6.1: Finding and Selecting a Topic

6.1.1: The Importance of Choosing a Good Topic

Learning Objective

Explain the importance of selecting the right topic 

Key Point

• When you tell a story, you want your audience to be engaged, so you choose a topic that will interest your audience. The same goes for speech giving.

Key Term

topic

Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.

Tips for Choosing a Topic

When you tell a story, you want your audience to be engaged, so you choose a topic that will interest your audience. The same goes for speech giving.When you choose a topic, consider your audience. Ask yourself: What topic, or subject, will engage the audience?

If you are unsure what topic to choose, consider the following:

• current events (newspapers, other media)
• personal experience
• your hobbies– Does your audience have an understanding of the basics of your hobby or the terms used in it?
• your work–Are there things that you have learned through your work that would be useful to people who are not familiar with your profession?
• books you may have read recently

The trick is to be as relevant as you can to the audience who is listening to you.

6.1.2: Your Areas of Expertise

Learning Objective

Explain why choosing a topic in an area in which you are an expert is a good option

Key Points

• Considering your expert areas can help you decide what topic you will speak about.
• An expert area is one where you have knowledge that most people do not.
• Choosing an expert area for a topic has an advantage because you already have the knowledge, which makes it easier to explain to an audience.

Key Terms

expert

A person with extensive knowledge or ability in a given subject.

knowledge

Familiarity or understanding of a particular skill, branch of learning, etc.

expertise

great skill or knowledge in a particular field or hobby

Your Expert Areas

Many people have areas in which they are experts.

Expertise

Considering your areas of expertise can be a way to generate a speech topic.

A picture of AVIDAC, one of the earliest digital computers, in 1953.

Experts are people who have a thorough knowledge of something that most people do not. Expertise is when someone has a wealth of knowledge in a particular field. Rocket scientists are experts, but so are the analysts who talk about football on the television. When trying to select a topic for your speech consider any areas in which you are an expert. Do not expect to speak fluently on a subject that you know little or nothing about. Your fluency will be in direct ratio to two important conditions: your knowledge of what you are going to say, and your being accustomed to telling what you know to an audience.

Your area of expertise might be a good topic to give a speech about because you already possess a familiarity with it. One benefit of this familiarity is that it reduces the time you will have to spend on researching. Instead, research will mostly be aimed at refining your expertise, enriching it, and ensuring that you are familiar with the conversation around that topic.

When trying to determine what topic you will speak about, picking an area where you have expert knowledge increases the likelihood that your speech will effectively communicate with your audience. For the audience, you are the authority on the topic that you are speaking about, so it might help to already have authoritative knowledge. A speech whose topic is related to your expert area will draw on your extensive knowledge, making it easier for you to explain the specifics of the topic to the audience.

6.1.3: Your Areas of Interest

Learning Objective

Select your topic from an area in which you have an interest but are not yet an expert

Key Points

• An interest is something that you are aware of but don’t know much about.
• Think about what intrigues you about the area you are interested in.
• Choosing something you are interested in as a topic will likely turn you from a novice to an authority.

Key Term

Interest

A great attention and concern from someone or something; intellectual curiosity.

While most people are experts in certain areas, possessing highly specific knowledge, they also tend to have areas that they might not know much about but have an interest in knowing more. One stamp might lead someone to be interested in stamp collecting. Or maybe you have had a conversation with a friend who introduces you to an idea that interests you but you have not found the time to thoroughly investigate it. When trying to select the right topic for your speech, consider any areas that you are interested in.

A Stamp Collection

Someone who has an interest in stamps might think about that as a speech topic.

There are many advantages to searching in an area of interest for the topic of your speech. As you research your topic, you will move from having an interest to having a good understanding. In this way, your journey will mirror that of the audience who you will be speaking to. Your goal as the speaker is to make the audience interested in the topic of your speech and then inform them about that topic through the course of your speech.

When choosing a topic, think about an area that interests you. Then ask yourself some questions, like “Why do I think this is interesting? ” and “What specifically interests me about this topic? ” Follow through your initial sense of inquisitiveness and consider how you might recreate this sense of interest in the speech, which would draw your audience in in a similar way to how you initially became interested in the topic. Then consider how you might enrich this interest by researching the area and learning more about it. The goal of your speech is be to navigate the audience through the same journey you went through, from ill-informed interest to informative understanding.

