Technique of the week · Building speeches
The Five Canons
Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, Delivery
The oldest checklist for preparing a talk — and still the best.
The idea
Cicero and Quintilian split speech-making into five jobs: finding what to say (Invention), putting it in order (Arrangement), choosing the words (Style), holding it in your head (Memory) and performing it (Delivery). Most nervous speakers skip straight to Style and Memory. Start at the top.
How to do it
- Invention: brainstorm ten possible points, keep three.
- Arrangement: decide the order and your first and last lines.
- Style → Memory → Delivery: only now polish words, learn the skeleton (not the script), and rehearse out loud.
In the session
The drill
Five rounds, five minutes: the whole group builds one speech together, one canon per round, and a volunteer delivers it.
This week
Your homework
Next time you prepare anything, spend the first ten minutes only on Invention — no slides, no wording.
When you give feedback, ask
Which canon was strongest? Which one did they skip?
Source: Cicero, De Inventione; Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, Book III.