SChoosing a topic

A public speech could be about anything, but in order for it to be a good speech you are
going to need to consider the following things:
Will the audience be interested in my topic? Your audience does not necessarily need to
be interested in your subject before the speech indeed, most speeches that set out to
inform will be on things that people know very little about but the subject should at
least be able to capture peoples imaginations. Does it have obvious parallels with
something that they do know about? Does it affect their lives, even if they dont realise
that? Consider these and other issues to see if you can make a link between the topic and
the audience.
Am I interested in the topic? You are going to spend a lot of time working on your
speech; it will be more enjoyable for you if you pick something because it interests you,
rather than because you think it worthy or appealing to the judges. However, its also
essential for your credibility that you appear to care about your topic when you are
speaking, or can explain to the audience the reasons you have chosen to discuss the issue
or how you came to know about it.
Am I able to research my topic effectively? You will need to use information in your
speech to
inform and persuade your audience. Where will you get it from? The internet, a library,
interviews with other people, a personal experience? Make sure that you have access to
the important facts that youll use to support your reasoning.
Can I properly discuss my chosen topic in the limited time I have available? Some
topics are unfamiliar to audiences and may require considerable amounts of background
description simply for you to get to a position to persuade people of something. For
example, it is probably impossible to reasonably convince people that The Meiji
Restoration in Japan was unfair on the daimyos if you have to begin your talk with a
description of the state of Japan before the Restoration, then tell us what the Restoration
changed, tell us what a daimyo is, and then present
analysis of your previous descriptions to show how the daimyos suffered wrongly as a
result of the Restoration, all in five minutes. Interpreting the theme In the ESU
competition you are given a theme for your speech and asked to interpret it. It is
important to note first that you are not allowed to use the theme as your title. Second, the
theme is quite broad and deliberately does not suggest a specific subject area. This is
because audience interest in your subject is also relative to the other speeches in the
competition if everyone gave a speech about modern architecture the audience would
soon find the speakers dull however good they were!
Stick to the guidelines above about manageable topics that you are interested in. Dont try
to second guess what the intention was behind the choice of theme, and do not pick
something that you feel you ought to talk about in preference to something you really
want to talk about. Inform, persuade or inspire? Above we discussed the three purposes of
a public speech, and saw how each to some extent involves the others and establishes
credibility. In this competition where you have a very limited period of time to deliver
your speech, aiming simply to inform the audience will probably not enable you to
demonstrate fully your public speaking skills. Though any good speech in this
competition will contain plenty of information, the best speeches will aim to use that

content, and other factors, to persuade their audience of the truth or falsity of something,
or to inspire them to take a certain action.
Statement of intent At this point we can draw up what will be the core of the speech the
few sentences that explain what the purpose of the speech is, and what the main points in
it will be. Complete the following sentence: At the end of my speech I want to have
persuaded the audience that ... .
Do not complete it with ... my topic is great. Give yourself a specific target. So for
example, rather than saying At the end of my speech I want to have persuaded the
audience that climate change is bad, say At the end of my speech I want to have
persuaded my audience that climate change will have a serious effect on the global
economy in the next twenty years, but that they are able to take action to alleviate it.
This is your statement of intent. You do not necessarily need to deliver the statement of
intent in your actual speech, but having one will help you to focus on the message you are
giving.
Supporting your statement of intent
Each clause in your statement of intent is a claim that needs to be identified and then
supported. Looking at the example on the previous page, we can see there are two claims:
climate change will have a serious effect on the global economy in the next twenty
years and they [the audience] are are able to take action to alleviate it Youre going
to need evidence to support each of these claims probably quite a few pieces of
evidence and youre going to need to explain how your evidence supports what you are
saying.
Opposing opinions and contrary evidence
The most interesting speeches often make claims that are controversial. This means that
although you will be hoping, in the course of your speech, to reason your way to a firm
conclusion there will be much evidence surrounding your topic that does not support your
conclusion, and many opinions different from your own.
Dont ignore these. It is apparent to an audience when an issue can be seen from more
than one viewpoint, and it will harm your credibility if you seem not to recognise that.
Take time in your speech to acknowledge, explore and recognise other points of view,
before comparing them carefully with your own evidence and reasons to come to a
balanced conclusion. That is much more effective as a method of persuasion because it
creates much more credibility for you. Evidence as illustration There are all sorts of
pieces of evidence that could support your claim, not just what you might think of as
facts. You may want to use some statistics, examples
from history or current affairs, or widely accepted facts from science or geography, but
ideas can also be supported with other ideas, such as common sense beliefs, religious
tenets, the views of others, analogies and narrative stories. Think of evidence not just in
the sense in which it is meant in a courtroom, but as illustration in the most literal sense
shedding light on the issue, illuminating your ideas and making them more easily
understood by the audience. Always remember, though, to show how your evidence is
relevant, and how it supports what youre saying facts are no substitute for reasons!
Researching your topic Even if youve chosen a topic that youre very knowledgeable
about (as weve recommended) you will probably want to look more widely at the issue,
especially at viewpoints different from your own. You may want to see what other people
have said about the issue before you (and perhaps youll want to quote them) or you may