6.1.4: Brainstorming

Learning Objective

Employ brainstorming as a method to help you generate topic ideas

Key Points

• Brainstorming can be a helpful way to find the topic for your speech.
• Brainstorming is a helpful method to generate a large numbers of ideas in a spontaneous manner.
• During a brainstorming session, give yourself a time limit and then let yourself consider any thoughts you have in considering what the topic of your speech will be.

Key Term

brainstorming

A method of problem solving in which individuals or members of a group contribute ideas spontaneously.

You have considered your areas of expertise. You have considered your areas of interest. And you are still trying to choose the right topic for your speech. In addition to these other methods of finding and selecting the right topic, brainstorming is an effective means for generating potential speech topics.

Think of a brainstorming session in terms of what happens during a real storm . Think of the ideas as rain. Good storms have lots of rain, and a good brainstorming session should generate lots of ideas. And hopefully your brainstorming session will have a lightning strike, or an “ah-ha! ” moment, where you identify the perfect topic for your speech.

Speech Topics

Brainstorming allows you to generate topics for your speech.

A painting of a lecture at a knight academy. The speaker is standing at the lectern and the audience is seated nearby.

The goal of a brainstorming session is to let yourself quickly generate a large number of ideas, commonly in relation to a specific purpose. When brainstorming for speech topics, write at the top of a fresh piece of paper: “What topic should my speech be about? ” Then, under the question, let yourself write down what comes to your mind for a pre-established period of time. Let yourself generate as many different answers to the question as come to mind.

Brainstorming is one of many ways to help you find and select the best topic for your speech. Brainstorming should feel less stressful than other methods of generating ideas. Use brainstorming as a creative way to come up with different topic ideas. Use the creative topic ideas that you have generated during brainstorming to help decide what your speech will be about. A well-chosen topic is key to the success of a good speech.

Lightning Strikes

Lightning strikes, or “ah-ha” moments, during brainstorming mean that you are coming up with ideas.

6.1.5: Scoping Your Topic

Learning Objective

Demonstrate how to narrow your speech topic

Key Points

• Scoping your topic is identifying the subtopics related to the general topic your speech will address.
• The amount of time allowed for the speech will help determine how narrow or broad the scope should be. A broader scope will take more time to explain, while narrowing will allow you to cover the material in less time.
• If your goal is to include more detailed information, narrowing your scope will allow you to analyze your topic more completely.

Key Terms

narrow

To reduce in width or extent; to contract.

scope

The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant.

topic

Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.

After much deliberation, you have selected a topic. Congratulations! Now comes the fun part: making that topic manageable and developing your speech. Think of your preliminary work as establishing a general target. Now the goal is to narrow your aim and find the bull’s-eye !

Narrow Your Topic

Narrowing your topic is like aiming for the bull’s-eye on an archery target.

Even though it is not an easy decision to come to, deciding on the general topic has only set you out on the path toward developing a speech, not toward leading you to the end. If you decide your topic will be about basketball, for instance, that is quite a broad topic. Will your speech be about the history of basketball? Will it be about specific players? Or specific rules? Scoping your topic is the process of identifying the important subtopics that form the parameters of your speech. As these questions make clear, picking a general topic is only a first step. What you need to do is establish the scope of your engagement with the topic of your speech by breaking it into the important parts.

An important consideration when you begin narrowing in on the specific area of your general topic is how much time you will have to deliver your speech. If you have a shorter amount of time, you will need to narrow the scope of your speech. If you have a little more time, you might be able to cast a wider net when it comes to the topic of the speech. Use time constraints to your benefit, let them guide you to narrow the scope of your speech.

Scoping your topic will not only make the writing of the speech easier, but by narrowing the scope of your speech, you also increase the likelihood that your speech will effectively communicate with the audience. Covering a more narrow scope will allow you to include more detailed information, and cover your topic more fully. When your speech has a focused engagement, it is easier for audiences to follow along and be informed or persuaded, depending on what the purpose of your speech is.

