Beginner speakers almost across all situations, be it in the classroom, the workplace or in their community, will find usefulness knowing how to plan and present a first short speech. Even an audience as small as two people is sufficient enough to help you build the self esteem to be able to give speeches independently and spontaneously, without freezing, stage freight or performance anxiety.
These are the chronological parts of the speechmaking process:
1. Choose the subject to be discussed 2. Conduct an analysis of your audience 3. Go over the subject and see if it fits together with the results of your audience analysis 4. Figure out the reason for the speech 5. Devise a thesis statement 6. Evolve the primary principles 7. Collect data that supports your case 8. Structure the speech into it’s most important components 9. Create an outline of the speech 10. Determine any additional mediums that could be of assistance to present it (i.e visual, audio, expirential aides) 11. Rehease the speech’s execution
This article focuses on the anatomy of a speech as well as the planning process that goes with it. Over the next series of articles we will add additional information on the principles we will establish here.
CHOOSING THE SUBJECT TO BE DISCUSSED
The first logical step in the speechmaking process consists of finding what subject we want to talk about. If your subject is assigned to you by a teacher, you can disregard this step. Otherwise, use your creativity and imagination when it comes to picking a subject that is important to you at heart. What issue are you currently concerned about right now that you think needs addressing? What are you skilled or knowledgable in that you think you can apply this to find a solution for this issue? What are some of your hobbies that are related to your chosen subject? Don’t forget that the subject must be important to the audience and if this does not reflect your own personal interests, your personal interests should not take precedence over those of the audience. Therefore the appropriate subject can only be chosen given the factor of how sizeble the audience’s interest is towards it.
Audiences tend to be composed of a diverse array of personalities, interests and opinions that are individually unique to each member that the audience is composed of, and taking these factors and their differences into account from one audience member to the next to form the collective will go towards figuring out how passionate an audience is towards your chosen subject. It is therefore imperative to collect as much data as you can about your audience, including those issues that may unite or divide them.
AUDIENCE ANALYSIS
Audience analysis is a systematic process whereby you analyze and learn about your audience. One can collect data about his audience using methods such as questionnaires, interviews and surveys. If a speech is to be short, these points should be taken into consideration:
– It would be wise to start with demographic factors: the ratio of male to female population; racial and ethnic differences that can be acknowledged in the group; any extreme disparities in age; as well as the percentage of the group that is from outside the country.
– It would also be wise to take into consideration the contrasting attitudes people of diverse backgrounds might have, whether it is a generational difference, a gender difference or a native born vs. foreign born difference in mentality.
THE REASON FOR SPEAKING
You will need to figure out what you want to send a message about to your audience and why. Regardless of what the subject might be, you can always use the three reasons for giving a speech as a sort of guidelines, including to educate, to convince or to signify some special event.
An educational speech is meant to provide the audience with new knowledge, ideas, concepts or perspectives on different subjects. The main reason for this is to bring the audience’s attention to it by way of educating them about it. Some of these subjects might include things like advances in video gaming technology or electric cars.
A speech designed to convince is one that seeks to shift the attitudes, beliefs, values or actions of other people in one direction or another. To give you two examples, the first would be convincing people that public universities should be free and the second being that the child foster care system does more harm than good.
A speech that is meant to signify some special event, like a ceremony to celebrate something, whether it be a wedding, funeral, commencement or a banquet, can be either educational or meant to persuade the crowd, or both. Whatever the case may be and regardless of the occasion, the reason for this speech is typically meant to entertain, celebrate, commemorate, inspire or devise a social agenda for that particular occasion.
Your speech therefore needs to have a concise reason – something that can explain this reason in just one sentence – yet that is not used in the actual speech itself – that states exactly what the intended purpose of the speech is and what it hopes to solve:
– If the educational speech about campus security is meant to provide knowledge to the audience, the reason for this speech might be something like “to educate the audience of new administrative procedures regarding the safety and security plan this winter.”
– If an speech about campus security was meant to convince the crowd, the reason might be something along the lines of “to convince the audience of new administrative procedures regarding the safety and security plan are insufficient to deal with proper documentation of security related events.”
DEVISE A THESIS STATEMENT
The next step is to devise a thesis statement that outlines with crisp clarity the primary concept being expressed in your speech. Where the reason is meant to give notion to what you are trying to achieve with your speech, the thesis statement serves to outline what it’s exact reason for being is, in a single sentence:
Generalized reason: To educate and provide knowledge on a subject. Specialized reason: To educate and provide knowledge on the privacy policy of the popular online search engine Google. Thesis statement: Google collects a large array of information about it’s users, and uses it for a number of reasons, some of which might come as a shock.
