central idea of an informative speech

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Central Idea

One method to help determining a central idea is to answer the specific purpose as though it leaves a question unanswered, such as why or what. If the specific purpose is “To inform the audience about the effects of mindfulness on health,” then the question unanswered by this statement is, what? What does the speaker want the audience to know about the effects of mindfulness on health in a single sentence? In other words, what is the central idea behind this purpose that will ultimately lead to achieving that goal?

Keep the central idea simple, yet focused. If preparing a 6- to 8-minute speech informing an audience of the causes for the Industrial Revolution, the central idea “The history of Western civilization is complex” would not work well. Such a central idea is too broad and vague, opening up the possibility to present a speech with far too much information for the speaker to cover in that short time period. Instead, the speaker should want a more specific central idea that more specifically summarizes the content of the speech, as the following example demonstrates:

“Beginning with Gutenberg’s printing press, the explosion of information-sharing in Western civilization led to rapid technological development.”

Helpful Hint

Students often struggle to determine if they have effectively stated their central idea as an assertion. Figure out by asking if someone could disagree with the central idea or develop a speech on a different perspective regarding the same topic.

For example, the central idea “Even with limited space, growing your own vegetables is easy and has many mental and physical benefits” could lead someone to present a different perspective on this topic and propose an alternate central idea such as: “Growing your own vegetables is a complex and challenging process that requires immense time and ample space.”

Referencing the specific purpose regarding the effects of mindfulness on health, an ideal central idea could look something like this: Developing mindfulness through regular practice produces benefits in all aspects of life, from mental health to physical well-being. Note that the sentence is complete, grammatically correct, asserts a perspective, and includes just enough information from which to derive the main points. From this single sentence, speakers can write a speech about mindfulness, the practices that nurture it, and the physical and mental benefits individuals might expect from doing so. This central idea, once written, supports the specific purpose and becomes the hinge around which everything else in the speech will revolve. Keep in mind that the central idea may need to remain flexible during the research phase of preparing the speech in order to tailor the information specifically to the audience. The specific purpose, regardless, remains the same. Different audiences may require different methods to relay the same message, so keep the central idea fluid until more information is known about their preferences.

Bringing It All Together

Topic : study cycle, general purpose : to inform, specific purpose : to inform my audience about the study cycle, central idea : the study cycle offers a simple set of steps that will support your effectiveness and efficiency as a student..

Messages that Matter: Public Speaking in the Information Age - Third Edition Copyright © 2023 by North Idaho College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Resources: Capstone Project

Capstone: topic, purpose, and central idea.

Your instructor will assign a number of speeches for you to prepare and deliver throughout this course. The speech preparation process is similar for all types of speeches. In this activity, you are required to choose a topic for your current speech assignment, following the guidelines given to you by your instructor.

Step 1: Understand the requirements of the assignment from your instructor. For example, requirements for a speech might look like this: “This speech is an Informative Speech with a length of no less than three minutes and no more than five minutes. It should not be a “How To” speech but should be focused on informing the audience about something interesting, new, or different that has the potential to impact the audience. You must have at least three sources in your speech. Presentation aids are optional. Your speech must have an introduction, a central idea, a preview, three major body areas, a review, and a conclusion.”

Step 2: Brainstorm topics and decide what you will speak about. Do you like science? Are you interested in gaming? What are your hobbies? Once you know the requirements for the speech, think about what you like and know and what the audience might be interested in. If you’re interested in science, for example, and the speech requirements are to inform the audience about something “interesting, new, or different,” you need to think about possible topics and brainstorm what might be a good topic choice.

For this example, we’ll say that climate change is something you are concerned about and want to focus on for your speech. However, “climate change” itself is very broad as a topic. How do you narrow it down? Are there aspects of climate change that might make a compelling informative speech– perhaps one way that might help improve our climate? You can research possible topic ideas once you have a general category. Some of the ideas you find, such as reducing food waste, might end up being persuasive, so you have to consider that as you brainstorm. One possibility, though, is renewable energy. You realize it is something you have heard mentioned a lot, but you do not know much about it in actuality and think it could make a really good, informative topic.

Once you go through this process on your own for your speech assignment, write up your chosen topic on a document, along with the information in Step 3.

Step 3: Identify the general and specific purpose of your speech. Following the guidelines in your text, identify the specific purpose and general purpose of your speech. Include your topic, general purpose, and specific purpose in a document to submit to your instructor.

Step 4: Develop your central idea. Your specific purpose and general purpose are not specifically stated in your speech, but your central idea is. Your central idea includes your topic, your objective, and the overall direction of your speech. The central idea is similar to a thesis statement in an essay. Once you have your specific purpose, you can draft your central idea. It may be refined as you do more research and write your speech.

Topic : Renewable Energy

General Purpose: To Inform Specific Purpose: To explain to my audience what renewable energy is and its role in improving our climate.

Central Idea: As concerns mount about climate change, renewable energy holds the promise to significantly reduce emissions, save money, and improve our health.

Capstone: Topic, Purpose, and Central Idea. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution

Informative Speeches — Types, Topics, and Examples

What is an informative speech?

An informative speech uses descriptions, demonstrations, and strong detail to explain a person, place, or subject. An informative speech makes a complex topic easier to understand and focuses on delivering information, rather than providing a persuasive argument.

Types of informative speeches

The most common types of informative speeches are definition, explanation, description, and demonstration.

A definition speech explains a concept, theory, or philosophy about which the audience knows little. The purpose of the speech is to inform the audience so they understand the main aspects of the subject matter.

An explanatory speech presents information on the state of a given topic. The purpose is to provide a specific viewpoint on the chosen subject. Speakers typically incorporate a visual of data and/or statistics.

The speaker of a descriptive speech provides audiences with a detailed and vivid description of an activity, person, place, or object using elaborate imagery to make the subject matter memorable.

A demonstrative speech explains how to perform a particular task or carry out a process. These speeches often demonstrate the following:

How to do something

How to make something

How to fix something

How something works

How to write an informative speech

Regardless of the type, every informative speech should include an introduction, a hook, background information, a thesis, the main points, and a conclusion.

Introduction

An attention grabber or hook draws in the audience and sets the tone for the speech. The technique the speaker uses should reflect the subject matter in some way (i.e., if the topic is serious in nature, do not open with a joke). Therefore, when choosing an attention grabber, consider the following:

What’s the topic of the speech?

What’s the occasion?

Who’s the audience?

What’s the purpose of the speech?

Common Attention Grabbers (Hooks)

Ask a question that allows the audience to respond in a non-verbal way (e.g., a poll question where they can simply raise their hands) or ask a rhetorical question that makes the audience think of the topic in a certain way yet requires no response.

Incorporate a well-known quote that introduces the topic. Using the words of a celebrated individual gives credibility and authority to the information in the speech.

Offer a startling statement or information about the topic, which is typically done using data or statistics. The statement should surprise the audience in some way.

Provide a brief anecdote that relates to the topic in some way.

Present a “what if” scenario that connects to the subject matter of the speech.

Identify the importance of the speech’s topic.

Starting a speech with a humorous statement often makes the audience more comfortable with the speaker.

Include any background information pertinent to the topic that the audience needs to know to understand the speech in its entirety.

The thesis statement shares the central purpose of the speech.

Demonstrate

Include background information and a thesis statement

Preview the main ideas that will help accomplish the central purpose. Typically, informational speeches will have an average of three main ideas.

Body paragraphs

Apply the following to each main idea (body) :

Identify the main idea ( NOTE: The main points of a demonstration speech would be the individual steps.)

Provide evidence to support the main idea

Explain how the evidence supports the main idea/central purpose

Transition to the next main idea

Review or restate the thesis and the main points presented throughout the speech.

Much like the attention grabber, the closing statement should interest the audience. Some of the more common techniques include a challenge, a rhetorical question, or restating relevant information:

Provide the audience with a challenge or call to action to apply the presented information to real life.

Detail the benefit of the information.

Close with an anecdote or brief story that illustrates the main points.

Leave the audience with a rhetorical question to ponder after the speech has concluded.

Detail the relevance of the presented information.

Before speech writing, brainstorm a list of informative speech topic ideas. The right topic depends on the type of speech, but good topics can range from video games to disabilities and electric cars to healthcare and mental health.

Informative speech topics

Some common informative essay topics for each type of informational speech include the following:

Informative speech examples

The following list identifies famous informational speeches:

“Duties of American Citizenship” by Theodore Roosevelt

“Duty, Honor, Country” by General Douglas MacArthur

“Strength and Dignity” by Theodore Roosevelt

Explanation

“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” by Patrick Henry

“The Decision to Go to the Moon” by John F. Kennedy

“We Shall Fight on the Beaches” by Winston Churchill

Description

“I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Pearl Harbor Address” by Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“Luckiest Man” by Lou Gehrig

Demonstration

The Way to Cook with Julia Child

This Old House with Bob Vila

Bill Nye the Science Guy with Bill Nye

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Chapter 5: Presentation Organization

32 Purpose and Central Idea Statements

Speeches have traditionally been seen to have one of three broad purposes: to inform, to persuade, and — well, to be honest, different words are used for the third kind of speech purpose: to inspire, to amuse, to please, or to entertain. These broad goals are commonly known as a speech’s general purpose, since, in general, you are trying to inform, persuade, or entertain your audience without regard to specifically what the topic will be. Perhaps you could think of them as appealing to the understanding of the audience (informative), the will or action (persuasive), and the emotion or pleasure.

Now that you know your general purpose (to inform, to persuade, or to entertain), you can start to move in the direction of the specific purpose. A specific purpose statement builds on your general purpose (to inform) and makes it more specific (as the name suggests). So if your first speech is an informative speech, your general purpose will be to inform your audience about a very specific realm of knowledge.

