After you have selected the topic for your speech, you should

The Importance of Choosing a Good Topic

Choosing a good topic is an essential step towards delivering an effective speech.

Learning Objectives

Explain the importance of selecting the right topic

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• 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 Terms

• 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.

Choosing a Topic

When choosing your speech topic, brainstorm to generate many ideas, and distill those ideas to find your singular topic.

Learning Objectives

Discuss different strategies for choosing a speech topic

Key Takeaways

Key Points

• Before you can begin writing your speech, you must first establish the main topic about which you plan to speak.
• Brainstorm early and often! You can try a variety of techniques to get your mental juices flowing, from clustering to free writing. Even just talking through your ideas with another person as a sounding board is a great way to get ideas.
• Once you start to get an idea of your topic, do a little preliminary research. See what others may have written or said about your general topic; reading their ideas may help give you some new ideas or directions of your own.

Key Terms

• distill: To extract the essence of; concentrate; purify.
• brainstorming: A method of problem solving in which individuals or members of a group contribute ideas spontaneously.
• topic: Subject; theme; a category or general area of interest.

Choose Your Topic

Clustering: An example of an idea cluster for the subject “gardening.”

As you begin to prepare for any speech, it’s important to pin down exactly about what you plan to talk. You might have been given a specific topic by a professor or supervisor, or you may be simply invited to speak at an event where the topic is up to you. Knowing how to carefully select your topic is an important first step in preparing for a successful speech.

Start by thinking about your venue. Where will you be giving your speech? To whom will you be speaking? [We’ll get to analyzing your audience in the next section. ] Then, start to think about what you know about the topic, and move towards those subjects or tangents about which you don’t know. It’s helpful to speak about a topic with which you are already familiar, but sometimes you may be called into situations where you have no prior knowledge about a given subject.

In either instance, it’s helpful to approach your topic through brainstorming.

Brainstorming

One of the best ways to help solidify your speech topic is to brainstorm. You can brainstorm by yourself, or you might want to bring in a few friends, colleagues or classmates to help you come up with ideas in a group setting. You can brainstorm using a number of different exercises.

Word Association

Start with a broad topic idea. What words, topics, or other subjects do you associate with that first topic? Now what words, topics, or other subjects do you associate with the following word? Continue this chain of word association to give you a broad spectrum of ideas.

Clustering

Also known as mind-mapping, clustering gives your word association a visual form. Start with your main idea and draw a circle around it, thinking of it like the hub of a wheel. Now, begin to write other associated ideas, topics, or subcategories related to that main topic around the hub, and connect them as separate spokes. From each spoke, begin to jot down other associated ideas and thoughts. As your cluster begins to grow, you might want to connect smaller spokes to one another and create new links between subjects.

Freewriting

This is probably the simplest brainstorm method of all. Set a timer and begin writing whatever thoughts or ideas come to mind about your particular subject. You might find it easier to type your freewriting instead of writing it by hand, so you can keep up with your thoughts faster. Whatever you do, don’t stop writing.

Another way of freewriting is to record yourself talking for a set period of time and then transcribing your key points to go back to and clarify later. Once your time is up, go back and highlight or circle relevant points or topics that stick out for you. You’ll refine these later.

Distill Your Ideas into One Topic

Once you’ve brainstormed your many ideas, it’s time to refine your ideas and distill them into one topic. Look for themes, patterns, and commonalities when going through your brainstorming notes. Use these themes to help guide you toward a singular topic.

Do a Little Homework

While you will definitely research your topic, you might want to do some “presearch” – that is, a little research before the real research. Do a quick scan to see what others have said or written about your topic. This might give you even more ideas of how to refine and distill your topic, or more appropriately adapt it to your audience or venue.

Guide to Choosing a Successful Speech Topic

Choosing a speech topic can sometimes feel harder than giving the actual speech. We provide a simple framework for filtering down the number of possible topics to speak about.

When deciding on a speech or presentation topic, you might naturally want to talk about something you know very well. Although this is important, it’s only part of the equation when deciding on a suitable speech topic.

You need to ask yourself three questions about the topic, linking your expertise, passion and the audience.

Three questions to ask yourself

When deciding on a speech topic, ask yourself these three questions:

1. How much do I know about the topic? Your audience needs to recognise you as a credible speaker and being knowledgeable about your topic is an easy way to do this. A good understanding will help you explain difficult parts of the topic and give you more confidence during the questions and answers session.
2. Am I passionate about the topic? Your passion on the topic will affect all areas of your delivery, including body language, eye contact and energy levels. If you are interested in the topic, you’ll engage with the audience better and generally make for a more interesting speech.
3. Will the audience be interested in the topic? If the audience doesn’t see how they can learn something useful from your topic, they’ll either not turn up or switch off early during the speech. Remember that your speech topic needs to contain value for the audience.

