Public speaking
Public speaking
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• Analyzing the audience is central to the speechmaking process; consider your audience at every step of the way in preparing and presenting your speech. • Gather information about your audience by asking questions or surveying them more formally. • Summarize and analyze the information you have gathered.
Select and Narrow Your Topic
• Consider the audience: Who are your listeners and what do they expect? • Consider the occasion: What is the reason for the speech? • Consider your own interests and skills: What are your strengths?
Determine Your Purpose
• Decide whether your general speech purpose is to inform, to persuade, or
to entertain, or a combination of these goals. • Decide on your specific purpose:
What do you want your listeners to be able to do after you finish your speech? • Use your specific purpose to guide
you in connecting your message to your audience.
Develop Your Central Idea
• State your central idea for your speech in one sentence. • Your central idea should be a single idea
presented in clear, specific language. • Relate your central idea to your audience.
Generate Main Ideas
• Determine whether your central idea can be supported with logical divisions using a topical arrangement. • Determine whether your central idea can be supported with reasons the idea is true. • Determine whether your central idea can be supported with a series of steps.
Gather Supporting Material
• Remember that most of what you say consists of supporting material such
as stories, descriptions, definitions, analogies, statistics, and opinions.
• The best supporting material both clarifies your major ideas and holds your listeners’ attention. • Supporting material that is personal, concrete, and appealing to the listeners’
senses is often the most interesting.
Organize Your Speech
• Remember the maxim: Tell us what you’re going to tell us (introduction); tell us (body); and tell us what you told us (conclusion). • Outline your main ideas by topic, chronologically, spatially, by cause and effect, or by problem and solution. • Use signposts to clarify the overall structure of your message.
Rehearse Your Speech
• Prepare speaking notes and practice using them well in advance of your speaking date. • Rehearse your speech out loud, standing as you would stand while delivering your speech. • Practice with well-chosen visual aids that are big, simple, and appropriate for your audience.
Deliver Your Speech
• Look at individual listeners. • Use movement and gestures that fit your natural style of speaking.
