Many Oxford University students have thanked me for teaching them the six parts of discourse—which, for many centuries, used to be common knowledge.

Since at least Cicero (d. 43 BCE), speeches have been divided into six parts, known as the ‘six parts of discourse’:

1. Introduction (exordium)
2. Narration (narratio)
3. Division (divisio or partitio)
4. Proof (confirmatio)
5. Refutation (confutatio)
6. Conclusion (peroratio)

The six parts of discourse are, of course, just as good for structuring essays, so let’s look at each one in turn.

1. Introduction

In the exordium, you might announce the subject and purpose of the speech/essay and lay out your credentials for speaking/writing.

All the better if, at the same time, you can hook your audience, for instance, by creating a sense of urgency.

Keep the exordium as short and clear as possible, A speaker/writer should never bore, confuse, or test their audience, and the beginning would be the worst time to do so.

2. Narration

In the narration, you lay out the facts of the case and issues at stake. What is the background to this problem, how did it arise, what has it led to, what has so far been said and done about it, what does the research indicate, have there been any similar problems, and so on.

The narration may seem neutral and objective, but is in fact an opportunity to frame the debate/discussion.

3. Division

Division is the turning point in your speech/essay. ‘So this is what is at stake, this is why you should care about it, and this is what we should do about it.’

Like the exordium, the division ought to be brief if it is not to reek of artifice.

The rhetorical handbook Ad Herennium (c. 80 BCE) provides a couple of examples of division, concerning dilemmas in Greek mythology.

Orestes killed his mother [Clytemnestra]; on that I agree with my opponents. But did he have the right to commit the deed, and was he justified in committing it? This is in dispute.

You admit that Clytemnestra killed Agamemnon; yet despite this they say that I ought not to have avenged my father.

4. Proof

The proof is your argumentation. This includes logos (arguments), of course, usually in the form of enthymemes (informal arguments) and examples, but it also includes non-technical proofs such as laws, witnesses, and contracts.

In the Rhetoric, Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) advises that if the written law is against us, we should claim that it is more equitable to fall back on the general law (natural law), as Antigone did when she buried her brother Polynices against Creon’s edict. Alternatively, we might argue that the law is antiquated, that it contradicts itself or another law, or that it is ambiguous or open to interpretation.

For Aristotle, witnesses can include ‘ancient witnesses’ such as Homer, Hesiod, Solon, proverbs, and received wisdom … and, nowadays, old Aristotle himself. Ancient witnesses can be appealed to indirectly, as when Barack Obama echoed Martin Luther King, who himself echoed Abraham Lincoln, who himself echoed the King James Bible, notably in the first line of the Gettysburg Address of 1863:

Four score and seven years ago [i.e. 87 years ago] our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

5. Refutation

Refutation, in which you acknowledge and address the other side of the argument, need not be fair or principled. You might exaggerate, misrepresent, or caricature your opponent’s stance (for example, refer to their plan to fund social care as a ‘dementia tax’ or ‘death tax’), indignantly deny a made-up or unrelated charge, or equivocally deny an actual charge.

If it helps, you can also concede an argument while framing it within your own, stronger argument. Far from being a retreat or capitulation, concession (concessio, synchoresis, paromologia) makes you seem agreeable, honest, and fairminded, while deflating your opponent and reframing the debate to suit your strengths: ‘Yes, that’s correct. I’ve read the report myself and seen the numbers. But the real question is…’

If your proof is insubstantial, you might instead begin with a vehement refutation in the hope that no one notices your lack of argument. Since Plato’s Phaedo, and even a little before, the Western mind has been marked by deep divisions or dualities, such as soul and body, mind and matter, reason and sense experience, reason and emotion, reality and appearance, good and evil, heaven and hell… This binary thinking carries over to dialectic and rhetoric, in which it is often one thing or the other, rather than both or several or neither. Thus, in the Western mind, knocking down your opponent’s argument is tantamount to validating your own. Notice that the very concept of a debate with an ‘opponent’ is confrontational, when the exercise could instead be cooperative and conversational, as in the Upanishads.

6. Conclusion

Finally, the peroration often includes a forceful summarising of the key points together with a pathetic (emotional) appeal and call to action. 

For example, this is how President Franklin D. Roosevelt concluded his Day of Infamy Speech, delivered to a Joint Session of Congress on December 8, 1941, a day after the Attack on Pearl Harbour:

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph—so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

Caveats

Although many great talks deliberately or naturally follow this six-part scheme, it is important to remember that a speech should sound artless and authentic rather than contrived and formulaic.

Once they have been assimilated, it is possible to break the rules, as Cicero himself did in the first line of the First Catilinarian, first, by addressing Catiline directly in the Senate chamber, and, second, by overlooking his own advice ‘not to spring at once into the passionate portion of your speech’ [Orator 2.213-14].

When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end to that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?

In some speeches, entire parts may be missing, or not clearly distinguished. Indeed, Aristotle identified only two necessary parts, statement and argument, that is, narration and proof, which might be supplemented by an introduction and conclusion [Rhetoric 3.13]. Other ways of seeming natural are to use simple and direct language, express doubt about what to say (dubitatio), and correct yourself aloud (epergesis). Dubitatio and epergesis can also make you seem more even-minded and scrupulous.

Craft is something that you learn; art, that you unlearn.

Neel Burton is author of The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and How to Think Like Plato and Speak Like Cicero.