TALK WORD

Closure. The principle of closure is based on people’s natural tendency to seek completion.8 We like to have patterns carried through so that we feel we have the “whole story.” Have you ever started reading a magazine article in a waiting room, only to find that someone had torn out the last page of the story? Do you remember how frustrated you felt? Your need for closure had been violated.
The principle of closure applies to several speech designs.
For example, if you omit an important category when developing your topic, listeners may notice its omission. If you leave out a necessary step in a sequence, audiences may sense the flaw. Although all speeches should satisfy this need, there are two speech patterns for which closure is absolutely essential. These are cause- effect and problem-solution designs. Because we want the world to seem purposeful and controllable, we want all events to have clear causes and all problems to have satisfactory solutions.
A cause-effect speech can go in two directions: It can begin by focusing on some present situation as an effect and then seek its causes, or it can look at the present as a potential cause of future effects. Sometimes these variations can be combined. You might take a current situation such as a budget deficit on campus and develop a speech tracing its origins. If you had enough time, you might continue by predicting the future effects of the deficit, such as tuition increases. Understanding the causes could help your listeners see what needs to be done to reduce the deficit. Predicting future effects might make them want to reduce it.