6.2: Establishing a Purpose and a Thesis

6.2.1: General Purpose

Examine the general purpose of why you’re speaking; every idea in your speech should connect to that purpose to reinforce your thesis.

Learning Objective

Explain what a general purpose of a speech is and why it is important

Key Points

• Think of a speech as an inverted pyramid, with the topic being the widest section. From there, refine down into the purpose, followed by thesis, evidence, and arguments.
• Speeches typically serve four general purposes: to inform, persuade, instruct, or entertain.
• By taking a step back to examine the general purpose of the speech, a speaker reinforces his or her thoughts and ideas by making sure that everything presented to argue your case aligns to that general purpose. Anything that takes away from that purpose should be omitted from the speech.

Key Terms

general

Giving or consisting of only the most important aspects of something, ignoring minor details; indefinite.

purpose

A result that is desired; an intention.

Understanding the General Purpose of Your Speech

Think of a speech as an inverted pyramid. The pyramid’s widest point represents the most general purpose for the speech. As the speaker begins to refine the thesis and create supporting arguments, the pyramid gets narrower and narrower as he or she drives the point home. Many times, it is easy to focus on that narrowest point, but it is just as important to take a step back and consider the general purpose of the speech.

Inverted Pyramid

Think of a speech as an inverted pyramid. From the general topic, the speech narrows as the speaker generates the thesis and main ideas. 

From a broad standpoint, the speaker should ask, “What do I hope to achieve with speech? Is the aim to inform? Persuade? A little of both, perhaps? Or maybe entertain? ” There are four basic types (and thus, purposes) of speeches: to inform, persuade, instruct, or entertain. Each of these speech types may contain a little bit from the other types, in order to create a compelling package and ultimately, to get the speech to that narrowest point.

For example, imaging a basic topic, such as Facebook. Consider the audience: to whom will the speaker be speaking? What’s their age and knowledge base? A crowd of college students might have a much wider knowledge base than say, a crowd of elderly audience members – but not necessarily! There are plenty of grandmothers who could run circles around a twenty-year-old on Facebook.

If the general purpose is to instruct, the speaker may conduct a demonstration on how to set up privacy settings on Facebook. As he or she further hones the purpose and thesis, the speech might trickle down into instruction about why it is important to specify one’s privacy settings.

Now imagine a speaker who wants to persuade an audience – for example, an elderly crowd – to adopt a technology like Facebook. The speaker may have to do some instruction, but he or she will also want to talk about the social network benefits of Facebook or the cognitive benefits of lifelong learning and technology use. Again, this speech take a topic like Facebook and refines it down to a purpose, like persuasion. From there, the speaker can begin to craft a thesis, such as, “Facebook is a valuable tool for the elderly to remain connected to their loved ones while simultaneously boosting cognition and memory affected by aging. “

Whatever the purpose of the speech, before diving into the specifics of the thesis, the speaker must make sure to take a step back to examine the broad, general purpose of why he or she is speaking. The speaker will want to make sure that every piece of evidence and thought in the speech connects to that general purpose, in order to present a reinforced theme to the audience.

6.2.2: Specific Purpose of a Speech

The specific purpose of a speech fuses the topic and general purpose.

Learning Objective

Explain how a speech communicates a specific purpose based on the inverted pyramid model

Key Points

• Consider the general purpose of the speech: is it instructing, informing, persuading, or entertaining?
• From there, incorporate the topic into the purpose. Is the speech instructing, informing, persuading, or entertaining about X?
• Going from the general to the specific is all about refinement.
• Crafting the speech is a balance of reinforcing the general purpose while being specific enough to make a case.

Key Terms

purpose

A result that is desired; an intention.

specific

Explicit or definite.

Specific Purpose

As previously stated, think of a speech as an inverted pyramid. As the speaker refines his or her purpose, the speech begins to narrow to its ultimate point. The widest part represents the topic, followed by the general purpose (instructing, informing, persuading, or entertaining).

