1. Preparing and Delivering a Speech
Public Speaking
Preparing and Delivering a Speech

2. STEP 1: Choosing a Topic Topics you know a lot about
Examples…
Topics you want to know more about

3. STEP 2: Brainstorming for Topics
Personal inventory
Experiences
Interests
Hobbies
Skills
Beliefs
Etc.
Jot down anything that comes to mind, no matter how ridiculous or irrelevant it may seem.
Don’t censor yourself.

4. STEP 2: Brainstorming for Topics
Clustering
People
Places
Things
Events
Processes
Concepts
Natural phenomena
Problems
Plans and Policies
Create sub-lists by thinking of what a specific term makes you think of.

5. STEP 3: Determining your General Purpose
To INFORM
You are acting as a teacher or lecturer.
Your goal is to convey information
Describe
Narrate
Report
Explain
Demonstrate
Your goal is to enhance the knowledge and understanding of your listeners—to give them information they did not have before.

6. STEP 4: Determine your Specific Purpose
Specific Purpose – a single phrase that states precisely what a speaker hopes to accomplish in their speech.
Example:
Topic: Emergencies
General Purpose: To inform
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience of the major steps in responding to an emergency
You want to directly relate the topic to the audience. This will help you keep the audience at the center of your attention as you prepare your speech.
(bad example)
Specific Purpose: To explain the major steps in responding to an emergency.

7. Tips for Formulating a Specific Purpose Statement
Write the Purpose Statement as a full complete sentence, not as a fragment.
Ineffective: Calendars
More Effective: To inform my audience about the four major kinds of calendars used in the world today.
Ineffective: Halloween
More Effective: To inform my audience about the history of Halloween observances.
The ineffective statements are not thought out fully enough to indicate the specific purpose.

8. Tips for Formulating a Specific Purpose Statement
Express your Purpose as a Statement, not a question
Ineffective: What is Quinceanera?
More Effective: To inform my audience about the origins, ceremonies, and importance for young women of the traditional Quinceanera celebration in Mexico.
Questions are not effective as purpose statements. They give no indication about what direction the speech will take or what the speaker hopes to accomplish.

9. Tips for Formulating a Specific Purpose Statement
Avoid figurative language in your Purpose Statement.
Ineffective: To inform my audience that yoga is totally sweet.
More Effective: To inform my audience of the ways yoga can reduce their stress, improve their health, and even help them get better grades.
The ineffective statements do not state concisely what he or she hopes to achieve. Metaphors, analogies, and the like are effective devices for reinforcing ideas within a speech, but they are too ambiguous for specific purpose statements.

10. Tips for Formulating a Specific Purpose Statement
Make sure your Specific Purpose is not too vague or general.
Ineffective: To inform my audience about the Civil War.
More Effective: To inform my audience about the role of African-American soldiers in the Civil War.
The ineffective purpose statement is too broad and ill-defined. It gives no clues about what aspect of the Civil War the speaker will cover. The more effective purpose statement is sharp and concise. It reveals clearly what the speaker plans to discuss.

11. Ask yourself questions about your Specific Purpose
Does my purpose meet the assignment?
Can I accomplish my purpose in the time allotted?
Most people speak at an average rate of words a minute.
This means that a six-minute speech will consist of roughly words.
That is not long enough to develop a highly complex topic.
Some specific purpose statements that would not be handled well in the time allocated for your speech:
To inform my audience about the role of technology in human history.
To inform my audience about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
Limit your purpose.

12. Ask yourself questions about your Specific Purpose
Is the purpose relevant to my audience?
Is the purpose too trivial for my audience?
Is the purpose too technical for my audience?

13. STEP 5: Phrasing the Central Idea
The Central Idea is a concise statement of what you expect to say.
Sometimes called
The thesis statement
The subject sentence
The major thought
Most of the time the Central Idea will encapsulate the main points to be developed in the body of your speech.
Usually expressed in a simple, declarative sentence that refines and sharpens the specific purpose statement.

