One Idea Per Talk

Decide the sentence first

Before slides, before structure, write the single sentence you want someone to repeat afterwards. Not a topic — "my talk is about recycling" — but a claim: "Our school throws away more paper than plastic, and paper is the easier fix."

If you cannot write that sentence, you are not ready to build the talk. Everything you add later either supports it or leaves.

Three supports, no more

Human attention in a short talk holds about three moves. Choose three supports for your sentence and put your best one last, because endings are what people carry out of the room.

The shape

1. Open with the situation, in twenty seconds. No apologies, no throat clearing, no "so, um, my topic is".
2. State the sentence.
3. Three supports, each with one concrete example.
4. Restate the sentence, and say what you want the audience to do.

Cut the introduction you were going to give

The weakest thirty seconds of most talks is the beginning, because it is spent explaining that a talk is about to happen. Start with the situation instead: a number, a moment, a question. The audience knows you are speaking.