Just like a car, a speech is made up of multiple parts working together.

A speech is like a car. We think of it as one unified object, but it’s actually a lot of smaller mechanisms working together. If your car isn’t running as well as it could, you can’t just fix the whole thing as one piece; you have to figure out which part isn’t performing as well as you’d like. Is it something in the engine? The fuel injector? The spark plugs? How are the brakes? Does it need new tires? Similarly, a speech is made up of discrete parts that connect into a whole. Each part of the speech has its own logic and function, and each requires slightly different tools to build, diagnose, and repair.

In this module, we’ll look at some of the most important parts of the speech: introductions, conclusions, and transitions. We’ll also consider the fuel that makes the whole thing run: language.