14. STEP 5: Phrasing the Central Idea
Topic: Emergencies
General Purpose: To inform
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience of the major steps in responding to an emergency.
Central Idea: The three major steps in responding to an emergency and surveying the scene, contacting an emergency medical service, and starting CPR if needed.
Look how the broad subject gets narrower and narrower.

15. Guidelines for the Central Idea
The Central Idea should be expressed in a full sentence, should not be in the form of a question, should avoid figurative language, and should not be vague or overly general.

16. Guidelines for the Central Idea
Ineffective: Problems of fad diets.
More Effective: Although fad diets produce quick weight loss, they can lead to serious health problems by creating deficiencies in vitamins and minerals and by breaking down muscle tissue as well as fat.
Ineffective: How does indoor soccer differ from outdoor soccer?
More Effective: Played on a smaller, enclosed field that resembles a hockey rink with artificial turf, indoor soccer involves faster action, more scoring, and different strategies than outdoor soccer.
Ineffective: Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is an awesome place for a vacation.
More Effective: Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula has many attractions for vacationers, including a warm climate, excellent food, and extensive Mayan ruins.
The more effective examples of the Central Idea encapsulates or sums up the main points of the speech in a single sentence.

17. Introduction Body Conclusion
Speech Organization
Introduction Body Conclusion

18. STEP 6: Developing your Main Points (The Body of your speech)
Main Points: The major points developed in the body of a speech.
Most speeches contain from two to five Main Points.
Main Points are the central feature of your speech.
Select your Main Points:
Carefully
Phrase them precisely
Arrange them strategically

19. STEP 6: Developing your Main Points (The Body of your speech)
Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the major uses of hypnosis.
Central Idea: The major uses of hypnosis today are to control pain in medical surgery, to help people stop smoking, and to help students improve their academic performance.
Main Points:
Hypnosis is used in surgery as an adjunct to chemical anesthesia.
Hypnosis is used to help people stop smoking.
Hypnosis is used to help people improve their academic performance.

20. STEP 6: Developing your Main Points (The Body of your speech)
When everything is equally important, nothing is important.

21. Strategic Order of Main Points
Chronological Order
Main Points follow a time pattern.
Spatial Order
Main Points follow a directional pattern.
Casual Order
Main Points show a cause-effect relationship.
Problem-Solution Order
Main Points first deal with a problem and then with a solution to that problem.
Topical Order
Main Points divide the topic into logical and consistent subtopics.

22. Tips for Preparing Main Points
Keep Main Points separate!
Do not lump together what should be separate Main Points.
Try to use the same pattern of wording for Main Points.
Helps make your Main Points stand out from the details surrounding them.
Balance the amount of time devoted to Main Points.
Make sure all of your Main Points receive enough emphasis to be clear and convincing.
Should be roughly balanced.

23. STEP 7: The Introduction
Get Attention and Interest
Reveal the Topic
Establish Credibility and Goodwill
Preview the Body of the Speech

24. STEP 7: The Introduction
Get Attention and Interest
Relate the topic to the audience
State the importance of your topic
Startle the audience
Arouse the curiosity of the audience
Question the audience
Begin with a quotation
Tell a story

25. STEP 7: The Introduction
Reveal the Topic
You must state clearly the topic of your speech or else your listeners will be confused.
Establish Credibility and Goodwill
You must be perceived as qualified by your listeners.
You must try to defuse any hostility the listeners may have towards you.
Preview the Body of the Speech
Tell your listeners what they should listen for in the rest of the speech.
Use it to give listeners specialized information that they will need in order to understand the rest of your speech.

26. Tips for Preparing your Introduction
Keep it relatively brief. Should not be more than about percent of your speech.
Be on the lookout for possible introductory materials as you do your research.
Be creative. Experiment with two or three different openings.
Don’t worry about the exact wording of your introduction until you have finished preparing the body of your speech.
Work out your introduction in detail. Practice it over and over until you can deliver it smoothly from minimum of notes and with strong eye contact.