Regardless of where you may find yourself in the preparation process, you can always look back to the thesis statement to ensure that your subject matter has not strayed far from the beaten path when it comes to correctly, accurately and in a detailed sense conveying the message you want to send.
EVOLVE THE PRIMARY PRINCIPLES
Develop your speech so it centers around two or three primary principles. These principles are your main source of information if the speech is meant to educate or they are your most vital arguments if you are planning a speech that is made to convince others. If you devise a thesis statement that possesses great clarity, the primary principles will be easy to distinguish, if not form the most eye opening parts of it.
Example Thesis:
As opposed to agreeing that the actual reason was meant to be censorship, worries regarding the overuse of bandwith was the official reason given for the US military enforcing a policy to block all access to Youtube, MySpace and several other popular sites where potentially compromising information could be posted by it’s servicemembers and employees.
1. The military determined which websites could potentially clog the system by ranking them by the highest volume use when monitoring their systems. 2. In warzones where the internet is needed but the infrastructure is often insufficient or has been destroyed, it is imperative that access to the internet be available to use during operations and that it is not bogged down by a high volume of usage. 3. Most servicemembers are still free to use these blocked sites using commercial facilities off base such as internet cafes and independent internet providers.
COLLECT DATA THAT SUPPORTS YOUR CASE
Having data that supports your case will allow you to use it to highlight the primary principles by providing clarity, explanations and reviewing your concepts so that the shoe fits. These sources include all of the information that is available to us in the information age, be it in print form such as books to electronic media such as on the internet, in videos and in audiobooks. This information can also be derived from either your own personal experiences or those of other people. A speech can only be taken seriously if the data to back up the claims made during it are readily available and of high quality.
STRUCTURE THE SPEECH INTO IT’S MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENTS
The three most important components of a speech are the introduction, body and conclusion. You need to evolve each component by itself, then fuse them together to form the entirety of the speech utilizing transition statements.
The purpose of the introduction is to help identify the subject matter that is going to be discussed, together with the speaker giving the speech. A high quality introduction aims to grasp the audience’s attention as well as arousing their interest in the topic. Similar to the body of a written essay, the body of a speech consists of the primary principles that you want to outline in the speech, as well as their derivatives, combined which go towards supporting the thesis of the speech. The conclusion serves to close the speech by going over the reason for the speech once more and rephrases how primary principles verify it.
Introduction:
– An attention getting device can be used to arouse the attention of the audience in the direction of the speaker, such as a quotation, example, short story or some other form of theatrics. – Introduce the subject or reason for the speech. – Give a glimpse as to the primary principles of the speech. – Utilize a transition to bring attention to the fact that you are now about to enter the body of the speech.
Body:
– The presentation of the thesis is imperative to do with clarity. – Evolve the primary principles utilizing a framework that is appropriate to the subject, audience and situation. – Utilize a transition to bring attention to the fact that you are now about to enter the conclusion of the speech.
Conclusion:
– Rephrase the thesis statement and go over how the primary principles can be used to verify it. – Give the audience some homework such as asking a thought provoking question that forces them to think about the issue presented in the speech. – Be ready to provide answers to questions from the audience.
CREATE AN OUTLINE OF THE SPEECH
An outline is useful for illustrating the primary principles in a way that supports your thesis as well as the points under each principle that also go towards supporting your primary principles as a whole. Outlines are derived from the concepts of coordination and subordination – the placement of ideas that is logically relevant in terms of their importance to one another. Coordinate principles tend to be of equal importance and are often presented so by their parallel placement to one another. Subordinate principles tend to carry with them less importance than the primary principles they are called onto to support and are therefore placed right of the principles they support.
Coordinate Principles: 1. Primary Principle 1 2. Primary Principle 2
Subordinate Principles: 1. Primary Principle 1 A. First degree of subordination 1. Second degree of subordination 2. Second degree of subordination a. Third degree of subordination b. Third degree of subordination
As your speeches begin to interact more with the audience and the issue being talked about, you will need to choose the proper organizational pattern. You will need to become accustomed to developing both working as well as speaking outlines. Where working outlines consist of principles that are presented in complete sentences, speaking outlines, also known as presentation outlines, are usually brief and consist of short phrases or keywords relevant to the topic. Speaking outlines can be printed on either separate pieces of paper or 4″x6″ index cards, for a more portable choice that can be used during the speech.
DETERMINE ADDITIONAL PRESENTATION MEDIUMS
Presentation mediums can be used to encapsulate and apotheosize information, such as with charts and graphs, which can simplify an idea or concept to an audience that is otherwise too complex to comprehend in it’s raw form. It can also be used for theatric effect and stroke emotions in the audience that will serve to engrain the information inside their minds.
