The technique of simultaneous hot‐wire anemometry and flow visualization has been used to determine the average characteristics of two important scales of motion in the outer region of turbulent boundary layers: large scale motions (average length 1.6&dgr;), and ’’typical eddy’’ motions (average streamwise length approximately 200 &ngr;/u&tgr;). Results showed that the Reynolds number dependent ’’typical eddies’’ produced most of the Reynolds stress in the outer half of the layer atR&Vthgr;≈1200, and that they are formed on the upstream side of large scale motions at all Reynolds numbers investigated. This phase relationship explains the scaling of the frequency of occurrence of outer layer bursts (which are identified with ’’typical eddies’’) on the free stream velocity and overall boundary layer thickness, although it is found that the lengths of the ’’typical eddies’’ scale on inner layer variables. In the log region, roughly one‐half of the large scale motions sampled had zone‐averaged streamwise velocity defects. Ensemble averaged results showed that they were associated with significant Reynolds stress contributions. A structural model showing the phase relationship of ’’typical eddies’’ and large scale motions is presented.