The Rule of Threes
by Matthew Arnold Stern "...faith, hope, and charity..." "...life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness..." "...of the people, by the people,
for the people..." Why do so many speakers say things in threes?
There are several reasons for this. Well, three to be exact:
- Threes
are how we normally organize information.
- Three
force us to focus on important details.
- Threes
amplify the importance of a concept.
The main reason for using the rule of threes is that it makes a speech
easier for us to remember and deliver. And when a speech is easy for us to
remember, it is easy for the audience to follow and retain.
Threes are how we normally organize information
We are used to events having three parts, a beginning, middle, and end. In science, we
create a hypothesis, research, and present our results.
In fiction, we start with an inciting incident, create rising action, and
end with a climax. Look at the story of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."
(See?) The inciting incident is when Goldilocks goes to the bears' house.
The rising action is when she tries out the porridge, chairs, and bed.
(Notice that there are three events.) The climax is when the bears find her
and chase her out of the house.
In speeches, we also use three parts: we say what we're going to
say, say it, then say what we just said.
By using threes, we use a
pattern to which listeners are accustomed. We also use a logic that is
easy for us to follow and remember. Threes force us to focus on
important details
When putting together a speech, we are confronted with a choice of dozen of ideas
and hundreds of supporting facts. Which
ones do we use? All of them? The problem with including as many
ideas as possible is that we wind up bombarding the listener of a
laundry list of facts. The listener can't absorb the information, and
we can't present each concept in sufficient detail to support our
subject. By limiting ourselves to three ideas to present in our
speech, along with three supporting facts for each idea we present, we can
focus on the key points we want to make and develop them in more
detail. Think of it as the "In-N-Out Burger" approach to public
speaking. In-N-Out Burger is |