In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose :

You (your interests, your background, past jobs, experience, education, major),
Your audience
The context or setting.

diagram demonstrating three beginning categories, you, your audience, your context leading to a specific purpose statement followed by a central idea statement.

Putting It Together

Keeping these three inputs in mind, you can begin to write a specific purpose statement , which will be the foundation for everything you say in the speech and a guide for what you do not say. This formula will help you in putting together your specific purpose statement:

To _______________ [Specific Communication Word (inform, explain, demonstrate, describe, define, persuade, convince, prove, argue)] my [ Target Audience (my classmates, the members of the Social Work Club, my coworkers] __________________. [T he Content (how to bake brownies, that Macs are better than PCs].

Example: The purpose of my presentation is to demonstrate for my coworkers the value of informed intercultural communication.

Formulating a Central Idea Statement

While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be. The statement that reveals your main points is commonly known as the central idea statement (or just the central idea). Just as you would create a thesis statement for an essay or research paper, the central idea statement helps focus your presentation by defining your topic, purpose, direction, angle and/or point of view. Here are two examples:

Specific Purpose – To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.

Central Idea – When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects.

Specific Purpose – To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard.

Central Idea – Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

Communication for Business Professionals Copyright © 2018 by eCampusOntario is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

48 What is an Informative Speech?

Defining what an informative speech is can be both straight-forward and somewhat tricky at the same time. Very simply, an informative speech can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts. Basically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or describing the plot of a movie to friends, people engage in forms of informative speaking daily. Secondly, an informative speech does not attempt to convince the audience that one thing is better than another. It does not advocate a course of action. Consider the following two statements:

George Washington was the first President of the United States.

In each case, the statement made is what can be described as irrefutable , meaning a statement or claim that cannot be argued. In the first example, even small children are taught that having two apples and then getting two more apples will result in having four apples. This statement is irrefutable in that no one in the world will (or should!) argue this: It is a fact.

Similarly, with the statement “George Washington was the first President of the United States,” this again is an irrefutable fact. If you asked one hundred history professors and read one hundred history textbooks, the professors and textbooks would all say the same thing: Washington was the first president. No expert, reliable source, or person with any common sense would argue about this.

(Someone at this point might say, “No, John Hanson was the first president.” However, he was president under the Articles of Confederation for a short period—November 5, 1781, to November 3, 1782—not under our present Constitution. This example shows the importance of stating your facts clearly and precisely and being able to cite their origins.)

Therefore, an informative speech should not incorporate opinion as its basis. This can be the tricky part of developing an informative speech, because some opinion statements sometime sound like facts (since they are generally agreed upon by many people), but are really opinion.

For example, in an informative speech on George Washington, you might say, “George Washington was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States.” While this statement may be agreed upon by most people, it is possible for some people to disagree and argue the opposite point of view. The statement “George Washington was one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States” is not irrefutable, meaning someone could argue this claim. If, however, you present the opinion as an opinion from a source, that is acceptable: it is a fact that someone (hopefully someone with expertise) holds the opinion. You do not want your central idea, your main points, and the majority of your supporting material to be opinion or argument in an informative speech.

Additionally, you should never take sides on an issue in an informative speech, nor should you “spin” the issue in order to influence the opinions of the listeners. Even if you are informing the audience about differences in views on controversial topics, you should simply and clearly explain the issues. This is not to say, however, that the audience’s needs and interests have nothing to do with the informative speech. We come back to the WIIFM principle (“What’s in it for me?) because even though an informative speech is fact-based, it still needs to relate to people’s lives in order to maintain their attention.

The question may arise here, “If we can find anything on the Internet now, why bother to give an informative speech?” The answer lies in the unique relationship between audience and speaker found in the public speaking context. The speaker can choose to present information that is of most value to the audience. Secondly, the speaker is not just overloading the audience with data. As we have mentioned before, that’s not really a good idea because audiences cannot remember great amounts of data and facts after listening. The focus of the content is what matters. This is where the specific purpose and central idea come into play. Remember, public speaking is not a good way to “dump data” on the audience, but to make information meaningful.

Finally, although we have stressed that the informative speech is fact- based and does not have the purpose of persuasion, information still has an indirect effect on someone. If a classmate gives a speech on correctly using the Heimlich Maneuver to help a choking victim, the side effect (and probably desired result) is that the audience would use it when confronted with the situation.

a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts and whose main purpose is to inform rather than persuade, amuse, or inspire

a statement or claim that cannot be argued

a personal view, attitude, or belief about something

Share This Book

Speechwriting

8 Purpose and Thesis

Speechwriting Essentials

In this chapter . . .

As discussed in the chapter on Speaking Occasion , speechwriting begins with careful analysis of the speech occasion and its given circumstances, leading to the choice of an appropriate topic. As with essay writing, the early work of speechwriting follows familiar steps: brainstorming, research, pre-writing, thesis, and so on.

This chapter focuses on techniques that are unique to speechwriting. As a spoken form, speeches must be clear about the purpose and main idea or “takeaway.” Planned redundancy means that you will be repeating these elements several times over during the speech.

Furthermore, finding purpose and thesis are essential whether you’re preparing an outline for extemporaneous delivery or a completely written manuscript for presentation. When you know your topic, your general and specific purpose, and your thesis or central idea, you have all the elements you need to write a speech that is focused, clear, and audience friendly.

Recognizing the General Purpose

Speeches have traditionally been grouped into one of three categories according to their primary purpose: 1) to inform, 2) to persuade, or 3) to inspire, honor, or entertain. These broad goals are commonly known as the general purpose of a speech . Earlier, you learned about the actor’s tool of intention or objectives. The general purpose is like a super-objective; it defines the broadest goal of a speech. These three purposes are not necessarily exclusive to the others. A speech designed to be persuasive can also be informative and entertaining. However, a speech should have one primary goal. That is its general purpose.

Why is it helpful to talk about speeches in such broad terms? Being perfectly clear about what you want your speech to do or make happen for your audience will keep you focused. You can make a clearer distinction between whether you want your audience to leave your speech knowing more (to inform), or ready to take action (to persuade), or feeling something (to inspire)

It’s okay to use synonyms for these broad categories. Here are some of them:

To inform could be to explain, to demonstrate, to describe, to teach.
To persuade could be to convince, to argue, to motivate, to prove.
To inspire might be to honor, or entertain, to celebrate, to mourn.

In summary, the first question you must ask yourself when starting to prepare a speech is, “Is the primary purpose of my speech to inform, to persuade, or to inspire?”

Articulating Specific Purpose

A specific purpose statement builds upon your general purpose and makes it specific (as the name suggests). For example, if you have been invited to give a speech about how to do something, your general purpose is “to inform.” Choosing a topic appropriate to that general purpose, you decide to speak about how to protect a personal from cyberattacks. Now you are on your way to identifying a specific purpose.

A good specific purpose statement has three elements: goal, target audience, and content.

If you think about the above as a kind of recipe, then the first two “ingredients” — your goal and your audience — should be simple. Words describing the target audience should be as specific as possible. Instead of “my peers,” you could say, for example, “students in their senior year at my university.”

The third ingredient in this recipe is content, or what we call the topic of your speech. This is where things get a bit difficult. You want your content to be specific and something that you can express succinctly in a sentence. Here are some common problems that speakers make in defining the content, and the fix:

Now you know the “recipe” for a specific purpose statement. It’s made up of T o, plus an active W ord, a specific A udience, and clearly stated C ontent. Remember this formula: T + W + A + C.

A: for a group of new students

C: the term “plagiarism”

Here are some further examples a good specific purpose statement:

To explain to a group of first-year students how to join a school organization.
To persuade the members of the Greek society to take a spring break trip in Daytona Beach.
To motivate my classmates in English 101 to participate in a study abroad program.
To convince first-year students that they need at least seven hours of sleep per night to do well in their studies.
To inspire my Church community about the accomplishments of our pastor.

The General and Specific Purpose Statements are writing tools in the sense that they help you, as a speechwriter, clarify your ideas.

Creating a Thesis Statement

Once you are clear about your general purpose and specific purpose, you can turn your attention to crafting a thesis statement. A thesis is the central idea in an essay or a speech. In speechwriting, the thesis or central idea explains the message of the content. It’s the speech’s “takeaway.” A good thesis statement will also reveal and clarify the ideas or assertions you’ll be addressing in your speech (your main points). Consider this example:

General Purpose: To persuade. Specific Purpose: To motivate my classmates in English 101 to participate in a study abroad program. Thesis: A semester-long study abroad experience produces lifelong benefits by teaching you about another culture, developing your language skills, and enhancing your future career prospects.

The difference between a specific purpose statement and a thesis statement is clear in this example. The thesis provides the takeaway (the lifelong benefits of study abroad). It also points to the assertions that will be addressed in the speech. Like the specific purpose statement, the thesis statement is a writing tool. You’ll incorporate it into your speech, usually as part of the introduction and conclusion.

All good expository, rhetorical, and even narrative writing contains a thesis. Many students and even experienced writers struggle with formulating a thesis. We struggle when we attempt to “come up with something” before doing the necessary research and reflection. A thesis only becomes clear through the thinking and writing process. As you develop your speech content, keep asking yourself: What is important here? If the audience can remember only one thing about this topic, what do I want them to remember?

Example #2: General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard. Central Idea: Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

Example # 3 General Purpose: To Inform Specific Purpose: To describe how makeup is done for the TV show The Walking Dead . Central Idea: The wildly popular zombie show The Walking Dead achieves incredibly scary and believable makeup effects, and in the next few minutes I will tell you who does it, what they use, and how they do it.

