impair the object_ by your very endeavors to preserve it. The thing you fought for is not the thing which you recover; but depreciated, sunk, wasted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing less will content me, than _whole America_. I do not choose to consume its strength along with our own; because in all parts it is the British strength that I consume. I do not choose to be caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this exhausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it. I may escape; but I can make no assurance against such an event. Let me add, that I do not choose wholly to break the American spirit; because it is the spirit that has made the country.
Lastly, we have no sort of _experience_ in favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our colonies. Their growth and their utility has been owing to methods altogether different. Our ancient indulgence has been said to be pursued to a fault. It may be so. But we know if feeling is evidence that our fault was more tolerable than our attempt to mend it; and our sin far more salutary than our penitence.
These, Sir, are my reasons for not entertaining that high opinion of untried force, by which many gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other particulars I have great respect, seem to be so greatly captivated. But there is still behind a third consideration concerning this object, which serves to determine my opinion on the sort of policy which ought to be pursued in the management of America, even more than its population and its commerce, I mean its _temper and character_.
EDMUND BURKE: _Conciliation with America_, 1775
Reconstructing the Outline. In the preliminary arrangement Burke knew that he was going to give his reasons against the use of military force. In his first plan he may not have decided just where he was going to place his four arguments. So they very likely appeared as four topic entries:
Against use of force. 1. temporary 2. uncertain 3. damages America 4. no experience
Notice that these are jottings to suggest the germs of the arguments. When Burke revised this section he may have changed the expression to indicate more certainty.
Force should not be used against the colonies, because: 1. it is only temporary 2. it is uncertain in its results 3. it would damage the wealth of the colonies 4. it is based on no experience of Great Britain with colonies
Of course, a practised statesman would not have to analyze farther, perhaps not so far, but to illustrate for a student how he might build up his outline, let us analyze one degree farther. Just what is meant by such terms as _temporary, uncertain?_ Under each statement, then, might be added a detailed explanation. The finished part of the outline would then appear somewhat like this.
Force should not be used against the colonies, because: 1. it is only temporary, for _a._ though it subdue for a time, it would have to be used again.
2. it is uncertain in its results, for _a._ Great Britain might not subdue the colonies.
3. it would damage the wealth of the colonies, for _a._ we would fight to retain a wealthy land, yet after the war we should have a ruined one.
4. it is based on no experience of Great Britain with colonies, for _a._ Great Britain has always been indulgent rather than severely strict.
Speaking or writing from such a detailed outline as this, consider how much thinking has already been done. With these entries under his eye the speaker need think only of the phrasing of his remarks. He would feel perfectly certain that he would not wander from his theme. Notice how the ideas can be emphasized. The suggestion of damage can be expressed in _impair the object_, and in _depreciated, sunk, wasted, consumed_.
So far this outline--though it covers all its own material--does not indicate the place at which it shall be used in the speech. It could be used near the conclusion where Burke planned to answer all the supporters of plans other than his own. That would be a good place for it. But Burke found a better one. He separated this from his other remarks against his opponents, and brought it in much earlier, thereby linking it with what it most concerned, emphasizing it, and disposing of it entirely so far as his speech was concerned. He had just enumerated the wealth of the colonies as represented by their commerce. He knew that the war party would argue, "If America is so wealthy, it is worth fighting for." That was the place, then, to refute them. To introduce his material he had to make clear the transition from the colonial wealth to his arguments. Notice how plainly the first paragraph quoted here does this. Having given his four reasons against the use of force, notice that he must bring his audience back to the theme he has been discussing. The last paragraph does this in a masterly manner. He has cited two facts about the colonies. To make understanding doubly certain he repeats them--population and commerce--and passes to the next, plainly numbering it as the third.
This recital of the process is not an account of what actually took place in Burke's preparation, but it will give to the student the method by which great speakers _may_ have proceeded; we do know that many did follow such a scheme. No amateur who wants to make his speeches worth listening to should omit this helpful step of outline or brief making. Whether he first writes out his speeches in full, or composes them upon his feet, every speaker should prepare an outline or brief of his material. This is a series of entries, so condensed and arranged as to show the relative significance of all the parts of the speech in the proper order of development.
Outline, Brief, Legal Brief. An outline contains entries which are merely topics, not completed statements or sentences.
A brief contains completed statements (sentences).
A legal brief is a formally prepared document (often printed) submitted to a certain court before a case is tried, showing the material the lawyer intends to produce, citing all his authorities, suggesting interpretations of laws and legal decisions to support his contentions, and giving all his conclusions. It is prepared for the use of the court, to reduce the labor in examining records, etc. Practice in the drawing up of such briefs is an important phase of legal study.
The Outline. An outline may recall to a person's mind what he already has learned, but it is seldom definite and informative enough to be as helpful as a brief. A good distinction of the two--besides the one respecting the forms already given--is that the outline represents the point of view of the speaker while the brief represents that of the hearer. Consider again the analyses of Burke in this chapter. Notice that the first list does not give nearly so clear an idea of what Burke actually said as the third. A person seeing only the first might _guess_ at what the speaker intended to declare. A person who looked at the third could not fail to _know exactly_ the opinions of the speaker and the arguments supporting them.
Pupils frequently make this kind of entry:
Introduction--Time Place Characters
The main objections to such an outline are that it tells nothing definite, and that it might fit a thousand compositions. Even an outline should say more than such a list does.
In one edition of Burke's speech the page from which the following is quoted is headed "Brief." Is it a brief?