1. Selecting a topic, purpose and central idea
Class Activity – Brainstorming
Intros and Conclusions

2. Selecting topic, purpose and central idea
When a speaker is enthusiastic about his or her ideas, how do listeners usually react?
Identify, and explain, the 4 steps in selecting a topic that showcases your experiences and knowledge. (hint, start on pg 102)
What are the goals for a speech introduction and conclusion? (hint, start on pg 156)
Follow these guidelines: (1) Begin the statement with an infinitive (An infinitive is a verb preceded by to—for example, to write, to read). (2) Include a reference to your audience. (3) Limit the statement to one major idea. (4) Make your statement as precise as possible. (5) Make sure you can achieve your objective in the time allotted. (6) Don't be too technical.
specific purpose—exactly what you hope to accomplish in the speech
central idea: the one key idea that you want your audience to remember even if they forget everything else in the speech.

3. Guidelines for Finding a Good Topic
Select a topic that…
Fits requirements of assignment
Showcases your experiences and knowledge
Interests you
You can make interesting and valuable to your audience

4. Defining the General Purpose
Establish a general purpose to help bring your topic under control.
To inform
To persuade
To entertain

5. Defining the Specific Purpose
What exactly to you want to accomplish in your speech?
Topic: Foodborne illnesses
General Purpose: To inform
Specific Purpose: To tell my listeners how to protect themselves from foodborne illnesses

6. Defining the Central Idea
Devise the central idea - the key concept that you want your listeners to understand, believe, and remember
What do you want your audience to remember for your upcoming speech?

7. Narrow your topic Let’s use football as an example: Football
- Explain divisions / conferences
- Explain job of coaching
- Explain history
- Explain artificial vs. natural turf

8. Brainstorming Activity
Narrow down the following broad subjects to specific, manageable topics:
Outdoor recreation
Musical groups
Illegal drugs
Saving money

9. Devising Main Points
Now let’s turn to some guidelines on how to devise your main points.

10. Creating the Body Body  Introduction Conclusion
Because the introduction comes first in a speech, some students prepare it first. But many experienced speakers find it easier to prepare the body first and then prepare the introduction. If you stop to think about it, this makes sense: How can you introduce the body until you know its full nature?

11. Devising Main Points 2 or 3 (occasionally 4)
Limit the number of main points
2 or 3 (occasionally 4)
[CLICK] Don’t try to cover too much in one speech. Limit the number of main points. [CLICK] For a brief speech, have only two or three—occasionally four—main points.

12. Devising Main Points 1 point  1 idea
Restrict each main point to a single idea
1 point  1 idea
[CLICK] Restrict each main point to a single idea. [CLICK] One point, one idea.

13. Devising Main Points Customize points for each audience
If you are speaking to several different audiences on why they should take a vacation in your area, you should customize your main points for each audience. To an audience of young couples, you could emphasize the opportunities for dining in romantic, elegant restaurants. To an audience of parents with young children, you could highlight outdoor recreation for families.

14. Introductions: Gain Attention & Interest
An important goal of the introduction is to capture and hold your audience’s attention and interest. If you don’t grab the listeners immediately, they might let their thoughts and their eyes dwell on something other than you and your speech. So you must use attention-grabbers, which the textbook refers to as attention material. Let’s look at some popular types.

15. Gain Attention & Interest
Relate a story
Real-life
Hypothetical
Everyone loves to hear an interesting story. [CLICK] It can be a real-life story, such as an account of an automobile accident to illustrate the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving. [CLICK] It can be a hypothetical illustration, such as an imaginary scenario about what could happen if a person drinks impure water.

16. Gain Attention & Interest
Ask a question
Rhetorical
Overt-response
Asking a question can be an effective way to intrigue your listeners and encourage them to think about your subject matter as you discuss it. There are two kinds of questions. [CLICK] With a rhetorical question, you don’t want or expect the listeners to answer overtly by raising their hands or responding out loud. Instead, you want to trigger their curiosity by challenging them to think about your topic. For example, “Why do we have so many wars throughout the world?” [CLICK] With an overt-response question, you want the audience to reply by raising their hands or answering out loud. For example, “By a show of hands, how many of you have donated blood in the past 12 months?”

17. Gain Attention & Interest
Ask a question
Here is a question that one speaker used as an opener. If you want to know whether a couple in a romantic relationship will stay together or break up, the most accurate predictions come from “c.” Researchers at Purdue University have found that her friends are better at predicting the outcome than the couple themselves.

18. Gain Attention & Interest
Cite a quotation
“Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh
An interesting quotation can be an effective opener. For example, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s observation, “Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.”

19. Gain Attention & Interest
Arouse curiosity
At the beginning of a speech, a speaker displayed this photo and said, “What’s going on here?” Having piqued the curiosity of the audience, she launched into a discussion of how couples can have disagreements without being accusatory and hurtful. While a picture like this is effective, you can also use an intriguing story to build curiosity.