Notice in the examples above that neither the specific purpose nor the central idea ever exceeds one sentence. If your central idea consists of more than one sentence, then you are probably including too much information.

Problems to Avoid

The first problem many students have in writing their specific purpose statement has already been mentioned: specific purpose statements sometimes try to cover far too much and are too broad. For example:

“To explain to my classmates the history of ballet.”

Aside from the fact that this subject may be difficult for everyone in your audience to relate to, it’s enough for a three-hour lecture, maybe even a whole course. You’ll probably find that your first attempt at a specific purpose statement will need refining. These examples are much more specific and much more manageable given the limited amount of time you’ll have.

To explain to my classmates how ballet came to be performed and studied in the U.S.
To explain to my classmates the difference between Russian and French ballet.
To explain to my classmates how ballet originated as an art form in the Renaissance.
To explain to my classmates the origin of the ballet dancers’ clothing.

The second problem happens when the “communication verb” in the specific purpose does not match the content; for example, persuasive content is paired with “to inform” or “to explain.” Can you find the errors in the following purpose statements?

To inform my audience why capital punishment is unconstitutional. (This is persuasive. It can’t be informative since it’s taking a side)
To persuade my audience about the three types of individual retirement accounts. (Even though the purpose statement says “persuade,” it isn’t persuading the audience of anything. It is informative.)
To inform my classmates that Universal Studios is a better theme park than Six Flags over Georgia. (This is clearly an opinion; hence it is a persuasive speech and not merely informative)

The third problem exists when the content part of the specific purpose statement has two parts. One specific purpose is enough. These examples cover two different topics.

To explain to my audience how to swing a golf club and choose the best golf shoes.
To persuade my classmates to be involved in the Special Olympics and vote to fund better classes for the intellectually disabled.

To fix this problem of combined or hybrid purposes, you’ll need to select one of the topics in these examples and speak on that one alone.

The fourth problem with both specific purpose and central idea statements is related to formatting. There are some general guidelines that need to be followed in terms of how you write out these elements of your speech:

Don’t write either statement as a question.
Always use complete sentences for central idea statements and infinitive phrases (beginning with “to”) for the specific purpose statement.
Use concrete language (“I admire Beyoncé for being a talented performer and businesswoman”) and avoid subjective or slang terms (“My speech is about why I think Beyoncé is the bomb”) or jargon and acronyms (“PLA is better than CBE for adult learners.”)

There are also problems to avoid in writing the central idea statement. As mentioned above, remember that:

The specific purpose and central idea statements are not the same thing, although they are related.
The central idea statement should be clear and not complicated or wordy; it should “stand out” to the audience. As you practice delivery, you should emphasize it with your voice.
The central idea statement should not be the first thing you say but should follow the steps of a good introduction as outlined in the next chapters.

You should be aware that all aspects of your speech are constantly going to change as you move toward the moment of giving your speech. The exact wording of your central idea may change, and you can experiment with different versions for effectiveness. However, your specific purpose statement should not change unless there is a good reason to do so. There are many aspects to consider in the seemingly simple task of writing a specific purpose statement and its companion, the central idea statement. Writing good ones at the beginning will save you some trouble later in the speech preparation process.

Group Presentations

44 Purpose and Central Idea Statements

eCampusOntario

In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose :

You (your interests, your background, past jobs, experience, education, major),
Your audience
The context or setting.

Putting It Together

Example: The purpose of my presentation is to demonstrate for my coworkers the value of informed intercultural communication.

Formulating a Central Idea Statement

Specific Purpose – To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.

Central Idea – When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects.

Specific Purpose – To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard.

Central Idea – Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

Share This Book

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

9.5 Purpose and Central Idea Statements

eCampusOntario

In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose :

You (your interests, your background, past jobs, experience, education, major),
Your audience
The context or setting.

Putting It Together

Example: The purpose of my presentation is to demonstrate for my coworkers the value of informed intercultural communication.

Formulating a Central Idea Statement

Specific Purpose – To explain to my classmates the effects of losing a pet on the elderly.

Central Idea – When elderly persons lose their animal companions, they can experience serious psychological, emotional, and physical effects.

Specific Purpose – To demonstrate to my audience the correct method for cleaning a computer keyboard.

Central Idea – Your computer keyboard needs regular cleaning to function well, and you can achieve that in four easy steps.

9.5 Purpose and Central Idea Statements Copyright © 2024 by eCampusOntario is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

37 Chapter 12: Informative Speaking

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, the student will be able to:

Recognize opinion versus factual information;
Recognize the different types of informative speeches;
Decide on the best organizational approach for types of informative speeches;
Follow proven guidelines for preparing an informative speech;
Construct an informative speech.

Chapter Preview

– What is an Informative Speech?

– types of informative speeches, – guidelines for selecting an informative speech topic, – guidelines for preparing an informative speech, – giving informative speeches in groups.

Informative speecha speech based entire- ly and exclusively on facts and whose main purpose is to inform rather than persuade, amuse, or inspire Defining what an informative speech is can be both straight-forward and somewhat tricky at the same time. Very simply, an informative speech can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts.

Basically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or describing the plot of a movie to friends, people engage in forms of informative speaking daily. Secondly, an informative speech does not attempt to convince the audience that one thing is better than another. It does not advocate a course of action. Consider the following two state- ments:

George Washington was the first President of the United States.

Irrefutablea statement or claim that cannot be argued In each case, the statement made is what can be described as irrefutable , meaning a statement or claim that cannot be argued. In the first example, even small children are taught that having two apples and then getting two more apples will result in having four apples. This statement is irrefutable in that no one in the world will (or should!) argue this: It is a fact.

(Someone at this point might say, “No, John Hanson was the first presi- dent.” However, he was president under the Articles of Confederation for a short period—November 5, 1781, to November 3, 1782—not under our present Constitution. This example shows the importance of stating your facts clearly and precisely and being able to cite their origins.)

Opiniona personal view, atti- tude, or belief about something Therefore, an informative speech should not incorporate opinion as its basis. This can be the tricky part of developing an informative speech, be- cause some opinion statements sometime sound like facts (since they are generally agreed upon by many people), but are really opinion.

opionion from a source, that is acceptable: it is a fact that someone (hope- fully someone with expertise) holds the opinion. You do not want your central idea, your main points, and the majority of your supporting mate- rial to be opinion or argument in an informative speech.

Additionally, you should never take sides on an issue in an informative speech, nor should you “spin” the issue in order to influence the opinions of the listeners. Even if you are informing the audience about differences in views on controversial topics, you should simply and clearly explain the issues. This is not to say, however, that the audience’s needs and inter- ests have nothing to do with the informative speech. We come back to the WIIFM principle (“What’s in it for me?) because even though an informa- tive speech is fact-based, it still needs to relate to people’s lives in order to maintain their attention.

The question may arise here, “If we can find anything on the Internet now, why bother to give an informative speech?” The answer lies in the unique relationship between audience and speaker found in the public speaking context. The speaker can choose to present information that is of most value to the audience. Secondly, the speaker is not just overloading the audience with data. As we have mentioned before, that’s not really a good idea because audiences cannot remember great amounts of data and facts after listening. The focus of the content is what matters. This is where the specific purpose and central idea come into play. Remember, public speak- ing is not a good way to “dump data” on the audiene, but to make informa- tion meaningful.

While the topics to choose from for informative speeches are nearly limit- less, they can generally be pared down into five broad categories. Under- standing the type of informative speech that you will be giving can help you to figure out the best way to organize, research, and prepare for it, as will be discussed below.

Type 1: History

A common approach to selecting an informative speech topic is to discuss the history or development of something. With so much of human knowl- edge available via the Internet, finding information about the origins and

evolution of almost anything is much easier than it has ever been (with the disclaimer that there are quite a few websites out there with false infor- mation). With that in mind, some of the areas that a historical informative speech could cover would include:

(Example: the baseball; the saxophone). Someone at some point in history was the first to develop what is considered the modern baseball. Who was it? What was it originally made of? How did it evolve into the baseball that is used by Major League Baseball today?

(Example: your college; DisneyWorld). There is a specific year that you college or university opened, a specific number of students who were ini- tially enrolled, and often colleges and universities have name and mission changes. All of these facts can be used to provide an overall understanding of the college and its history. Likewise, the DisneyWorld of today is dif- ferent from the DisneyWorld of the early 1970s; the design has developed over the last fifty years.

(Example: democracy; freedom of speech). It is possible to provide facts on an idea, although in some cases the information may be less precise. For example, while no one can definitively point to a specific date or indi- vidual who first developed the concept of democracy, it is known to have been conceived in ancient Greece (Raaflaub, Ober, & Wallace, 2007). By looking at the civilizations and cultures that adopted forms of democra- cy throughout history, it is possible to provide an audience with a better understanding of how the idea has been shaped into what it has become today.

Type 2: Biography

A biography is similar to a history, but in this case the subject is specifically a person, whether living or deceased. For the purposes of this class, biog- raphies should focus on people of some note or fame, since doing research on people who are not at least mildly well-known could be difficult. But again, as with histories, there are specific and irrefutable facts that can help provide an overview of someone’s life, such as dates that President Lincoln was born (February 12, 1809) and died (April 15, 1865) and the years he was in office as president (1861-1865).

This might be a good place to address research and support. The basic dates of Abraham Lincoln’s life could be found in multiple sources and you would not have to cite the source in that case. But it you use the work of a

specific historian to explain how Lincoln was able to win the presidency in the tumultuous years before the Civil War, that would need a citation of that author and the publication.