Write down a list of possible speech topics in line with the type of speech or presentation you are giving – is it a TED talk? A commencement speech? A conference presentation? A talk at your local club? Once you have this list, go through each of the three questions and put them into the segments of the Venn diagram above. Of course, the middle of the Venn diagram contains the topics you want to talk about.

What type of audience will you be speaking to?

In order to talk about a topic your audience care about, you’ll need to perform a quick analysis of your audience. There are several methods to do this, including:

• Find out if there are any other speakers and their topics if possible [if they are very technical, it give you an idea of the type of audience]
• Look at the event social media and read through previous comments
• Contact the event host to ask for more information about the types of audience that usually attend [for example, how many are international]
• Find out the size of the audience [this may determine the structure of your speech, including where to do the question and answer session, whether to include humour etc.]

There are a few audience characteristics which might determine the speech topic you select, including:

• Average age
• Gender [will it be a mostly female audience?]
• Ethnic background
• Types of career [is it a business focussed event?]
• Knowledge of the topic

Professional Development Courses

Fast-track your career with award-winning courses and realistic practice.

Segment 1: Great speech topics

Topic segment: You are knowledgeable and passionate about the topic, and the audience is interested in it as well.

This is the perfect combination, and a good speaker draws speech topics from this segment all the time. Your knowledge of the topic assures that you’ll be confident. You enjoy talking about the topic so you’ll be passionate about it. On top of that, you have an enthusiastic, open audience.

When you end up speaking about topics in this segment, you’ll have a high chance of delivering a memorable and engaging speech.

Segment 2: Good content but lacking enthusiasm

Topic segment: You know the topic well and your audience finds it interesting, however you lack enthusiasm for the topic.

Speeches in this segment will lack enthusiasm and might be delivered in a monotone voice with poor body language.

An example of a topic in this segment

When you finish a large body of research, for example towards the end of a PhD, you’ll usually have to present the results to an audience. The audience are usually invested in your topic and interested to hear about what you have to say. You also know plenty about the topic as you’ve spent years researching it.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

• Ask yourself what motivated you to learn about the topic in the first place. Try and find that enthusiasm again.
• You can try asking your potential audience what gets them excited about the topic. This might spark some interested in the topic again for you as you’ll understand the benefit you are giving the audience. You can also guide your presentation around the audience answers and you now know what they are excited by.

Segment 3: Great speech topics for a different audience

Topic segment: You know and find the speech topic interesting, however your audience does not.

An example of a topic in this segment

Perhaps you are the creator of an open source project for a new programming language. You may well love what you are developing and know everything about it. However if you are speaking at a local conference, the audience may not be as enthusiastic.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

• You’ve analysed your audience and find that the audience doesn’t care much for this topic. You need to understand how you can link the topic to something your audience will find interesting, through storytelling, metaphors, diagrams and any other suitable method.
• If you use body language and eye contact well, you might be able to engage the audience even if the topic isn’t of too much interest to them.

Tip

A topic in this segment is best saved for a different audience. If you find the right event and audience, this would a great topic to talk about and you’ll be both passionate and informed about the topic.

Segment 4: Interesting topics you know nothing about

Topic segment: This is a topic both you and your audience find interesting, however your knowledge for the topic is lacking.

You may not know enough about the topic for you to appear credible in the eyes of the audience. Your lack of knowledge on the topic may get revealed in the questions and answers session after the speech.

An example of a topic in this segment

Imagine you’ve recently taken up a new hobby, impressionism painting, for example, and want to talk about tips for impressionist artists at a local gallery. You may love the topic and so will your audience, however as you’re new to the hobby, you won't have any expertise in it.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

This is one of the best segments to be in and there are a few approaches you can take to bring yourself into the middle segment:

• Build up your knowledge of the topic over time. If you have a big event such as a TED Talk coming up and a few weeks before you’re speaking, a topic in this segment could work well. Your passion and an engaged audience provide excellent motivation for your speech to succeed.
• If you’re speaking to a smaller group, you can try to facilitate a discussion between yourself and the audience members. You might start by giving a short speech which opens up some conversation points and then letting the audience discuss new ideas and solutions.

