The body of the conclusion is where the audience is either informed or persuaded of the objective of the speaker. Recall that the average human can retain, in their short-term memory, approximately 6-10 items of new information. Ideally, therefore, it is useful to ensure that each member of the audience recalls the thesis statement together with at most five main supporting points.

Structure

The structure of the body may be based any of the following patterns:

Chronological

Points are covered as they occur in reality.

Problem-Solution

Introduce the problem and present the solution. The presentation may be one of discovery (problem, pathway, solution), or one of justification (problem, solution, reasoning). Engineering design and analysis is required in either case.

The organization should be both logical and natural. By providing an easy-to-follow storyline, the speaker makes it easier for the audience to follow the presentation and also allows the speaker to allude to future topics to be discussed. To provide a complex or complicated sequence of the body will only overwhelm the audience and in some cases make them forget the original objective. [Ksch 00]

Mutually Exclusive

Where possible, the points should be mutually exclusive. Principal points which overlap each other will detract from each other.

Patterns

Patterns which may be used to develop principal points include:

• Chronological,
• Spatial,
• Familiarity-Acceptance,
• Problem-Solution,
• Elimination.

To be expanded upon...