Type 3: Processes

Examples of process speech topics would be how to bake chocolate chip cookies; how to throw a baseball; how a nuclear reactor works; how a bill works its way through Congress.

Process speeches are sometimes referred to as demonstration or “how to” speeches because they often entail demonstrating something. These speeches require you to provide steps that will help your audience un- derstand how to accomplish a specific task or process. However, How To speeches can be tricky in that there are rarely universally agreed upon

(i.e. irrefutable) ways to do anything. If your professor asked the students in his or her public speaking class to each bring in a recipe for baking chocolate chip cookies, would all of them be the exact same recipe?

Probably not, but they would all be similar and, most importantly, they would all give you chocolate chip cookies as the end result. Students giving a demonstration speech will want to avoid saying “You should bake the cookies for 12 minutes” since that is not how everyone does it. Instead, the student should say something like:

“You can bake the cookies for 10 minutes.”

“One option is to bake the cookies for 10 minutes.”

“This particular recipe calls for the cookies to be baked for 10 min- utes.”

Each of the previous three statements is absolutely a fact that no one can argue or disagree with. While some people may say 12 minutes is too long or too short (depending on how soft or hard they like their cookies), no one can reasonably argue that these statements are not true.

On the other hand, there is a second type of process speech that focuses not on how the audience can achieve a result, such as changing oil in their cars or cooking something, but on how a process is achieved. The goal is understanding and not performance. After a speech on how to change a car tire, the audience members could probably do it (they might not want to, but they would know the steps). However, after a speech on how a bill goes through Congress, the audience would understand this important part of democracy but not be ready to serve in Congress.

Type 4: Ideas and Concepts

Sometimes an informative speech is designed to explain an idea or con- cept. What does democracy mean? What is justice? In this case, you will want to do two things. First, use the definition methods listed in Chapter 6, such as classification and differentiation. The second is to make your concept concrete, real, and specific for your audience with examples.

Type 5: Categories or divisions

Sometimes an informative speech topic doesn’t lend itself to a specific type of approach, and in those cases the topics tend to fall into a “general” category of informative speeches. For example, if a student wanted to give an informative speech on the four “C’s” of diamonds (cut, carat, color, and clarity), they certainly wouldn’t approach it as if they were providing the history of diamonds, nor would they necessarily be informing anyone on “how to” shop for or buy diamonds or how diamonds are mined. The ap-

proach in this case would simply be to inform an audience on the four “C’s” and what they mean. Other examples of this type of informative speech would be positions in playing volleyball or the customs to know when trav- eling in China.

As stated above, identifying the type of informative speech being given can help in several ways (conducting research, writing the introduction and conclusion), but perhaps the biggest benefit is that the type of informative speech being given will help determine, to some degree, the organizational pattern that will need to be used (see Chapter 6). For example, a How To speech must be in chronological order. There really isn’t a way (or reason) to present a How To speech other than how the process is done in a time sequence. That is to say, for a speech on how to bake chocolate chip cook- ies, getting the ingredients (Main Point 1) must come before mixing the ingredients (Main Point 2), which must come before baking them (Main Point 3). Putting them in any other order will only confuse the audience.

Similarly, most Histories and Biographies will be organized chronologi- cally, but not always. It makes sense to explain the history of the baseball from when it was first developed to where it is today, but certain approach-

es to Histories and Biographies can make that irrelevant. For an informa- tive speech on Benjamin Franklin, a student might choose as his or her three main points: 1) His time as a printer, 2) His time as an inventor, 3) His time as a diplomat. These main points are not in strict chronological order because Franklin was a printer, inventor, and diplomat at the same time during periods of his whole life. However, this example would still be one way to inform an audience about him without using the chronological organizational pattern.

As for general informative speeches, since the topics that can be includ- ed in this category are very diverse and cover a range of subject matter, the way they are organized will be varied as well. However, if the topic is “types of” something or “kinds of” something, the organizational pat-

tern would be topical; if it were the layout of a location, such as the White House, it would be spatial (refer to Chapter 6 for more on Organization).

While some of the guidelines for selecting a topic were discussed in Chap- ters 2, 4, and 5, this section will more specifically focus on informative speech topics and problems that can arise when choosing them.

Pick a specific or focused topic

Perhaps one of the biggest and most common misconceptions students have about informative speech topics is that the topic needs to be broad in order to fill the time requirements for the speech. It is not uncommon for a student to propose an informative speech topic such as “To inform my audience about the history of music.” How is that topic even possible? When does the history of music even begin? The thinking here is that this speech will be easy to research and write since there is so much informa- tion available. But the opposite is actually true. A topic this broad makes doing research even harder.

Let’s consider the example of a student who proposes the topic “To in- form my audience about the Civil War.” The Civil War was, conservatively speaking, four years long, resulted in over 750,000 casualties, and argu- ably changed the course of human history. So to think that it is possible to cover all of that in five to seven minutes is unrealistic. Also, a typical

college library has hundreds of books dealing with the Civil War. How will you choose which ones are best suited to use for your speech?

The better approach in this case is to be as specific as possible. A revised specific purpose for this speech might be something like “To inform my audience about the Gettysburg Address.” This topic is much more compact

(the Gettysburg Address is only a few minutes long), and doing research will now be exponentially easier—although you will still find hundreds of sources on it. Or, an even more specific topic would be like the one in the outline at the end of this chapter: “To inform my classmates of the specific places in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that are considered haunted.”

Instead of looking through all the books in your campus library on the Civ- il War, searching through the library’s databases and catalog for material on the Gettysburg Address will yield a much more manageable number of books and articles. It may sound counterintuitive, but selecting a speech topic that is very specifically focused will make the research and writing phases of the informative speech much easier.

Avoid faux or fake informative speech topics

Sometimes students think that because something sounds like an informa- tive speech topic, it is one. This happens a lot with political issues that are usually partisan in nature. Some students may feel that the speech topic “To inform my audience why William Henry Harrison was a bad president” sounds factual, but really this is an opinion. Similarly, a number of topics that include conspiracy and paranormal subject matter are usually mistak- en for good informative topics as well.

It is not uncommon for a student to propose the topic “To inform my au- dience about the existence of extraterrestrials,” thinking it is a good topic. After all, there is plenty of evidence to support the claim, right? There are pictures of unidentified objects in the sky that people claim are from outer space, there are people who claim to have seen extraterrestrials, and most powerful of all, there are people who say that they have been abducted by aliens and taken into space.

The problem here, as you have probably already guessed, is that these facts are not irrefutable. Not every single person who sees something unknown

in the sky will agree it is an alien spacecraft, and there can be little doubt that not everyone who claims to have been abducted by a UFO is telling the truth. This isn’t to say that you can’t still do an informative speech on alien sites. For example, two viable options are “To inform my audience about the SETI Project” or “To inform my audience of the origin of the Area 51 conspiracy.” However, these types of speeches can quickly devolve into opinion if you aren’t careful, which would then make them persuasive speeches. Even if you start by trying to be objective, unless you can present each side equally, it will end up becoming a persuasive speech. Additional- ly, when a speaker picks such a topic, it is often because of a latent desire to persuade the audience about them.

Don’t Be Too Broad

In preparing and writing an informative speech, one of the most common mistakes students make is to think that they must be comprehensive in covering their topic, which isn’t realistic. Take for example an informative speech on Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was 56 years old when he died, so to think that it is possible to cover his entire life’s story in 5 to 7 minutes is un-realistic. As discussed in Chapter 4, the better option is to select three aspects of his life and focus on those as a way to provide an overall picture of who he was. So a proposed speech on Lincoln might have the specific purpose: “To inform my audience about Abraham Lincoln’s administra- tion of the Civil War.” This is still a huge topic in that massive books have been written about it, but it could be addressed in three or four main points such as:

The Civil War began in the aftermath of Lincoln’s Election and Inauguration
Finding the right military leaders for the Union was his major chal- lenge at the beginning.
The Emancipation Proclamation changed the nature of the War.
Lincoln adopted a policy that led to the North’s victory.

Be Accurate, Clear, and Interesting

A good informative speech conveys accurate information to the audience in a way that is clear and that keeps the listener interested in the topic.

Achieving all three of these goals—accuracy, clarity, and interest—is the key to being an effective speaker. If information is inaccurate, incomplete, or unclear, it will be of limited usefulness to the audience.

Part of being accurate is making sure that your information is current. Even if you know a great deal about your topic or wrote a good paper on the topic in a high school course, you will need to verify the accuracy and completeness of what you know, especially if it is medical or scientific information. Most people understand that technology changes rapidly, so you need to update your information almost constantly. The same is true for topics that, on the surface, may seem to require less updating. For example, the Civil War occurred over 150 years ago, but contemporary research still offers new and emerging theories about the causes of the war and its long-term effects. So even with a topic that seems to be unchanging, carefully check the information to be sure it’s accurate and up to date.

What defines “interesting?” In approaching the informative speech, you should keep in mind the good overall principle that the audience is asking, “what’s in it for me?” The audience is either consciously or unconsciously wondering “What in this topic for me? How can I use this information? Of what value is this speech content to me? Why should I listen to it?” One reason this textbook uses examples of the Civil War is that the authors’ college is located by several Civil War sites and even a major battlefield.

Students see reminders of the Civil War on a regular basis.

You might consider it one of the jobs of the introduction to directly or in- directly answer these questions. If you can’t, then you need to think about your topic and why you are addressing it. If it’s only because the topic is interesting to you, you are missing the point. For example, why should we know about Abraham Lincoln’s administration of the Civil War? Obviously, because it had significant, long-term consequences to Americans, and you should articulate that in terms the audience can understand.

