(11/4) Getting Started With Speech Writing

Choose your topic. A good speech is focuses on a message. The message needs to match the occasion for the speech. It should resonate with the audience's interests, the mood of the occasion, and most of all, it should convey something important.

Find purpose or thesis. Why are you giving a speech on this topic? ("My teacher told me to!" or "I have to" is not a valid reason.)

• Thesis is the main point to emphasize. If you are writing a speech about an event in your life, what's your message? Your topic may cover your near-death experience, but your thesis or purpose could be advocating the use of seat belts. You need reasoning to back it up, "it saved my life" is pretty hard to argue with!
• A good speech is made for a good reason: To inspire, to instruct, to rally support, or to lead to action. These are noble purposes -- and not merely to sound off, feed the speaker's ego, to flatter, intimidate, or to shame anyone.

Get organized. All good (sorry, I always say "great" all the time!) speeches require "shape": the "intro" (introduction), the stuffing (the body), and the "outro" (conclusion). A speech is not an amorphous blob or tangled strings of thought\\

• The old saying is hard to beat for shaping your speech: "Intro -- Tell them what you are about to tell them. Body -- Tell them. Conclusion -- the summary." That is the structure of a good speech.
• Body of the speech. State at least three points to support your argument. If they build on each other, good. First draft, make a list. You can pick out the strongest arguments later.

Get persuasive. Persuade any way that you can. If your points aren't logical, pad them with other reasons. If they don't agree with you on a topic, at least get them hanging on your every word.