{"id":143,"date":"2018-04-08T12:38:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T12:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/chapter\/purpose-and-central-idea-statements\/"},"modified":"2023-08-02T16:12:52","modified_gmt":"2023-08-02T16:12:52","slug":"purpose-and-central-idea-statements","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/chapter\/purpose-and-central-idea-statements\/","title":{"raw":"Purpose and Central Idea Statements","rendered":"Purpose and Central Idea Statements"},"content":{"raw":"<p class=\"c3\">Speeches have traditionally been seen to have one of three broad purposes: to inform, to persuade, and \u2014 well, to be honest, different words are used for the third kind of speech purpose: to inspire, to amuse, to please, or to entertain. These broad goals are commonly known as a speech\u2019s general purpose, since, in general, you are trying to inform, persuade, or entertain your audience without regard to specifically what the topic will be. Perhaps you could think of them as appealing to the understanding of the audience (informative), the will or action <span class=\"c2\">(persuasive), and the emotion or pleasure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\">Now that you know your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain), you can start to move in the direction of the specific purpose. A specific purpose statement builds on your general purpose (to inform) and makes it more specific (as the name suggests). So if your first speech is an informative speech, your general purpose will be to inform your audience <span class=\"c2\">about a very specific realm of knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c2\">In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose<\/span><span class=\"c2\">:\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"c25 lst-kix_mkkqk016xecq-0 start\">\n \t<li class=\"c3 c21\"><span class=\"c2\">You (your interests, your background, past jobs, experience, education, major),<\/span><\/li>\n \t<li class=\"c3 c21\"><span class=\"c2\">Your audience<\/span><\/li>\n \t<li class=\"c3 c21\"><span class=\"c2\">The context or setting.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c3\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"c2\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-142 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14.png\" alt=\"diagram demonstrating three beginning categories, you, your audience, your context leading to a specific purpose statement followed by a central idea statement.\" width=\"808\" height=\"569\"><em>Figure 5.3<\/em>. You, your audience, and your context (Tucker &amp; Barton, 2016)<\/span><\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"h.xaezg5wnlgqs\" class=\"c12\"><span class=\"c10\">Putting It Together<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"c3\">Keeping these three inputs in mind, you can begin to write a <span class=\"c11\">specific purpose statement<\/span><span class=\"c2\">, which will be the foundation for everything you say in the speech and a guide for what you do not say. This formula will help you in putting together your specific purpose statement:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c2\">To _______________ [Specific Communication Word (inform, explain, demonstrate, describe, define, persuade, convince, prove, argue)] my [<\/span><span class=\"c2\">Target Audience (my classmates, the members of the Social Work Club, my coworkers]\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">__________________. [T<\/span>he Content (how to bake brownies, that Macs are better than PCs].<\/p>\n<strong>Example:<\/strong> The purpose of my presentation is to demonstrate for my coworkers the value of informed intercultural communication.\n<h2 id=\"h.3irtam1dhn1k\" class=\"c12\"><span class=\"c10\">Formulating a Central Idea Statement<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c2\">While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be. The statement that reveals your main points is commonly known as the central idea statement (or just the central idea). Just as you would create a thesis statement for an essay or research paper, the central idea statement helps focus your presentation by defining your topic, purpose, direction, angle and\/or point of view. Here are two examples:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Specific Purpose<\/strong> -\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\" style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Central Idea<\/strong> -\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Specific Purpose<\/strong> -\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\" style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Central Idea<\/strong> -\u00a0<\/span>Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.<\/p>","rendered":"<p class=\"c3\">Speeches have traditionally been seen to have one of three broad purposes: to inform, to persuade, and \u2014 well, to be honest, different words are used for the third kind of speech purpose: to inspire, to amuse, to please, or to entertain. These broad goals are commonly known as a speech\u2019s general purpose, since, in general, you are trying to inform, persuade, or entertain your audience without regard to specifically what the topic will be. Perhaps you could think of them as appealing to the understanding of the audience (informative), the will or action <span class=\"c2\">(persuasive), and the emotion or pleasure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\">Now that you know your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain), you can start to move in the direction of the specific purpose. A specific purpose statement builds on your general purpose (to inform) and makes it more specific (as the name suggests). So if your first speech is an informative speech, your general purpose will be to inform your audience <span class=\"c2\">about a very specific realm of knowledge. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c2\">In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose<\/span><span class=\"c2\">:<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"c25 lst-kix_mkkqk016xecq-0 start\">\n<li class=\"c3 c21\"><span class=\"c2\">You (your interests, your background, past jobs, experience, education, major),<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c3 c21\"><span class=\"c2\">Your audience<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"c3 c21\"><span class=\"c2\">The context or setting.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c3\" style=\"text-align: center\"><span class=\"c2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-142 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14.png\" alt=\"diagram demonstrating three beginning categories, you, your audience, your context leading to a specific purpose statement followed by a central idea statement.\" width=\"808\" height=\"569\" srcset=\"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14.png 808w, https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14-300x211.png 300w, https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14-768x541.png 768w, https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14-65x46.png 65w, https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14-225x158.png 225w, https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/app\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2018\/04\/image14-350x246.png 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 808px) 100vw, 808px\" \/><em>Figure 5.3<\/em>. You, your audience, and your context (Tucker &amp; Barton, 2016)<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h.xaezg5wnlgqs\" class=\"c12\"><span class=\"c10\">Putting It Together<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"c3\">Keeping these three inputs in mind, you can begin to write a <span class=\"c11\">specific purpose statement<\/span><span class=\"c2\">, which will be the foundation for everything you say in the speech and a guide for what you do not say. This formula will help you in putting together your specific purpose statement:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c2\">To _______________ [Specific Communication Word (inform, explain, demonstrate, describe, define, persuade, convince, prove, argue)] my [<\/span><span class=\"c2\">Target Audience (my classmates, the members of the Social Work Club, my coworkers]\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">__________________. [T<\/span>he Content (how to bake brownies, that Macs are better than PCs].<\/p>\n<p><strong>Example:<\/strong> The purpose of my presentation is to demonstrate for my coworkers the value of informed intercultural communication.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h.3irtam1dhn1k\" class=\"c12\"><span class=\"c10\">Formulating a Central Idea Statement<\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c2\">While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be. The statement that reveals your main points is commonly known as the central idea statement (or just the central idea). Just as you would create a thesis statement for an essay or research paper, the central idea statement helps focus your presentation by defining your topic, purpose, direction, angle and\/or point of view. Here are two examples:<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Specific Purpose<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\" style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Central Idea<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Specific Purpose<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"c2\">To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"c3\" style=\"padding-left: 30px\"><span class=\"c1\"><strong>Central Idea<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0<\/span>Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"menu_order":6,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-143","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":121,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144,"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/143\/revisions\/144"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/121"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/143\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.pressbooks.network\/testcssclone\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}