Keep in Mind Audience Diversity

Finally, remember that not everyone in your audience is the same, so an informative speech should be prepared with audience diversity in mind. If the information in a speech is too complex or too simplistic, it will not hold the interest of the listeners. Determining the right level of complexity can be hard. Audience analysis is one important way to do this (see Chapter 2). Do the members of your audience belong to different age groups? Did they all go to public schools in the United States, or are some them internation- al students? Are they all students majoring in the same subject, or is there a mixture of majors? Never assume that just because an audience is made up of students, they all share a knowledge set.

There are instances where you will be called upon to give an informative speech as part of a group of other informative speakers. This situation may be referred to as a panel or as a symposium. The difference is that in a panel, the focus is on a discussion by experts in front of an audience. The expert speakers may start with an opening statement, but typically the panelists are seated and their opening remarks are designed to pres- ent their basic position or stance and the bulk of time is spent in ques- tion-and-answer from the audience, from the moderator, or from each other. Some tips for panels are given here . (https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo)

A symposium is more formal and the experts or presenters have put to- gether prepared speeches on different aspects of an overall topic. For example, they may all be experts on juveniles in the criminal justice sys- tem, but they have chosen or been assigned a specific informative topic for the audience, who are probably also professionals in that field. One might speak on challenges with legal representation for juveniles, another on family reconciliation, another on educational opportunities, and so on. While there may be time for question and answers at the end, the bulk of the time is taken up by the prepared speeches.

The author has used the symposium format in her teaching of the informa- tive speech for over 25 years. The students at first are skeptical, but usu- ally afterward they see the benefit of the experience in the classroom. For one thing, instead of a class of 25-30 separate and unrelated informative speeches in the class, there are four sets of related speeches that explore a topic in more depth. Some popular topics have been physical and mental health issues (diabetes, breast cancer, pets, schizophrenia, phobias), the arts (musical genres, history of film), travel, and food. In those years, there have been topics that didn’t work. Serial killers and sexually transmitted infections were two of them. One speech on that is acceptable. Six or seven, not so much. Just to clarify, the author always assigns the groups but the students pick the topics.

Here are some pointers if you are assigned to give a symposium-style in- formative speech. 1. Spend ample time discussing the topics so that every- one is supportive of the overall topic and the way the topic is broken down into separate speech topics. Do not let one person run the show and insist on a specific topic. A strong personality can sway the rest of the group

and then later the other members become unhappy about the topic and resentful of the persuasive member. 2. Try to develop topics in different ways; for example, let’s take the overall topic of phobias. The temptation is for each separate speech to be a specific phobia. While this is all right, it becomes repetitive to the audience. There are other ways to develop the subtopics (origins, different treatment options, phobias related to certain

demographic groups) instead of six or seven speeches on different pho- bias. 3. Be in constant communication with your peers so that you know exactly what their topics are and how they are being developed. You don’t want one or two co-presenters to “go rogue” and change their topics with- out the knowledge of the others in the group. You also do not want to end up overlapping, so that part of your speech is actually in someone else’s speech. Share phone numbers so you can text or call each other, if the members are willing. 4. You should appoint a moderator who will intro- duce the speeches and speakers and close or call for questions when the speeches are completed, and possibly summarize the set of speeches at the end. This member does not have to be the first or last speaker in the group.

Be sure the order of speeches is logical, not random. 6. Be sure to get to the class early so you can set up and feel secure that your team members are present. 7. If you are required to have a question-and-answer session at the end, the moderator should try to make sure that the participation is balanced and one talkative person doesn’t answer all the questions. There will be questions you cannot answer, so just be honest and say, “I didn’t find that answer in my research.”

Many instructors use this format because it not only teaches informative speaking skills, but because it emphasizes team work. You will be expect- ed to do many team projects in your educational and professional careers, and this is a good way to start learning effective teamwork skills.

Learning how to give informative speeches will serve you well in your col- lege career and your future work. Keep in mind the principles in this chap- ter but also those of the previous chapters: relating to the informational needs of the audience, using clear structure, and incorporating interesting and attention-getting supporting evidence.

Something to Think About

Here are three general topics for informative speeches. Write specific pur- poses for them and explain how you would answer the WIIFM question.

Type 1 diabetes
The psychological effects of using social media

Two outlines for informative speeches are provided on the following pages. They utilize slightly different formats; other outline formats are included in one of the appendices. Your instructor will let you know which one he or she prefers or will provide examples of another format.

Sample Outline: Informative Speech on Lord Byron

By shannon stanley.

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the life of George Gordon, Lord Byron.

Central Idea: George Gordon, Lord Byron overcame physical hardships, was a world-renowned poet, and an advocate for the Greek’s war for free- dom.

Introduction

Imagine an eleven year old boy who has been beaten and sexually abused repeatedly by the very person who is supposed to take care of him.
This is one of the many hurdles that George Gordon, better known as Lord Byron, overcame during his childhood.
Lord Byron was also a talented poet with the ability to transform his life into the words of his poetry.
Byron became a serious poet by the age of fifteen and he was first published in 1807 at the age of nineteen.
Lord Byron was a staunch believer in freedom and equality, so he gave most of his fortune, and in the end, his very life, supporting the Greek’s war for independence.
While many of you have probably never heard of Lord Byron, his life and written work will become more familiar to you when you take Humanities 1201, as I learned when I took it last semester.
Lord Byron was born on January 22, 1788 to Captain John Byron and Catherine Gordon Byron.
According to Paul Trueblood, the author of Lord Byron, Lord Byron’s father only married Catherine for her dowry, which he quickly went through, leaving his wife and child nearly penniless.
By the age of two, Lord Byron and his mother had moved to Aberdeen in Scotland and shortly thereafter, his father died in France at the age of thirty-six.
Lord Byron was born with a clubbed right foot, which is a deformity that caused his foot to turn sideways instead of remaining straight, and his mother had no money to seek treatment for this painful and embarrassing condition.
He would become very upset and fight anyone who even spoke of his lameness.
Despite his handicap, Lord Byron was very active and liked competing with the other boys.
At the age of ten, his grand-uncle died leaving him the title as the sixth Baron Byron of Rochdale.
With this title, he also inherited Newstead Abbey, a dilapidated estate that was in great need of repair.
Because the Abbey was in Nottinghamshire England, he and his mother moved there and stayed at the abbey until it was rented out to pay for the necessary repairs.
During this time, May Gray, Byron’s nurse had al- ready begun physically and sexually abusing him.
A year passed before he finally told his guardian, John Hanson, about May’s abuse; she was fired im- mediately.
Unfortunately the damage had already been done.
In the book Lord Byron, it is stated that years later he wrote “My passions were developed very early- so early, that few would believe me if I were to state the period, and the facts which accompanied it.”
Although Lord Byron had many obstacles to overcome during his childhood, he became a world renowned poet by the age of 24.
Lord Byron experienced the same emotions we all do, but he was able to express those emotions in the form of his poetry and share them with the world.
According to Horace Gregory, The author of Poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron, the years from 1816 through 1824 is when Lord Byron was most known throughout Europe.
But according to Paul Trueblood, Childe Harold was pub- lished in 1812 and became one of the best-selling works of literature in the 19th century.
Childe Harold was written while Lord Byron was traveling through Europe after graduating from Trinity College.
Many authors such as Trueblood, and Garrett, the author of George Gordon, Lord Byron, express their opinion that Childe Harold is an autobiography about Byron and his travels.
Lord Byron often wrote about the ones he loved the most, such as the poem “She Walks in Beauty” written about his cousin Anne Wilmont, and “Stanzas for Music” written for his half-sister, Augusta Leigh.
He was also an avid reader of the Old Testament and would write poetry about stories from the Bible that he loved.
One such story was about the last king of Babylon.
This poem was called the “Vision of Belshazzar,” and is very much like the bible version in the book of Daniel.
Although Lord Byron is mostly known for his talents as a poet, he was also an advocate for the Greek’s war for inde- pendence.
Lord Byron, after his self-imposed exile from England, took the side of the Greek’s in their war for freedom from Turkish rule.
Byron arrived in Greece in 1823 during a civil war.
The Greek’s were too busy fighting amongst them- selves to come together to form a formidable army against the Turks.
According to Martin Garrett, Lord Byron donated money to refit the Greek’s fleet of ships, but did not immediately get involved in the situation.
He had doubts as to if or when the Greek’s would ever come together and agree long enough to make any kind of a difference in their war effort.
Eventually the Greek’s united and began their cam- paign for the Greek War of Independence.
He began pouring more and more of his fortune into the Greek army and finally accepted a position to oversee a small group of men sailing to Missolonghi.
Lord Byron set sail for Missolonghi in Western Greece in 1824. 1. He took a commanding position over a small num- ber of the Greek army despite his lack of military training.

2. He had also made plans to attack a Turkish held fortress but became very ill before the plans were ever carried through.

Lord Byron died on April 19, 1824 at the age of 36 due to the inexperienced doctors who continued to bleed him while he suffered from a severe fever.
After Lord Byron’s death, the Greek War of Indepen- dence, due to his support, received more foreign aid which led to their eventual victory in 1832.
Lord Byron is hailed as a national hero by the Greek nation.
Many tributes such as statues and road-names have been devoted to Lord Byron since the time of his death.
In conclusion, Lord Byron overcame great physical hardships to become a world-renowned poet, and is seen as a hero to the Greek nation and is mourned by them still today.
I have chosen not to focus on Lord Byron’s more liberal

way of life, but rather to focus on his accomplishments in life.