Segment 5: Speech topics someone else should deliver

Topic segment: You audience care a lot about this topic, however you neither know or care about it.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

• This is a tough topic to bring into segment 1. You need to be passionate about the topic in order to learn about it. Sometimes when you start learning a topic, you’ll find yourself becoming more passionate the better you understand it. However this takes time and you’re better leaving this topic for someone else to deliver.

Tip

Don’t try to wing this topic. You’ll be shown up in the questions and answers session, as well as lack enthusiasm while delivering the speech. Your credibility will be ruined.

Professional Development Courses

Fast-track your career with award-winning courses and realistic practice.

Segment 6: Topics you know but don’t interest you

Topic segment: You know this topic well but neither you nor your audience find it interesting.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

• You can try to find your passion for the topic and link it to your audience’s interests. This is going to be difficult and you’ll be better off finding another topic.

Segment 7: Personal hobbies, not speech topics

Topic segment: A speech topic you find interesting but don’t know much about and your audience doesn’t find it too interesting.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

• Of the three outer segments, this is the easiest to convert to a great speech topic. Having passion for a topic provides great motivation, and can motivate you to develop your own expertise, as well as seek out reasons why the audience should care.

Segment 8: Topics neither you nor your audience care about

Topic segment: Disaster zone – you don’t know about the topic or care much about it, and neither does your audience.

How to make this a segment 1 topic

This would be very difficult. It’s best to choose another topic and not to waste your time on topics in this segment.

An example of a topic in this segment

Talks that fall into this dead segment are quite common. After taking a train the trainer course, you might be asked to coach other employees at your company which is mandatory for them to attend. You don’t know the topic very well, and it doesn’t excite you. Your audience’s attendance is mandatory, but they don’t really want to be there either.

To read more about these different segments, read The Secret of Choosing Successful Speech Topics.

Exercise for speech topic selection

Here’s a simple exercise to categorise your speech topics and get a better idea of how the Venn diagram works.

Start by brainstorming around 25 ideas for topics off the top of your head [use these 21 persuasive speech topics as a starting point]. Give each of these a number for the segment on the Venn diagram by asking yourself the three questions.

How many are in the centre? Which are in two of three segments? Think about how or if you could get these into the centre segment. Perhaps if you’re not an expert on the topic, as we mentioned previously you could do additional research around it. Or if your audience doesn’t find the topic interesting, you could tweak it and come at it from a different angle, maybe adding in humour, to engage them better.

10.2 Choosing a Topic

Learning Objective

1. Identify the general purpose and specific purpose of a speech

Now that you have a clear idea of your general and specific purpose, the allotted time, your audience’s expectations, and the amount of information available, you are ready to commit to a topic. We have several strategies you can use to help select and narrow the topic appropriately.

Sample: Jessy Ohl’s Informative Speech

The following text represents an informative speech prepared and delivered by an undergraduate student named Jessy Ohl. While this speech is written out as a text for purposes of analysis, in your public speaking course, you will most likely be assigned to speak from an outline or notes, not a fully written script. As you read through this sample speech, notice how Ms. Ohl uses informative strategies to present the information without trying to persuade her audience.

In 1977, a young missionary named Daniel Everett traveled deep into the jungles of Brazil to spread the word of God. However, he soon found himself working to translate the language of a remote tribe that would ultimately change his faith, lead to a new profession, and pit him in an intellectual fistfight with the world-famous linguist Noam Chomsky. As New Scientist Magazine of January 2008 explains, Everett’s research on a small group of 350 people called the Pirahã tribe has revealed a language that has experts and intellectuals deeply disturbed.

While all languages are unique, experts like Noam Chomsky have argued that they all have universal similarities, such as counting, that are hard-wired into the human brain. So as National Public Radio reported on April 8, 2007, without the ability to count, conceptualize time or abstraction, or create syntax, the Pirahã have a language that by all accounts shouldn’t exist.

Daniel Everett is now a professor of linguistics at Illinois State University, and he has created controversy by calling for a complete reevaluation of all linguistic theory in light of the Pirahã. Exploration of the Pirahã could bring further insight into the understanding of how people communicate and even, perhaps, what it means to be human. Which is why we must: first, examine the unique culture of the Pirahã; second, explore what makes their language so surprising; and finally, discover the implications the Pirahã have for the way we look at language and humanity.

Taking a closer look at the tribe’s culture, we can identify two key components of Pirahã culture that help mold language: first, isolation; and second, emphasis on reality.

