Speech Preparation

Method 1: Plan your Speech

v  Identify the topic of your speech. Choose a single focused message rather than trying to cover multiple topics.

v  Pinpoint your audience. Are you speaking to children or adults? Are you speaking to people who know nothing about your topic or people who are experts on your topic? Understanding your audience will help you to target your speech appropriately.

v  Consider your motives. A good speech answers a need that the audience has. Are you trying to make your audience laugh? Are you trying to build their morale, or are you communicating a sober and direct message so that you can change their behavior? These questions will set the mood and tone of your speech.

v  Think about the setting. Is this a speech for a small group or a speech to deliver before a large audience? You can be more informal before a small audience, but write a more formal speech for a large audience.

Method 2 : Write the Speech

Write a succinct, single-sentence statement about your subject. Try to write something that will hook your audience so that you immediately grab their attention.

§  Use an anecdote or a quote. Sometimes, someone else has already said it better than you ever will. Just be sure to credit your source.

§  Be cautious about opening with a joke unless you know your audience well. You may think that a joke is funny, but your audience may find it humorless or even offensive.

§  Choose 3 to 5 supporting points for your topic. Make sure that your points are concise and direct.

§  You can start by looking at generic sources like an encyclopedia or Wikipedia, but you need to fact check your ideas with more authoritative sources after you generally understand your subject.

§  Draw on your own experience. If you have a long history with your topic, your experiences and personal stories can be great resources. Just keep these stories succinct so that you don't ramble and lose the audience's attention.

Decide whether you want to write out your speech or to outline the speech on index cards.Consider your comfort level with the topic. If you know the topic well and can improvise easily, then use index cards.

Decide whether you want to use visual aids. You may create a PowerPoint presentation to go along with your speech, or you may choose to use paper-based charts and graphs

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§  Keep the visuals to a minimum. You want them to aid your speech, not to overshadow it.

§  Make sure that the audience can read the content of your visuals. Too big is better than not big enough.

§  Check the facilities of the room in which you will be speaking. If you need Internet or you need a projection screen, be sure that the facility has the equipment.

Prepare handouts if your subject is detailed and technical. That way, you can cover the most important points in your speech while giving the audience a reference for the more detailed points that they can keep for later.

Write out a brief biographical paragraph about yourself. If someone will be introducing you before your speech, then providing the correct information beforehand will be helpful.

Method 3 : Practice the Speech

Set a timer. You should know how long your speech needs to be. If you can't deliver the speech within the given amount of time, then you may need to shorten it or lengthen it. Remember to include time for a Q&A period if appropriate.

Practice your speech in front of a friend or a mirror.Practice looking up at your audience so that your eyes aren't always on your notes.

Speak slowly and enunciate clearly. Pause between the sections of your speech so that your audience can digest the information.

Mark up your speech as you go with a pen or pencil. If words sound unnatural to you or a sentence is awkward as you speak it, mark it out and edit it to make it sound natural.

Make a video recording of yourself as you make the speech. Analyze your appearance, your body language and your delivery.

§  Make sure that your gestures are natural and not too frenetic. Alternatively, don't fix your arms at your sides or keep your hands latched to the podium.

§  If you make the speech to a friend and the friend offers constructive criticism, try to be open to what he or she has to say.

Practice more than once. If you've delivered your speech in rehearsal multiple times, then you will feel much more confident on-stage.

Method 4 : on the day of your Speech

Dress appropriately. If you need to appear authoritative, choose formal business attire. Choose a color that flatters you and keep bold accessories to a minimum.

Make sure that you have all of your materials in order. Bring your visuals, your tablet or laptop and your speech copy.

Ask for a sound check. If you're in a small room, ask someone to stand at the back of the room and see if he or she can hear you. In a larger facility, practice using the microphone so that your speech is neither too faint nor distorted.

Set up your equipment and supplementary materials. Make sure that the computer, projection screen and easels are functional and positioned so that they are visible to your audience.

Decide what to do with your handouts. You should either place them on a table for audience members to retrieve or pass them out in an organized fashion.

Ask for a glass of water. If your speech is lengthy, then you will need some water to moisten your throat.

Look in a mirror before you go onstage. Check both the front and the back of your outfit and make sure that your hair is neat and that your makeup, if you're wearing any, is not smudged.

Method 5 : During your Speech

Look around the audience and don't focus on only one focal point.

§  Make eye contact with members of your audience. If eye contact is too intense for you, look just above their heads at a point such as a clock or a painting.