He was a man who owed no loyalty to Greece, yet gave his life to support their cause.
Most of the world will remember Lord Byron primarily through his written attributes, but Greece will always re- member him as the “Trumpet Voice of Liberty.”

Garrett, M. (2000). George Gordon, Lord Byron. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gregory, H. (1969). Poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron. New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

Trueblood, P. G. (1969). Lord Byron. (S. E. Bowman, Ed.). New York, NY: Twayne Publishers.

Sample Outline: Informative Speech on Haunted Places in Gettysburg

By leslie dean.

Specific Purpose: To inform my classmates of specific places in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that are considered to be haunted.

Introduction: Do you believe in paranormal activity? Have you ever been to a place that is haunted? My personal opinion on this subject matter is open to question; however, there are a lot of people that have had first- hand encounters with the paranormal. Throughout the world there are countless places that are considered to be haunted by tormented souls that still lurk among us in search of a way to free their souls. Most places that claim to be haunted are intertwined with tales of battles and as a re- sult many fatalities. Tragic times in history make for the perfect breeding grounds for the haunted places that exist today.

Thesis/Preview: Gettysburg is a city that is plagued by historical events that play a role in the manifestations that haunt Gettysburg today. These include locations at The Devil’s Den, Little Round Top, and the Hummel- baugh House.

The Devil’s Den is considered a site for paranormal activity.
The Devil’s Den has historical significance retained during the American Civil War.
Location held heavy fighting during battle that took place on July 2, of 1863.
The total death toll estimated during battle consist- ed of 800 for the Union and more than 1,800 for the

Confederates.

Some reported paranormal activity at the Devil’s Den.
According to author, consultant, and lecturer Dennis William Hauck, he states in his book Haunted Places that if you stand outside at the Devil’s Den there can be the sounds of drum rolls and gunshots heard.
According to many visitors there have been many people that claim to have seen and/or taken pictures of and had conversations with a friendly soldier who either disappears or doesn’t show up in photographs.

Transition: Spooky, unexplainable things happen at the Devil’s Den but there is also paranormal activity in another area of Gettysburg, Little Round Top.

Another location said to be haunted is Little Round Top.
Little Round Top’s historical significance.
A site where Union soldiers held up to maintain an advantage over the Confederate soldiers.
According to James Brann, an author from Civil War Magazine, this was a site Union Colonel Joshua

Lawrence Chamberlain led his 20th Maine Regiment in perhaps the most famous counterattack of the Civil War.

Manifestations at Little Round Top.
During filming of the movie Gettysburg (1993), extras portraying Union soldiers were greeted by a man in the uniform of a Union private.
Handed them musket rounds.
Actual rounds that dated back to the Civil War.
Ghostly solders can still be seen marching in for- mation and riding horses in the fight against their enemy.

Transition: It seems that a lot of landmarks are haunted but there are also structures known to be stricken with paranormal activity.

Hummelbaugh House is a non-battlefield place for ghost-sightings.
Historical significance of Hummelbaugh House.
The house is located on the east side of the city and was just behind the Union lines.
It was used for a hospital and because of the times amputated limbs would be thrown out the windows resulting in a huge pile of body parts.
Paranormal activity at the house.
The windows in the house often startle people with

loud vibrations.

The calls for help from soldiers can still be heard in and around the house.

Conclusion: In closing, according to History.com the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the biggest in the Civil War, resulting in over 150,000 causali- ties. With these statistics it is no surprise that lost souls still lurk the eerie grounds of this historical place. Whether it is vibrating windows or actual encounters with soldiers from 1863, Gettysburg has more than enough encounters with the paranormal to convince the biggest of doubters. Going to Gettysburg would guarantee a chance to literally step back in time and encounter something that is only remembered in history books. So believ- er in the paranormal or not, Gettysburg is a place to go to experience a part of history whether it be historical sites or a random run in with a ghostly soldier.

Brann, J. R. (1999). The full story. America’s Civil War, 12(5), 34. Re- trieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d- b=fth&AN=2281134&site=eds-live&scope=site

Hauck, D. (1994). The national directory of haunted places. Athanor Press. Battle of Gettysburg. (2019, May 20). History.com. Retrieved from https:// www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/battle-of-gettysburg

Share This Book

8.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis

Before any work can be done on crafting the body of your speech or presentation, you must first do some prep work—selecting a topic, formulating a general purpose, a specific purpose statement, and crafting a central idea, or thesis statement. In doing so, you lay the foundation for your speech by making important decisions about what you will speak about and for what purpose you will speak. These decisions will influence and guide the entire speechwriting process, so it is wise to think carefully and critically during these beginning stages.

Understanding the General Purpose

Before any work on a speech can be done, the speaker needs to understand the general purpose of the speech. The general purpose is what the speaker hopes to accomplish and will help guide in the selection of a topic. The instructor generally provides the general purpose for a speech, which falls into one of three categories. A general purpose to inform would mean that the speaker is teaching the audience about a topic, increasing their understanding and awareness, or providing new information about a topic the audience might already know. Informative speeches are designed to present the facts, but not give the speaker’s opinion or any call to action. A general purpose to persuade would mean that the speaker is choosing the side of a topic and advocating for their side or belief. The speaker is asking the audience to believe in their stance, or to take an action in support of their topic. A general purpose to entertain often entails short speeches of ceremony, where the speaker is connecting the audience to the celebration. You can see how these general purposes are very different. An informative speech is just facts, the speaker would not be able to provide an opinion or direction on what to do with the information, whereas a persuasive speech includes the speaker’s opinions and direction on what to do with the information. Before a speaker chooses a topic, they must first understand the general purpose.

Selecting a Topic

Generally, speakers focus on one or more interrelated topics—relatively broad concepts, ideas, or problems that are relevant for particular audiences. The most common way that speakers discover topics is by simply observing what is happening around them—at their school, in their local government, or around the world. Opportunities abound for those interested in engaging speech as a tool for change. Perhaps the simplest way to find a topic is to ask yourself a few questions, including:

What important events are occurring locally, nationally, and internationally?
What do I care about most?
Is there someone or something I can advocate for?
What makes me angry/happy?
What beliefs/attitudes do I want to share?
Is there some information the audience needs to know?

Students speak about what is interesting to them and their audiences. What topics do you think are relevant today? There are other questions you might ask yourself, too, but these should lead you to at least a few topical choices. The most important work that these questions do is to locate topics within your pre-existing sphere of knowledge and interest. Topics should be ideas that interest the speaker or are part of their daily lives. In order for a topic to be effective, the speaker needs to have some credibility or connection to the topic; it would be unfair to ask the audience to donate to a cause that the speaker has never donated to. There must be a connection to the topic for the speaker to be seen as credible. David Zarefsky (2010) also identifies brainstorming as a way to develop speech topics, a strategy that can be helpful if the questions listed above did not yield an appropriate or interesting topic. Brainstorming involves looking at your daily activities to determine what you could share with an audience. Perhaps if you work out regularly or eat healthy, you could explain that to an audience, or demonstrate how to dribble a basketball. If you regularly play video games, you may advocate for us to take up video games or explain the history of video games. Anything that you find interesting or important might turn into a topic. Starting with a topic you are already interested in will make writing and presenting your speech a more enjoyable and meaningful experience. It means that your entire speechwriting process will focus on something you find important and that you can present this information to people who stand to benefit from your speech. At this point, it is also important to consider the audience before choosing a topic. While we might really enjoy a lot of different things that could be topics, if the audience has no connection to that topic, then it wouldn’t be meaningful for the speaker or audience. Since we always have a diverse audience, we want to make sure that everyone in the audience can gain some new information from the speech. Sometimes, a topic might be too complicated to cover in the amount of time we have to present, or involve too much information then that topic might not work for the assignment, and finally if the audience can not gain anything from a topic then it won’t work. Ultimately, when we choose a topic we want to pick something that we are familiar with and enjoy, we have credibility and that the audience could gain something from. Once you have answered these questions and narrowed your responses, you are still not done selecting your topic. For instance, you might have decided that you really care about breeds of dogs. This is a very broad topic and could easily lead to a dozen different speeches. To resolve this problem, speakers must also consider the audience to whom they will speak, the scope of their presentation, and the outcome they wish to achieve.

Formulating the Purpose Statements

By honing in on a very specific topic, you begin the work of formulating your purpose statement. In short, a purpose statement clearly states what it is you would like to achieve. Purpose statements are especially helpful for guiding you as you prepare your speech. When deciding which main points, facts, and examples to include, you should simply ask yourself whether they are relevant not only to the topic you have selected, but also whether they support the goal you outlined in your purpose statement. The general purpose statement of a speech may be to inform, to persuade, to celebrate, or to entertain. Thus, it is common to frame a specific purpose statement around one of these goals. According to O’Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement “expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve” (2004). The specific purpose is a single sentence that states what the audience will gain from this speech, or what will happen at the end of the speech. The specific purpose is a combination of the general purpose and the topic and helps the speaker to focus in on what can be achieved in a short speech.

To go back to the topic of a dog breed, the general purpose might be to inform, a specific purpose might be: To inform the audience about how corgis became household pets. If the general purpose is to persuade the specific purpose might be: to persuade the audience that dog breeds deemed “dangerous” should not be excluded from living in the cities. In short, the general purpose statement lays out the broader goal of the speech while the specific purpose statement describes precisely what the speech is intended to do. The specific purpose should focus on the audience and be measurable, if I were to ask the audience before I began the speech how many people know how corgis became household pets, they could raise their hand, and if I ask at the end of my speech how many people know how corgis became household pets, I should see a lot more hands. The specific purpose is the “so what” of the speech, it helps the speaker focus on the audience and take a bigger idea of a topic and narrow it down to what can be accomplished in a short amount of time.