First, while globalization has reached nearly every corner of the earth, it has not been able to penetrate the Pirahã natives in the slightest. As Dr. Everett told the New Yorker of April 16, 2007, no group in history has resisted change like the Pirahã. “They reject everything from outside their world” as unnecessary and silly. Distaste for all things foreign is the reason why the people have rejected technology, farming, religion, and even artwork.

The lack of artwork illustrates the second vital part of Pirahã culture: an emphasis on reality. According to the India Statesman of May 22, 2006, all Pirahã understanding is based around the concept of personal experience. If something cannot be felt, touched, or experienced directly then to them, it doesn’t exist, essentially eliminating the existence of abstract thought. Since art is often a representation of reality, it has no value among the people. During his work as a missionary, Everett was amazed to find that the natives had no interest in the story of Jesus once they found out that he was dead. The Pirahã psyche is so focused on the present that the people have no collective memory, history, written documents, or creation myths. They are unable to even remember the names of dead grandparents because once something or someone cannot be experienced, they are no longer important.

Since his days as a missionary, Everett remains the only Western professor able to translate Pirahã. His research has discovered many things missing with the language: words for time, direction, and color. But more importantly, Pirahã also lacks three characteristics previously thought to be essential to all languages: complexity, counting, and recursion.

First, the Pirahã language seems incredibly simple. Now, this isn’t meant to imply that the people are uncivilized or stupid, but instead, they are minimalist. As I mentioned earlier, they only talk in terms of direct experience. The London Times of January 13, 2007, notes that with only eight consonants and three vowels, speakers rely on the use of tone, pitch, and humming to communicate. In fact, Pirahã almost sounds more like song than speech.

Second, Noam Chomsky’s famous universal grammar theory includes the observation that every language has a means of counting. However, as reported in the June 2007 issue of Prospect Magazine, the Pirahã only have words for “one, two, and MANY.” This demonstrates the Pirahã’s inability to conceptualize a difference between three and five or three and a thousand. Dr. Everett spent six months attempting to teach even a single Pirahã person to count to ten, but his efforts were in vain, as tribal members considered the new numbers and attempts at math “childish.”

Third, and the biggest surprise for researchers, is the Pirahã’s apparent lack of recursion. Recursion is the ability to link several thoughts together. It is characterized in Christine Kenneally’s 2007 book, The Search for the Origins of Language, as the fundamental principle of all language and the source of limitless expression. Pirahã is unique since the language does not have any conjunctions or linking words. Recursion is so vital for expression that the Chicago Tribune of June 11, 2007, reports that a language without recursion is like disproving gravity.

Although the Pirahã don’t care what the outside world thinks of them, their language and world view has certainly ruffled feathers. And while civilization hasn’t been able to infiltrate the Pirahã, it may ultimately be the Pirahã that teaches civilization a thing or two, which brings us to implications on the communicative, philosophical, and cultural levels. By examining the culture, language, and implications of the Pirahã tribe we are able to see how this small Brazilian village could shift the way that we think and talk about the world. Daniel Everett’s research hasn’t made him more popular with his colleagues. But his findings do show that more critical research is needed to make sure that our understanding of language is not lost in translation.

Analyze Your Audience

Audience analysis is key for a speaker to achieve his or her speech goal. One of the first questions you should ask yourself is “Who is my audience?” While there are some generalizations you can make about an audience, a competent speaker always assumes there is a diversity of opinion and background among his or her listeners. You can’t assume from looking that everyone in your audience is the same age, race, sexual orientation, religion, or many other factors. Even if you did have a fairly homogenous audience, with only one or two people who don’t match up, you should still consider those one or two people. When I have a class with one or two older students, I still consider the different age demographics even though twenty other students are eighteen to twenty-two years old. In short, a good speaker shouldn’t intentionally alienate even one audience member. Of course, a speaker could still unintentionally alienate certain audience members, especially in persuasive speaking situations. While this may be unavoidable, speakers can still think critically about what content they include in the speech and the effects it may have.

Good speakers should always assume a diversity of backgrounds and opinions among their audience members.

TEDx UniversityofTulsa – Audience – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Even though you should remain conscious of the differences among audience members, you can also focus on commonalities. When delivering a speech in a college classroom, you can rightfully assume that everyone in your audience is currently living in the general area of the school, is enrolled at the school, and is currently taking the same speech class. In professional speeches, you can often assume that everyone is part of the same professional organization if you present at a conference, employed at the same place or in the same field if you are giving a sales presentation, or experiencing the nervousness of starting a new job if you are leading an orientation or training. You may not be able to assume much more, but that’s enough to add some tailored points to your speech that will make the content more relevant.