From there, the next most-refined level is the specific purpose, which fuses the topic and general purpose. For example, if the topic is social media and the speaker’s intention is to inform, the specific purpose would be to inform your audience about social media. The speaker might get more specific by focusing on a narrower subject within your topic, such as Twitter. In this case, the more specific purpose might be to inform the audience about the evolution of Twitter as a social media platform.

Going from the general to the specific is all about refinement. If the speech is too broad, the audience is left confused or unclear about what the speaker is saying or trying to achieve with the speech. At the same time, the speaker must temper just how specific to get in relation to the audience. How much do they already know about the subject? How might their demographics such as age, gender, culture, and education levels already inform that knowledge base?

By using the inverted pyramid model to outline exactly how to arrive at the speech’s most specific, narrowest point, the speaker should avoid losing the audience by getting too specific at the wrong time.

But what if the speech has more than one purpose? As previously discussed, not all speeches conform strictly to the four general purposes for speaking. Some persuasive speeches may contain elements of informative or entertainment speeches. If this is the case, first identify the most important purpose of the speech. At the end of the day, what exactly is the speech trying to achieve? From there, subordinate the other, more specific purposes.

For example, when giving a persuasive speech about the rise of Twitter as a dominant form of social media, the speaker’s general purpose is to persuade, and the specific purpose is to persuade about the notion that Twitter is a dominant form of social media. But the speaker may have other purposes, to show the “lighter side” about Twitter by talking about how some fake and parody accounts carry more weight than their official counterparts (such as the BP Oil magnate and the fake @BPGlobalPR account in the wake of the Gulf Oil Spill in 2010).

At the end of the day, the speaker is still trying to achieve the specific purpose to persuade your audience to believe that Twitter is a dominant social media platform. Using entertaining anecdotes as one part of your strategy would fall under that purpose, not alongside or above it.

Just keep picturing the inverted pyramid, getting closer and closer to the most specific points to assist in the refinement process of honing a topic into a specific purpose and a solid thesis with substantive evidence to make a case.

Specific Purpose

A speech should have a specific purpose, just as a corkscrew has the specific purpose of opening a bottle.

6.2.3: Defining the Thesis

Your thesis statement should clearly articulate the purpose and main points of your speech.

Learning Objective

Explain the purpose of a thesis

Key Points

• A thesis statement contains all the main points of your speech, captured in anywhere from one to three sentences.
• A thesis lets your audience know what your speech is going to show, demonstrate or argue.
• Introduce your thesis early in your speech and reiterate it again at the conclusion.
• To craft your thesis statement, think about the take-home message you wish to leave with your audience. From there, refine and hone that message until you have one to five main points to use in order to achieve your speech’s purpose.

Key Term

thesis

A concise summary of the argument or main points, usually one to three sentences long.

Your thesis statement should clearly articulate the purpose and main points of your speech. Think of the thesis as the rocket that will guide the spaceship, that is your speech . It’s there at the beginning and, in some ways, it guides the trajectory of your speech.

Launch Your Speech by Defining Your Thesis

A well-defined thesis will launch and guide the trajectory of your speech like a well-made rocket.

Defining a thesis is essentially constructing the structural outline of your speech. When you have defined a thesis, you have essentially articulated to yourself what your speech is going to say, what position you will take up, as well as what is the speech’s purpose. Use the work that you have done to narrow down the scope of the topic that your speech is about; determine the purpose your speech will serve, and define a thesis to construct the remainder of it.

Crafting Your Thesis

Begin looking very generally at your speech: what are you trying to accomplish with it? What’s the takeaway message you wish to leave with your audience? From there, begin to refine and hone your thesis by getting more and more specific, until you are able to define anywhere from one to five main points that you seek to make with your speech. It is typically only one to three sentences long.

Thesis Placement

The thesis should be introduced near the beginning of your speech, usually at the conclusion of the introductory remarks. Its placement there is a way of introducing the audience to your specific topic. It should be a declarative statement, stating what position you will argue.

It’s also particularly helpful to give a quick outline of just how you plan to achieve those goals in another few sentences, immediately following your thesis statement. At the end of the speech, you should restate your thesis (perhaps in a more concise form) in order to reassert to your audience what you have argued throughout the course of your speech.