Writing the Thesis Statement

The specific purpose statement is a tool that you will use as you write your speech, but it is unlikely that it will appear verbatim in your speech. Instead, you will want to convert the specific purpose statement into a central idea, or thesis statement that you will share with your audience. Just like in a written paper, where the thesis comes in the first part of the paper, in a speech, the thesis comes within the first few sentences of the speech. The thesis must be stated and tells the audience what to expect in this speech. A thesis statement may encapsulate the main idea of a speech in just a sentence or two and be designed to give audiences a quick preview of what the entire speech will be about. The thesis statement should be a single, declarative statement followed by a separate preview statement. If you are a Harry Potter enthusiast, you may write a thesis statement (central idea) the following way using the above approach: J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella-like story of a rise to fame.

Writing the Preview Statement

A preview statement (or series of statements) is a guide to your speech. This is the part of the speech that literally tells the audience exactly what main points you will cover. If you were to get on any freeway, there would be a green sign on the side of the road that tells you what cities are coming up—this is what your preview statement does; it tells the audience what points will be covered in the speech. Best of all, you would know what to look for! So, if we take our J.K Rowling example, the thesis and preview would look like this: J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella-like rags-to-riches story. First, I will tell you about J.K. Rowling’s humble beginnings. Then, I will describe her personal struggles as a single mom. Finally, I will explain how she overcame adversity and became one of the richest women in the United Kingdom.

Writing the Body of Your Speech

Once you have finished the important work of deciding what your speech will be about, as well as formulating the purpose statement and crafting the thesis, you should turn your attention to writing the body of your speech. The body of your speech consists of 3–4 main points that support your thesis and help the audience to achieve the specific purpose. Creating main points helps to chunk the information you are sharing with your audience into an easy-to-understand organization. Choosing your main points will help you focus in on what information you want to share with the audience in order to prove your thesis. Since we can’t tell the audience everything about our topic, we need to choose our main points to make sure we can share the most important information with our audience. All of your main points are contained in the body, and normally this section is prepared well before you ever write the introduction or conclusion. The body of your speech will consume the largest amount of time to present, and it is the opportunity for you to elaborate on your supporting evidence, such as facts, statistics, examples, and opinions that support your thesis statement and do the work you have outlined in the specific purpose statement. Combining these various elements into a cohesive and compelling speech, however, is not without its difficulties, the first of which is deciding which elements to include and how they ought to be organized to best suit your purpose.

clearly states what it is you would like to achieve

“expresses both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the specific objectives you hope to achieve” (O'Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2004)

single, declarative sentence that captures the essence or main point of your entire presentation

It’s About Them: Public Speaking in the 21st Century Copyright © 2022 by LOUIS: The Louisiana Library Network is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

77 Guidelines for Preparing an Informative Speech

Learning Objectives

After reading this chapter, the student will be able to:

Recognize opinion versus factual information.
Recognize the different types of informative speeches.
Decide on the best organizational approach for types of informative speeches.
Follow proven guidelines for preparing an informative speech.
Construct an informative speech.

Guidelines for Preparing an Informative Speech

Don’t Be Too Broad

In preparing and writing an informative speech, one of the most common mistakes students make is to think that they must be comprehensive in covering their topic, which isn’t realistic. Take for example an informative speech on Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was 56 years old when he died, so to think that it is possible to cover his entire life’s story in 5 to 7 minutes is un-realistic. As discussed in Chapter 4, the better option is to select three aspects of his life and focus on those as a way to provide an overall picture of who he was. So a proposed speech on Lincoln might have the specific purpose: “To inform my audience about Abraham Lincoln’s administration of the Civil War.” This is still a huge topic in that massive books have been written about it, but it could be addressed in three or four main points such as:

The Civil War began in the aftermath of Lincoln’s Election and Inauguration
Finding the right military leaders for the Union was his major challenge at the beginning.
The Emancipation Proclamation changed the nature of the War.
Lincoln adopted a policy that led to the North’s victory.

Regardless of the topic, you will never be able to cover everything that is known about your topic, so don’t try. Select the things that will best help the audience gain a general understanding of the topic, that will interest them, and that they hopefully will find valuable. Providing too much detail on a topic will only serve to dilute the really important points being made and give you less time to expand on what the audience might find the most interesting.

Be Accurate, Clear, and Interesting

A good informative speech conveys accurate information to the audience in a way that is clear and that keeps the listener interested in the topic. Achieving all three of these goals—accuracy, clarity, and interest—is the key to being an effective speaker. If information is inaccurate, incomplete, or unclear, it will be of limited usefulness to the audience.

You might consider it one of the jobs of the introduction to directly or indirectly answer these questions. If you can’t, then you need to think about your topic and why you are addressing it. If it’s only because the topic is interesting to you, you are missing the point. For example, why should we know about Abraham Lincoln’s administration of the Civil War? Obviously, because it had significant, long-term consequences to us as Americans, and you should articulate that in terms the audience can understand.

Keep in Mind Audience Diversity

Finally, remember that not everyone in your audience is the same, so an informative speech should be prepared with audience diversity in mind. If the information in a speech is too complex or too simplistic, it will not hold the interest of the listeners. Determining the right level of complexity can be hard. Audience analysis is one important way to do this (see Chapter 2). Do the members of your audience belong to different age groups? Did they all go to public schools in the United States, or are some them international students? Are they all students majoring in the same subject, or is there a mixture of majors? Never assume that just because an audience is made up of students, they all share a knowledge set.

Learning how to give informative speeches will serve you well in your college career and your future work. Keep in mind the principles in this chapter but also those of the previous chapters: relating to the informational needs of the audience, using clear structure, and incorporating interesting and attention-getting supporting evidence.

Something to Think About

Here are three general topics for informative speeches. Write specific purposes for them and explain how you would answer the WIIFM question.

Type 1 diabetes
The psychological effects of using social media

Sample Outline: Informative Speech on Lord Byron

By Shannon Stanley

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the life of George Gordon, Lord Byron.

Central Idea: George Gordon, Lord Byron overcame physical hardships, was a world-renowned poet, and an advocate for the Greek’s war for freedom.

Introduction

This is one of the many hurdles that George Gordon, better known as Lord Byron, overcame during his childhood.
Lord Byron was also a talented poet with the ability to transform his life into the words of his poetry.
Byron became a serious poet by the age of fifteen and he was first published in 1807 at the age of nineteen.
Lord Byron was a staunch believer in freedom and equality, so he gave most of his fortune, and in the end, his very life, supporting the Greek’s war for independence.
While many of you have probably never heard of Lord Byron, his life and written work will become more familiar to you when you take Humanities 1201, as I learned when I took it last semester.
According to Paul Trueblood, the author of Lord Byron, Lord Byron’s father only married Catherine for her dowry, which he quickly went through, leaving his wife and child nearly penniless.
By the age of two, Lord Byron and his mother had moved to Aberdeen in Scotland and shortly thereafter, his father died in France at the age of thirty-six.
He would become very upset and fight anyone who even spoke of his lameness.
Despite his handicap, Lord Byron was very active and liked competing with the other boys.
With this title, he also inherited Newstead Abbey, a dilapidated estate that was in great need of repair.
Because the Abbey was in Nottinghamshire England, he and his mother moved there and stayed at the abbey until it was rented out to pay for the necessary repairs.
During this time, May Gray, Byron’s nurse had already begun physically and sexually abusing him.
A year passed before he finally told his guardian, John Hanson, about May’s abuse; she was fired immediately.
Unfortunately the damage had already been done.
In the book Lord Byron, it is stated that years later he wrote “My passions were developed very early- so early, that few would believe me if I were to state the period, and the facts which accompanied it.”
Although Lord Byron had many obstacles to overcome during his childhood, he became a world renowned poet by the age of 24.
According to Horace Gregory, The author of Poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron, the years from 1816 through 1824 is when Lord Byron was most known throughout Europe.
Childe Harold was written while Lord Byron was traveling through Europe after graduating from Trinity College.
Many authors such as Trueblood, and Garrett, the author of George Gordon, Lord Byron, express their opinion that Childe Harold is an autobiography about Byron and his travels.
Lord Byron often wrote about the ones he loved the most, such as the poem “She Walks in Beauty” written about his cousin Anne Wilmont, and “Stanzas for Music” written for his half-sister, Augusta Leigh.
One such story was about the last king of Babylon.
This poem was called the “Vision of Belshazzar,” and is very much like the bible version in the book of Daniel.
Although Lord Byron is mostly known for his talents as a poet, he was also an advocate for the Greek’s war for independence.
The Greek’s were too busy fighting amongst themselves to come together to form a formidable army against the Turks.
According to Martin Garrett, Lord Byron donated money to refit the Greek’s fleet of ships, but did not immediately get involved in the situation.
He had doubts as to if or when the Greek’s would ever come together and agree long enough to make any kind of a difference in their war effort.
Eventually the Greek’s united and began their campaign for the Greek War of Independence.
He began pouring more and more of his fortune into the Greek army and finally accepted a position to oversee a small group of men sailing to Missolonghi.
Lord Byron set sail for Missolonghi in Western Greece in 1824. 1. He took a commanding position over a small number of the Greek army despite his lack of military training. 2. He had also made plans to attack a Turkish held fortress but became very ill before the plans were ever carried through.
After Lord Byron’s death, the Greek War of Independence, due to his support, received more foreign aid which led to their eventual victory in 1832.
Lord Byron is hailed as a national hero by the Greek nation.
Many tributes such as statues and road-names have been devoted to Lord Byron since the time of his death.
I have chosen not to focus on Lord Byron’s more liberal way of life, but rather to focus on his accomplishments in life.
He was a man who owed no loyalty to Greece, yet gave his life to support their cause.
Most of the world will remember Lord Byron primarily through his written attributes, but Greece will always remember him as the “Trumpet Voice of Liberty.”

