How to Begin or End Your Speech

Ideas for Speech Beginnings (ways to immediately grab your audience) Tell a story or anecdote Pose a rhetorical question Offer an appropriate quotation Present a riddle or mystery (evoke curiosity) Give a startling statistic Make a bold declarative statement Use humor, clever wording or figurative language

How to end your speech (ways to “close the sale”) The “bookend” style – return to how you opened – Answer your opening question – Finish your opening story Make a challenge to do with your topic Give an appropriate quotation or reference to pop culture Use parallel structure, anaphora, or other types of repetition, perhaps climactically arranged Give a testimonial, your own or someone else’s