A finished controversia normally consisted of four main sections: the principium or prooemium (e.g. Contr. I.1.24f.); the narratio (e.g. Contr. 1.1.21); the argumenta or argumentatio (e.g. Contr. 1.6.9; II.2.12) and the epilogus (e.g. Contr. IV pr. 8). A suasoria did not require a narratio, and so seems to have consisted simply of a principium (e.g. Suas. 7.14) followed by various quaestiones, and presumably some kind of conclusion (see e.g. Contr. VII.7.19, quoted below), though Seneca does not in fact mention any epilogus in his extant surveys of suasoriae. Seneca assumes a knowledge of the nature and functions of these sections of a declamation, and restricts his attention to details of treatment and departures from the norm.

About the prooemium he has little to say. There is an interesting reference, though, in Contr. VII.7.19, to the way Cestius criticized his pupils when they used an unsubtle trick which he called echo, that is, when they opened a declamation with a quotation which they would bring in once more at the end: