What does stating the main points of your speech in parallel grammatical form accomplish?

Noun

The name of something, like a person, animal, place, thing, or concept. Nouns are typically used as subjects, objects, objects of prepositions, and modifiers of other nouns.

• I finished the study.
  • I = subject

• Maggie wrote the dissertation.
  • the dissertation = object

• The author presented the results in Chapter 4.
  • in Chapter 4 = object of a preposition

• His research findings can contribute to social change.
  • research = modifier

Verb

This expresses what the person, animal, place, thing, or concept does. In English, verbs follow the noun.

• It takes a good deal of dedication to complete a doctoral degree.
• She studied hard for the test.
• Writing a dissertation is difficult. (The "be" verb is also sometimes referred to as a copula or a linking verb. It links the subject, in this case "writing a dissertation," to the complement or the predicate of the sentence, in this case, "hard.")

Adjective

This describes a noun or pronoun. Adjectives typically come before a noun or after a stative verb, like the verb "to be."

• The diligent student completed her assignment early.
  • Diligent describes the student and appears before the noun student.

• It can be difficult to balance time to study and work responsibilities.
  • Difficult is placed after the to be verb and describes what it is like to balance time.

Remember that adjectives in English have no plural form. The same form of the adjective is used for both singular and plural nouns.

• A differentidea
• Some different ideas
• INCORRECT: some differents ideas

Adverb

This gives more information about the verb and about how the action was done. Adverbs tells how, where, when, why, etc. Depending on the context, the adverb can come before or after the verb or at the beginning or end of a sentence.

• He completed the course enthusiastically.
  • Enthusiastically describes how he completed the course and answers the how question.

• Steven recently enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Communication program at Walden.
  • Recently modifies the verb enroll and answers the when question.

• Then, I verified that most of my sources were peer-reviewed.
  • Then describes and modifies the entire sentence. See this link on transitions for more examples of conjunctive adverbs (adverbs that join one idea to another to improve the cohesion of the writing).

Pronoun

This word substitutes for a noun or a noun phrase (e.g. it, she, he, they, that, those,…).

• Smith (2014) interviewed the applicants as they arrived.
  • they = applicants

• He was interested in ideas that were never previously recorded, not thosethat have already been published.
  • He = Smith; that = ideas; those= those ideas

Determiner

This word makes the reference of the noun more specific (e.g. his, her, my, their, the, a, an, this, these,…).

• Jones published her book in 2015.
• The book was very popular.

Preposition

This comes before a noun or a noun phrase and links it to other parts of the sentence. These are usually single words (e.g., on, at, by,…) but can be up to four words (e.g., as far as, in addition to, as a result of, …).

• I chose to interview teachers in the district closest to me.
• The recorder was placed next to the interviewee.
• I stopped the recording in the middle of the interview due to a low battery.

Conjunction

A word that joins two clauses. These can be coordinating (an easy way to remember this is memorizing FANBOYS= for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or subordinating (e.g., because, although, when, …).

• The results were not significant, sothe alternative hypothesis was accepted.
• Although the results seem promising, more research must be conducted in this area.

Auxiliary Verbs

Helping verbs. They are used to build up complete verbs.

• Primary auxiliary verbs (be, have, do) show the progressive, passive, perfect, and negative verb tenses.
• Modal auxiliary verbs (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) show a variety of meanings. They represent ability, permission, necessity, and degree of certainty. These are always followed by the simple form of the verb.
• Semimodal auxiliary verbs (e.g., be going to, ought to, have to, had better, used to, be able to,…). These are always followed by the simple form of the verb.

• Researchers have investigated this issue for some time. However, the cause of the problem has not been determined.
  • primary: have investigated = present perfect tense; has not been determined = passive, perfect, negative form

• He could conduct more research, which may lead to the answer.
  • The modal could shows ability, and the verb conduct stays in its simple form; the modal may shows degree of certainty, and the verb lead stays in its simple form.

• Future researchers are going to delve more into this topic. They are about to make a breakthrough discovery.
  • These semimodals are followed by the simple form of the verb.

Which of the following speech elements helps a speaker to substantiate the main points with examples narratives facts or statistics?

What does it likely mean if your speech contains too many points?

When should a speaker summarize the main points of his or her speech?

What should you do if you find that you have only one main point for your speech?