want to see if there have been any recent developments that you would want to share with
your audience. Direct your research towards recent and frequently updated publications
with editorials and analysis (like newspapers), rather than at definitive but less
opinionated or up-to-date sources (like encyclopaedias). A five minute public speech only
gives your audience
one chance to take in and understand everything youre saying, which may be of
considerable complexity. This means youre going to have to think carefully about how
you structure your speech.
Have a speech outline
It helps the audience to follow your speech if you tell them at the start of the speech what
your main reasons and pieces of evidence are going to be, and then again at the end, after
you have delivered the bulk of material in the speech, remind them of what the key points
are that they should take away with them.
Open with an introduction, which lets the audience know who you are, what you are
going to be speaking about and why and what you hope to achieve by the end of the
speech.
Provide a preview of your points, telling the audience what you will be saying that will
help you to achieve your aim, and in what order. Think of this as a map for the speech to
help the audience follow you.
Move on to your main points, covering them in a logical order that builds your
argument up (starting with the most basic or fundamental of your claims, or any
necessary description you have to give in order to help your audience understand, and
then moving towards your conclusion). Remember all the time to support your claims
with evidence, and then show how that evidence supports the claim. Let the audience
know when youre moving from one part of your speech to the next with transition words
or phrases, like So weve looked at the effect of global warming on poorer countries
now Id like to examine the effect on richer countries..., for example.
Summarise the points you have made so that the audience can feel confident that they
have
understood everything in your speech, and they are sure what they have to consider.
Conclude. The conclusion ties together everything you have said and reminds them
what you wanted to convince them of, and why they should be persuaded.
Using notes
Having a clear outline and structure to your speech enables you to make very simple
notes. Each person will find a particular notation style that suits them, but remember
never to write out any of your speech in full.
Having a few large key words written on a card in front of you will enable you to pick up
your speech more easily if you stumble or get lost. It also has advantages for your
speaking style, which we will look at in the next section. Giving your structure a theme
Your speech acquires more of a sense of unity if you can find a single theme that links the
names you are using for your different points. This theme may be an analogy to a familiar
set of words or concepts, a popular story, song or well known person, place or event.
For example, you may wish to theme a speech about climate change in following way:
What I want to talk about today the effect humans are having on the environment is
of elemental importance. I want to speak about environmental impact today on the four
elements known to ancient man earth, air, water and fire. First, earth the erosion of