REHEARSE THE SPEECH’S EXECUTION
How successful a speech turns out to be is dependent on how much planning and practice goes into the speech before it’s execution. Therefore it’s imperative that you rehearse your speech over and over. Some studies show that a good speech has to be rehearsed at least six times before being presented in front of an audience. For a four to six minute speech, this translates to about thirty to forty minutes of practice, including pauses and restarts, of measurable rehearsal time.
VERBAL PRESENTATION
The delivery of the speech through verbal means requires emphasis on several components of vocalization, including volume, pitch, rate, variety, pronunciation and articulation. As you are practicing, conduct the following:
– Be aware of how loudly or softly you are speaking. – Be aware of the rate of your speech. Try to speak at a neutral rate – not too fast and not too slow. – Do not speak in a monotone voice. – Determine ahead of time how your statements should be phrased, then rehearse them prior to delivery of your speech. – It is imperative that you try to pronounce words correctly and with a high degree of clarity.
NONVERBAL PRESENTATION
Aside from paying attention to the things said during a speech, audiences tend to sharply absorb a speaker’s nonverbal behavior. Things such as facial expressions, gestures, general body movement, and the general physical appearance of the speaker. As you practice your speech, conduct the following:
– You should take the time to practice your smile, as well as creating a diverse set of facial expressions that feels natural to your being and not forced. Audiences also tend to pay more attention to a person who is animated as opposed to someone who seems like they aren’t really enthusiastic about the topic they are presenting. – Eye contact is an important skill to practice. Making periodic eye contact with people in the audience will personalize their experience and feel as if you have a connection, and that they are respected and their presence matters. – Your gesticulation of gestures should be natural as opposed to over the top.
PERFORMANCE ANXIETY AND PUBLIC SPEAKING
Every single person, including people who have been giving speeches for years, will have moments when they are nervous before a speech. One study indicates that up to 75 percent of students who are enrolled in a public speaking course feel anxious knowing what might be asked of them. It seems that the feeling of nervousness is not only normal but coveted! Nervousness can be converted into energy that can boost the performance of a public speaker.
The biggest contrast between experienced public speakers and the rest of humanity is that public speakers know how to utilize their nervousness to work for them as opposed to against them. They make use of certain techniques, that we will describe in these series of articles, that can help them achieve a state of nirvana.
“I tend to concentrate on the information that I am transmitting. I avoid thinking about how my grade might turn out if I make a mistake. I also rehearse my speech dozens of times to ensure that I do not talk too fast. I time myself so that I can evolve my speeches to fit within what is considered to be average time, going neither too fast nor too slow with the pace. This serves as a huge confidence boost for those assignments in which there are either time requirements or limitations. And then I realize that I have given it a lot of effort in terms of preparation, and this alone is sufficient to make me relax.”
Catherine Abcracadavia, Student
FIGURE OUT WHAT AROUSES YOUR ANXIETY
Not having a public speaking experience that ended on a positive note, feeling as if you are different or cannot relate to the members of your audience, or being nauseous at the idea of being the center of attention can all lead to triggering what is considered public speaking anxiety, which is a fear or anxiety related to either real or expected communication to an audience as a speaker. Figuring out what arouses your anxiety is a good introspective technique to help lessen your anxiety.
IN LIEU OF A POSITIVE PUBLIC SPEAKING EXPERIENCE
If you have not had any experiences speaking to an audience or have had some that were uncomfortable or did not go so well, then having anxiety in relations to public speaking is only a natural conclusion of your experience or lack thereof. These anxieties are also difficult to reframe given a lack of positive experiences. It’s what one would call a vicious cycle. Some people just avoid making speeches or having to present anything verbally to an audience, as a result of this lack of experience or negative experience in lieu of a positive one. While they do manage to avoid the stress inducing idea of having to present their speech to a crowd, they also miss out on all the benefits and rewards that can come out of giving a speech.
FEELING DIFFERENT FROM THE CROWD
Beginner speakers tend to feel alone, as if they were the only person on the planet ever to have to endure the anxiety inducing experience of public speaking. The idea of having to stand in front of a crowd who is staring at them like a cow stares at a colorful door brings out their insecurities and body dysmorphias, but also things such as having a bad haircut or an accent. Beginner speakers might also get the false notion that nobody cares what they think or have to say.
When we as speakers are inexperienced, we derive our anxiety from the false notion that difference means inferiority. It is helpful to think of everyone being different from someone else in many ways. But the one thing you can be sure we share in common is our nervousness when it comes to giving a speech.
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