Garrett, M. (2000). George Gordon, Lord Byron. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gregory, H. (1969). Poems of George Gordon, Lord Byron. New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

Trueblood, P. G. (1969). Lord Byron. (S. E. Bowman, Ed.). New York, NY: Twayne Publishers.

Sample Outline: Informative Speech on Haunted Places in Gettysburg

By Leslie Dean

Specific Purpose: To inform my classmates of specific places in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, that are considered to be haunted.

Introduction: Do you believe in paranormal activity? Have you ever been to a place that is haunted? My personal opinion on this subject matter is open to question; however, there are a lot of people that have had firsthand encounters with the paranormal. Throughout the world there are countless places that are considered to be haunted by tormented souls that still lurk among us in search of a way to free their souls. Most places that claim to be haunted are intertwined with tales of battles and as a result many fatalities. Tragic times in history make for the perfect breeding grounds for the haunted places that exist today.

Location held heavy fighting during battle that took place on July 2, of 1863.
The total death toll estimated during battle consisted of 800 for the Union and more than 1,800 for the Confederates.
According to author, consultant, and lecturer Dennis William Hauck, he states in his book Haunted Places that if you stand outside at the Devil’s Den there can be the sounds of drum rolls and gunshots heard.
According to many visitors there have been many people that claim to have seen and/or taken pictures of and had conversations with a friendly soldier who either disappears or doesn’t show up in photographs.

Transition: Spooky, unexplainable things happen at the Devil’s Den but there is also paranormal activity in another area of Gettysburg, Little Round Top.

A site where Union soldiers held up to maintain an advantage over the Confederate soldiers.
According to James Brann, an author from Civil War Magazine, this was a site Union Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain led his 20th Maine Regiment in perhaps the most famous counterattack of the Civil War.
Handed them musket rounds.
Actual rounds that dated back to the Civil War.
Ghostly solders can still be seen marching in formation and riding horses in the fight against their enemy.

Transition: It seems that a lot of landmarks are haunted but there are also structures known to be stricken with paranormal activity.

The house is located on the east side of the city and was just behind the Union lines.
It was used for a hospital and because of the times amputated limbs would be thrown out the windows resulting in a huge pile of body parts.
The windows in the house often startle people with loud vibrations.
The calls for help from soldiers can still be heard in and around the house.

Conclusion: In closing, according to History.com the Battle of Gettysburg was one of the biggest in the Civil War, resulting in over 150,000 causalities. With these statistics it is no surprise that lost souls still lurk the eerie grounds of this historical place. Whether it is vibrating windows or actual encounters with soldiers from 1863, Gettysburg has more than enough encounters with the paranormal to convince the biggest of doubters. Going to Gettysburg would guarantee a chance to literally step back in time and encounter something that is only remembered in history books. So believer in the paranormal or not, Gettysburg is a place to go to experience a part of history whether it be historical sites or a random run in with a ghostly soldier.

Exploring Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2020 by Chris Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

IMAGES

5 Steps for Writing an Informative Speech
FREE 8+ Informative Speech Samples in MS Word
10 Ideal Central Idea Of A Speech 2023
Informative Speech
😍 Central idea speech topics. What is the definition of central idea
Samples informative speech central idea

VIDEO

informative speech
Informative Speech of a Place (Adityawarman Museum) ll Public Speaking
Informative Speech- The Effect of Social Media on Teenagers
Informative Speech
#class12 central idea (keeping quiet) 🖋️🖋️✨
Informative speech on the impact of AI in the workplace

COMMENTS

Finding the Purpose and Central Idea of Your Speech
Below are four guidelines for writing a strong central idea. Your central idea should be one, full sentence. Your central idea should be a statement, not a question. Your central idea should be specific and use concrete language. Each element of your central idea should be related to the others. Using the topic "Benefits of Yoga for College ...
Formulating a Central Idea Statement
Formulating a Central Idea Statement. While you will not actually say your specific purpose statement during your speech, you will need to clearly state what your focus and main points are going to be (preferably after using an introductory method such as those described in Chapter 8). The statement that reveals your main points is commonly ...
Formulating a Central Idea Statement
Central Idea Statement. a statement that contains or summarizes a speech's main points. Now, at this point we need to make a point about terminology. Your instructor may call the central idea statement "the thesis" or "the thesis statement.". Your English composition instructor probably uses that term in your essay writing.
Organizing the Informative Speech
An informative speech can be broken up into three sections: Section 1: Introduction. The first section of the speech contains an attention-getter to grab the interest of the audience and orient them to the topic of the speech, a clear thesis that states the purpose of the speech, and a preview of the main points of the speech. Section 2: Body.
4.3: Formulating a Central Idea Statement
The point of your central idea statement in terms of your audience is to reveal and clarify the ideas or assertions you will be addressing in your speech, more commonly known as your main points, to fulfill your specific purpose. However, as you are processing your ideas and approach, you may still be working on them.
Central Idea of a Speech
The central idea of a speech is meant to inform the audience about what they will hear in the speech. The central idea also keeps the speaker focused on the main topic and purpose of their speech ...
Informative Speeches
An informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or describing the plot of a movie to friends, people engage in forms of informative speaking daily.
7.3: Formulating a Central Idea Statement
The point of your central idea statement in terms of your audience is to reveal and clarify the ideas or assertions you will be addressing in your speech, more commonly known as your main points, to fulfill your specific purpose. However, as you are processing your ideas and approach, you may still be working on them.
Central Idea
Central Idea Once speakers identify the specific purpose, they must next figure out the central idea. The central idea gets expressed as a single sentence that articulates the one thought the presenter wants the audience to remember at the end of the speech. This might sound an awful lot like a specific purpose, and many novice speakers confuse the two concepts and use their specific purpose ...
Capstone: Topic, Purpose, and Central Idea
Include your topic, general purpose, and specific purpose in a document to submit to your instructor. Step 4: Develop your central idea. Your specific purpose and general purpose are not specifically stated in your speech, but your central idea is. Your central idea includes your topic, your objective, and the overall direction of your speech.
Informative Speeches
Explain how the evidence supports the main idea/central purpose . Transition to the next main idea. Body of an informative speech. Conclusion. ... Before speech writing, brainstorm a list of informative speech topic ideas. The right topic depends on the type of speech, but good topics can range from video games to disabilities and electric cars ...
Purpose and Central Idea Statements
So if your first speech is an informative speech, your general purpose will be to inform your audience about a very specific realm of knowledge. In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose: ... Central Idea ...
What is an Informative Speech?
You do not want your central idea, your main points, and the majority of your supporting material to be opinion or argument in an informative speech. Additionally, you should never take sides on an issue in an informative speech, nor should you "spin" the issue in order to influence the opinions of the listeners.
13.1 What is an Informative Speech?
An informative speech can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts. Basically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or describing the plot ...
Purpose and Thesis
A thesis is the central idea in an essay or a speech. In speechwriting, the thesis or central idea explains the message of the content. ... (This is clearly an opinion; hence it is a persuasive speech and not merely informative) The third problem exists when the content part of the specific purpose statement has two parts. One specific purpose ...
44 Purpose and Central Idea Statements
So if your first speech is an informative speech, your general purpose will be to inform your audience about a very specific realm of knowledge. In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose: ... Central Idea ...
9.5 Purpose and Central Idea Statements
So if your first speech is an informative speech, your general purpose will be to inform your audience about a very specific realm of knowledge. In writing your specific purpose statement, you will take three contributing elements (shown in figure 5.3) that will come together to help you determine your specific purpose: ... Central Idea ...
14.1: What is an Informative Speech?
Very simply, an informative speech can first be defined as a speech based entirely and exclusively on facts. Basically, an informative speech conveys knowledge, a task that every person engages in every day in some form or another. Whether giving someone who is lost driving directions, explaining the specials of the day as a server, or ...
Chapter 12: Informative Speaking
Recognize the different types of informative speeches; Decide on the best organizational approach for types of informative speeches; Follow proven guidelines for preparing an informative speech; ... This is where the specific purpose and central idea come into play. Remember, public speak- ing is not a good way to "dump data" on the audiene ...
Your Specific Purpose Statement & Central Idea for Public Speaking
This is one sentence that encompasses the central idea of your speech. Writing your thesis statement/central idea is a four step process: Choose your topic. Determine your general purpose. Write your specific purpose statement. Tie it all together by composing a clear concise thesis statement/central idea. The following are effective Thesis ...
8.2 The Topic, General Purpose, Specific Purpose, and Thesis
Informative speeches are designed to present the facts, but not give the speaker's opinion or any call to action. ... If you are a Harry Potter enthusiast, you may write a thesis statement (central idea) the following way using the above approach: J.K. Rowling is a renowned author of the Harry Potter series with a Cinderella-like story of a ...
Guidelines for Preparing an Informative Speech
A good informative speech conveys accurate information to the audience in a way that is clear and that keeps the listener interested in the topic. Achieving all three of these goals—accuracy, clarity, and interest—is the key to being an effective speaker. ... Central Idea: George Gordon, Lord Byron overcame physical hardships, was a world ...
Informative Speech
An example of a central idea of an informative speech is the most common dog breeds in America. This example speech could cover the top three most common dog breeds and each breed can be addressed ...