the earths soils resulting from deforestation, intensive farming and urbanisation. Second,
air the emission of heavy metals, acids and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that
are slowly but surely poisoning humans, the ecosystem and suffocating the whole planet.
Third, water the contamination of our water courses and oceans, traditionally thought
of as flushing away our waste, until they no longer contain life and we cant even drink
them. And finally, fire mans most elemental source of energy, though we now use many
different forms of energy to power our world. I want to examine how we generate power,
and show you how new solutions to our energy crisis could help us to solve our other
probelms. The start and end are the most difficult, and in some ways the most important,
parts of your speech. You should plan them carefully and know them off by heart. Your
introduction is the very first impression you will make on the audience, so make it a good
one. Rather than explaining, in a dry way, what your topic is about, try to grab the
audiences attention first, by making the topic sound relevant to them.
For example, rather than saying this: Today I want to talk about global warming caused
by carbon emissions. I will show how the rise in global temperatures will lead to
inundations of low-lying ground, droughts and food shortages in some areas, disruption
to the ecosystem and civil unrest. I will then tell you what we can do to stop these effects
from occurring. try this: Floods; famines; plagues of locusts; war, death and
destruction on a worldwide scale no, not prophecies from the bible, not the scenes of
some Hollywood disaster movie, but predictions for the real world in the next twenty
years from top scientists, if we continue pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and
altering the global climate. In my speech I want to show you how easy it could be to
avoid this doomsday scenario, if we only wake up to the reality that this time its fact, not
fiction.
Conclusions are the last thing an audience hears, so should leave them sure of what you
have said and thoughtful about their own approach to it. This could be achieved, for
example, by a rhetorical question to set the audience as a departing challenge but
remember to be sure that you have already provided the answer to the question beyond
doubt rhetorical questions are meant to be answered by you, not by the audience!
For example this conclusion provides the answer to the question it poses in no uncertain
terms: So I have shown you the precipice on which we stand, and which, at our current
rate of carbon dioxide production, we seem doomed to topple into. I have shown you how
easy it would be to turn our heads away, to ignore the signs, to hope that the problem will
go away, solve itself, or will only affect our descendants, not us. I have agreed that
sometimes it can feel hopeless to think that our small actions can possibly affect a
problem so widespread on a planet so huge. But I have also explained today that our
actions do make a difference, that we do have reason
to hope, and that although our actions will cost us time, effort and money, they must be
taken if we are to avoid the greater cost of the end of our way of life. So which will you
do, ladies and gentlemen turn your heads, and hope against hope, even as the wind
whistles past your ears, that we wont fall off that precipice; or wake up, face the problem
and do your part to solve it, and feel proud when you are able to show your
grandchildren the world you have bequeathed to them, which they so nearly didnt
inherit. Only you can make that decision what will you choose?
A public speech is much more than the text of its words, and a public speaker does much
more than just read out a transcript. The way a speaker uses his voice and body and

chooses his words conveys meaning to the audience over and above the simple meaning
of the words. The communication model The diagram above represents the way you
communicate your ideas to an audience you transmit the idea through the medium of
speech, and you receive feedback from the audience to let you know how well your
speech is getting across. In the process of communication some of the meaning that you
have in your minds both simple meaning and the more ambiguous or emotive meaning
in your speech is lost. Lets look at four ways that you can minimise this loss, making
sure that all your meaning gets across to the audience.
1. Physical
Volume: make sure you are speaking loudly enough to be heard, but not so loud that
people cant take in
your words.
Pace and clarity: make sure that you speak at a rate that can be easily followed, and
clearly enunciate your words so that people can understand them.
2. Psychological
Tone and pause: vary the way you use your voice to break up your sound people will
tune out from a monotonous speaker, so change your pitch and speed as you move from
section to section.
Body language: much of our communication is nonverbal, so make sure that your body
is making open gestures, like facing forward and using your arms freely to gesture (but
not over gesture) in support of your words; avoid closed gestures like folding your arms,
turning away or hanging your head.
Facial expressions and eye contact: even more important than your body is your face.
The audience needs to feel that youre speaking to them, so make eye contact with as
many members of the audience as you can. You need to convince them that you are
confident in what you are saying, so smile and youll set both yourself and the audience
at ease.
3. Linguistic
Vocabulary: make sure that you are using words that everyone in the audience can
understand. Although all your audiences will speak English, we each use that language in
a different way, and we have to be careful not to slip into colloquialisms and slang that
may exclude part or all of the audience.
Jargon: It can be tempting, if you have spent a long time researching a topic, to use a lot
of technical words in your speech, or to refer to things by abbreviations or unfamiliar
titles. Remember that your audience will probably not be as knowledgeable as you on
your own subject, so always explain these things in ordinary language.
Word choice: English is full of synonyms two or more different words that refer to the
same idea, object or concept. Different words conjure up different ideas of that same
object in peoples heads, depending on the wider associations of the word.
For example, if we say: Human beings have an innate tendency to exploit the resources
of their environment in a nonsustainable fashion, which will lead to a point of such
depletion that the use-value of those resources becomes nil. we are being much less
effective in raising the audiences concerns than if we try to connect the quite academic
sounding ideas that we are expressing to images the audience may already have in their
minds, like this:

