Select Your Topic

Organize Your Speech - Project #2

You have delivered your first prepared speech and participated in table topics and other meeting roles. Now you’re ready to concentrate on structuring an effective speech.

As a speaker, your role is to tell others about your ideas and occasionally persuade them to take some action. Your audience will be more receptive to your efforts if you take the time to assemble your thoughts in a logical manner. Well-organized speeches have several benefits for the audience. They are:

• Easier to understand. Your audience wants to know what your speech is about and the point you are trying to make. A well-organized speech helps them to do so.

• Easier to remember. A well-organized speech enables the audience to better identify and remember the points you made.

• More credible. Speakers who take the time to carefully organize their presentations are perceived as more knowledgeable and believable than those who give rambling, disjointed speeches.

• More enjoyable. Audiences appreciate presentations that are thoughtfully crafted and lead them step by step from the beginning to the end.

Organizing your speech helps you, too. When you plan the points you want to make and the order in which you want to present them, you will be less likely to forget anything and your presentation will be more effective.

Select Your Topic

Your first step in creating your speech is to decide what to talk about. Novice speakers sometimes find this difficult. The world is full of possible speech topics. Your challenge is to select the best one for you and your audience. Finding a topic doesn’t require special ability or long hours of research or thought. Consider for example:

• Discussions you have had recently with friends or coworkers
• Magazines or newspaper articles that attracted your interest
• Your expertise on certain topics – real estate, writing, personal computers, etc
• Everyday experiences – shopping, commuting, family relationships

Any of these can generate speech ideas. Eventually, as you become a more experienced speaker, you will encounter situations that will cause you to think, “That would make a good speech topic.” Write down these ideas and file them. You can refer to them later. You’ll find more tips on selecting speech topics in the appendix and in The Better Speaker Series program “Selecting Your Topic” (Catalogue No. 274).

Be sure the topic is not too broad. For example, instead of talking about sports – a general topic – narrow the subject to children’s sports or, more specific still, children’s gymnastics. Remember, you will be speaking for only a few minutes, and you will need all of that time to fully develop a single facet of the larger subject. Be sure your topic is timely and relevant for your audience.

Once you know your topic, determine the point you want to make. If the topic is children’s sports, for example, do you want to convince listeners that adults are making children’s sports too competitive? Do you want to entertain your audience with funny stories about your child’s soccer team?