27. STEP 8: The Conclusion Two major functions
To let the audience know you are ending your speech.
To reinforce the audience’s understanding of the central idea.

28. STEP 8: The Conclusion Signal the end of the speech “In conclusion,”
“One last thought,”
“In closing,”
“My purpose has been,”
“Let me end in saying,”
Crescendo Ending: a conclusion in which the speech builds to a zenith of power and intensity.
Dissolve Ending: A conclusion that generates emotional appeal be fading step by step to a dramatic final statement.
The conclusion is the climax of the speech.
You must practice your crescendo or dissolve ending until you get the words and the timing just right!

29. STEP 8: The Conclusion Reinforce the Central Idea
Summarize your speech
Explicitly restates the central idea and main points one last time.
Not a very imaginative ending.
End with a quotation
Can show the urgency as long as it is suited to your speech.
You want it to be brief.
Be on the lookout for them during your research.
Make a dramatic statement
Devise your own dramatic statement.
Ex: “…but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.”
–Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775
Refer to the introduction
Returning to scenarios put forth in your introduction to tie your entire speech together.

30. Tips for Preparing the Conclusion
Keep an eye out for Conclusion material during your research.
Conclude with a bang, not a whimper. Be creative. Work on several different endings and choose the one that seems likely to have the greatest impact.
Don’t be long-winded. The Conclusion should not normally make up more than about 5-10 percent of your speech.
Work your conclusion out in detail—don’t leave it up to chance. Make sure you can present it smoothly, confidently, and with feeling—without relying on your notes or sounding wooden.
Make your last impression as forceful and as favorable as you can.
First impression are important and so are final impressions. You need a strong introduction and conclusion.

31. SPEECH DELIVERY Speaking Extemporaneously
An extemporaneous speech is carefully prepared and practiced in advance. In presenting the speech, the extemporaneous speaker uses only a set of brief notes or a speaking outline to jog the memory.
Your notes/outline help you remember what topics you are going to cover and in what order.
Every time you run through your speech the wording will be slightly different. This will allow “the best way” to present each part of your speech to emerge and stick in your mind.

32. The Speaker’s Voice Volume Pitch Rate Pauses Vocal Variety
The loudness or softness of the speaker’s voice
Pitch
The highness or lowness of the speaker’s voice
Inflections & Monotone
Rate
The speed at witch a person speaks.
Pauses
A momentary break in the vocal delivery of a speech
“The right word my be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.” -Mark Twain
Vocalized pause
A pause that occurs when the speaker fills the silence between words with vocalizations such as “uh,” “er,” and “um.” DO NOT FILL THE SILENCE WITH THESE!!!
Vocal Variety
Changes in a speaker’s rate, pitch, and volume that give the voice variety and expressiveness.

33. The Speaker’s Voice Pronunciation
The accepted standard of sound and rhythm for words in a given language.
genuine gen-u-wine gen-u-win
arctic ar-tic arc-tic
theatre thee-até-er theé-a-ter
err air ur
nuclear nu-cu-lar nu-cle-ar
February Feb-u-ary Feb-ru-ary

34. The Speaker’s Voice Articulation
The physical production of particular speech sounds.
did you didja
going to gonna
let me lemme
ought to otta
didn’t dint
for fur
don’t know dunno
ask axe
have to hafta
them em
want to wanna
will you wilya

35. The Speaker’s Voice Dialect
A variety of a language distinguished by variations of accent, grammar, or vocabulary.
Know your audience!

36. Nonverbal Communication
Communication that occurs as a result of appearance, posture, gesture, eye contact, facial expressions, and other nonlinguistic factors.
Personal Appearance
Bodily Action
As important as how you act during the speech is what you do just before you begin and after you finish.
Gestures
Should appear natural and spontaneous, help clarify or reinforce ideas, and be suited to the audience and occasion.
Eye Contact
Eyes are the “windows to the soul”
They should convey confidence, sincerity, and conviction.

37. END