Everything mankind touches it seems to destroy felling forests, draining lakes,

burning ancient jungles long since fossilised into oil and coal; sooner or later were
going to realise that theres nothing left to destroy those forests, those lakes, and most
of all, those fossilised jungles, arent coming back. Not only have we illustrated the
point with imagery of what is actually going on, but weve also substituted destroy for
exploit in a non-sustainable fashion so destroy is a word with negative connotations,
the audience will feel more indignant towards the phenomenon we are describing. This
aspect of word choice can work in reverse too to play down things that we wish the
audience to think about less or take less seriously. For example, rather than saying: We
will have sacrifice a lot of luxuries like foreign holidays and exotic foods if we are going
to have any impact on our carbon dioxide emissions.
we might say: Simply using less of some of our unnecessary extravagances in life could
make a huge difference to how much global warming we cause. A note on notes Earlier
we advised you to use a few clear key words as your speaking notes, rather than writing
out your whole speech or trying to memorise it in its entirety. One advantage of speaking
from notes and constructing each of your individual sentences afresh each time you speak
is that the speech retains a sense of novelty and reality it is all too easy for the audience
to get the impression, if you are reciting for the tenth time, perhaps, a speech you know
off by heart, that your engagement is with your memory and your words, rather than with
them. So be sure what each of your points is going to be, and know your introduction and
conclusion very well, but dont over-rehearse the main body of your speech to such an
extent that you lose that vital connection with it or begin to become bored by it.
Remember, its all about getting and keeping credibility! Top ten tips for confidence
Know well what youre going to say, and have clear and easy-to-follow notes in front of
you.
Know your first sentence off by heart.
Avoid wearing uncomfortable clothes or distracting jewellery tie your hair back if
necessary.
Have a sip of water before you go up to speak. Keep the glass near at hand
Breathe deeply, using your diaphragm, not your chest (your stomach should move out if
youre doing it right).
Start clearly and loudly from the very first word.
Make eye contact with the audience from the start if youre still too nervous to do
that, look at the middle of their foreheads they wont be able to tell the difference!
If you stumble over a sentence, or momentarily forget what you were going to say, dont
try to talk your way out of it. Just stop, have a drink of water or simply pause, breathe
deeply and start again.
Smile at the audience theyre not hostile.
Relax and enjoy yourself having a whole room of people listen to you is a rare
experience and can be exhilarating!
Most real world public speakers will be faced at some point with questions about what
theyve said. In the ESU competition this element of the activity is represented by a
period at the end of each speech when members of the audience are invited to put brief
questions to the speaker. These may ask for clarification or expansion on a point or seek
to know the speakers views on a related issue not covered in their speech. Although

questions are not meant to be combative, they may sometimes ask the speaker to justify
her views. Tips for answering questions well
Before your speech think what questions are likely to be asked, and consider how you
might answer them.
However, dont be tempted to answer the question you hoped youd get always
answer the question that was actually asked.
Use the time in which the question is being asked to start formulating your answer, and
dont be afraid to pause before answering you dont have to rush into an immediate
response.
Do not feel that you have to say a lot to answer a question. Some of the best answers are
very short, and you should not go on too long in answer to any question. Although some
questions may ask you to further explain, defend or justify your views, dont become too
defensive or start a debate with the questioner.
Simply answer the question as well as you can and thank the person asking the questions
for giving you the chance to make yourself clearer.