20. Gain Attention & Interest
Provide a visual aid or demonstration
Visual aids and demonstrations can be good openers. This photo is an effective attention-getter for a speech on art projects for children.

21. Gain Attention & Interest
Give an incentive to listen
At the beginning of a speech, many listeners have an attitude that can be summed up in these two questions: “What’s in it for me? Why should I pay attention to this speech?” Such people need to be given an incentive to listen to the entire speech. So, whenever possible, state explicitly why the listeners will benefit by hearing you out. It is not enough to simply say, “My speech is very important.” You must show them how your topic relates to their personal lives and their own best interests. For example, if you were giving a talk on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), you could say, “All of you may someday have a friend or loved one collapse from a heart attack right in front of your eyes. If you know CPR, you might be able to save that person’s life.” Now each person in the audience sees clearly that your speech is important to his or her personal life. By the way, this approach can be combined with other types of attention-getters.

22. Introductions: Orient the Audience
In the introduction, after you gain attention and interest, you have another important goal: give the audience an orientation—a clear sense of what your speech is about, and any other information that the audience might need in order to understand and absorb your ideas. The textbook uses the term orienting material to refer to this part of the introduction. The orienting material is a road map that makes it easy for the listeners to stay with you on the journey of your speech and not get lost and confused.

23. Orient the Audience Give background information
Part of your orienting material can be devoted to giving background information—definitions, explanations, and so on—to help your listeners understand your speech. If you were speaking on gun control, you would need to define the term. Do you mean the banning of all guns? Do you mean just registration of all guns?

24. Orient the Audience Establish your credibility
A speaker who wants to inform an audience about the sport of skydiving should tell her listeners about her skydiving experience. This is not bragging—it is a way to let the audience know that she is speaking from experience. She knows what she is talking about.

25. Orient the Audience Preview the body of the speech
Giving a preview of the body helps the audience to listen intelligently to the rest of the speech. Giving a preview is like handing listeners a road map with the itinerary marked—now they know where the speaker is leading them. The preview can include the central idea and/or the main points.

26. Introductions: Guidelines
1. Don’t prepare the introduction first
2. Don’t be too brief
3. Have an obvious tie-in
Here are some tips on introductions.
[CLICK] 1. Don’t prepare your introduction first. Prepare the body before you devise the introduction.
[CLICK] 2. Make your introduction simple and easy to follow but avoid making it too brief. Your audience needs time to get into the groove of your speech. If the introduction is too short, it may go by too fast for the listeners to absorb.
[CLICK] 3. Make sure that your introduction has a direct and obvious tie-in with the body of the speech.
[CLICK] 4. Never apologize. You weaken your speech and hurt your credibility if you say things like “I didn’t have much time to prepare.”
4. Never apologize

27. Conclusions
Now let’s turn to conclusions.

28. Conclusions: Signal the End
Verbal
Nonverbal
One purpose for having a conclusion is to signal the end of the speech. Just as a song needs a pleasing finish, a speech needs a satisfying ending. There are two types of signals that you should provide. [CLICK] Verbal signals are what you say with words. For example, “In conclusion, I’d like to say . . .” [CLICK] Nonverbal signals are the tone of voice, facial expression, and gestures that all people use when they wish to convey a sense of completion.

29. Conclusions: Summarize Key Ideas
Every conclusion needs a summary. Like a lawyer summarizing her argument to a jury, you have one last chance to drive home your key ideas.

30. Conclusions: Summarize Key Ideas Reinforce the Central Idea with a Clincher
Close your speech with a clincher, which is a statement that reinforces the central idea. It is a graceful finale that drives home the main theme of your entire speech.

31. “_________” Clinchers Cite a quotation
A quotation can be an effective clincher. It should be brief.

32. Clinchers Issue an appeal or challenge
In a persuasion speech, it is effective to end with an appeal or a challenge. If you were trying to persuade your audience to donate blood, you could close with a strong appeal for every listener to take action.

33. Clinchers Give an illustration
To close a speech on rodeos, one student illustrated the excitement of the event by telling a story about his own experience in riding an untamed horse.

34. Clinchers Refer to the introduction Introduction Conclusion
Using the conclusion to hearken back to something said in the introduction is an effective way to wrap up your speech.

35. Conclusions: Guidelines
1. Don’t drag out the ending
2. Don’t end weakly
3. Don’t end apologetically
[CLICK] 1. Don’t drag out the ending. Plan a conclusion that is brief, and stick to the plan.
[CLICK] 2. Don’t end weakly. If you close with a statement such as, “I guess that’s about all I’ve got to say,” and your voice is nonchalant and unenthusiastic, you encourage your listeners to downgrade your entire speech. End with confidence.
[CLICK] 3. Don’t end apologetically. Apologies make you look incompetent.
[CLICK] 4. Never bring in new main points. It is okay to use fresh material in your conclusion; in fact, it is a good idea to do so, as long as the material does not constitute a new main point.
4. Never bring in new main points