§  Move your eyes around your audience so that everyone feels included in the presentation.

Speak slowly and try to breathe normally. The natural adrenaline rush that you will have in front of your audience may make you want to speak much too quickly.

Laugh at yourself if something goes wrong. Your audience will find you much more easy to relate to, and you won't lose their confidence in your knowledge of your subject.

Count up to 5 in your head before leaving the podium at the end of your speech. Acknowledge your audience with a smile, a brief nod or a slight bow, if appropriate.

Types of Speech

4 Basic Types of Speeches

            The four basic types of speeches are: to inform, to instruct, to entertain, and to persuade. These are not mutually exclusive of one another. You may have several purposes in mind when giving your presentation. For example, you may try to inform in an entertaining style. Another speaker might inform the audience and try to persuade them to act on the information. However, the principle purpose of a speech will generally fall into one of four basic types:

1. Informative – This speech serves to provide interesting and useful information to your audience. Some examples of informative speeches:
• A teacher telling students about earthquakes
• A student talking about her research
• A travelogue about the Tower of London
• A computer programmer speaking about new software

2. Demonstrative Speeches – This has many similarities with an informative speech. A demonstrative speech also teaches you something. The main difference lies in including a demonstration of how to do the thing you’re teaching. Some examples of demonstrative speeches:
• How to start your own blog
• How to bake a cake
• How to write a speech
• How to… just about anything

3. Persuasive – A persuasive speech works to convince people to change in some way: they think, the way they do something, or to start doing something that they are not currently doing. Some examples of persuasive speeches:
• Become an organ donor
• Improve your health through better eating
• Television violence is negatively influencing our children

4. Entertaining — the after-dinner speech is a typical example of an entertaining speech. The speaker provides pleasure and enjoyment that make the audience laugh or identify with anecdotal information. Some examples of entertaining speeches:
• Excuses for any occasion
• Things you wouldn’t know without the movies

Lecture Forum and Symposium

Lecture Forum

            The marketplace or public place of an ancient Roman city forming the center of judicial and public business. A public meeting place for open discussion. a medium (as a newspaper or online service) of open discussion or expression of ideas.

Symposium

            A meeting or conference for the discussion of some subject, especially a meeting at which several speakers talk on or discuss a topic before an audience. A collection of opinions expressed or articles contributed by several persons on a given subject or topic. An account of a discussion meeting or of the conversation at it.

Informative Speech

             An informative speech is one that one that intends to educate the audience on a particular topic.

Key points:

v  This type of speech uses descriptions, demonstrations, vivid detail, and the definitions to explain a subject person, or place the audience wants to understand.

v  An Informative Speech makes a complex topic easy to understand or offers a different point of view.Unlike persuasive speeches, an informative speech relies less on Pathos and more on communicating information.

v  An informative speech is one that intends to educate the audience on a particular topic. There are many different types of informative speeches, including speeches that describe the conditions of a subject and speeches that instruct the audience on how to perform an action.

v  The main goal of an informative speech is to provide enlightenment regarding a specific topic the audience knows nothing about. It may demonstrate how to use a new type of software, explain a new concept in the field of science, describe an expedition an archaeologist took, or provide details about a person of interest that the audience wants to learn more about.

v  The topics covered in an informative speech should help the audience to understand a subject better and to remember what they learned later. The goal of this type of speech isn't to sway the audience to the speaker's point of view. Instead, the details need to be laid before the audience so that they can make an educated decision or learn about a subject they are interested in.

Public Communication

           Any communication by means of television (including cable and satellite), radio, newspaper, magazine, billboard, mass mailing, telephone bank or any other form of general public political advertising. Communications over the Internet are not included in the definition of public communication.

Public communications denotes communications between persons as equals. It is the receipt and exchange of messages, ideas and opinions. Means of public communications evolved over time with the development of technology and mediums of communications. Likewise, public opinions, policies and ideas evolved as society's attitudes and opinions changed. However, the exchange or transaction of ideas remains constant. People respond and react within public groups, thereby contributing to and shaping public discourse

Nature and process of public communication Public communication is an art of sharing ideas orally coupled with financial expressions and movements in a large body of audience. Man expresses ideas, facts, and feelings, either in verbal or non-verbal manner. But the combination of the languages is the most effective means of communicating one’s message.

In public communication, verbal communication is the sound representation of language .as you communicate orally, you verbalized your ideas. As students you have to say the words according to their meaning. You must shape your voice into meaningful sounds. Sound is generally the sensation that is perceived through the ear.