How to Prepare a Speech – Rhetoric Lessons | Blog

To prepare a good speech, it is important to know what to write in a speech and how to convey your thoughts to the audience. To do this, you need to make a plan for your speech – focusing on which, you can conclude a great oral speech. Naturally, the structure of each speech is unique and depends on many things, which include: the number and characteristics of the audience, their interest, the length of the speech, and much more. This article shows the basic rules for how to prepare a speech plan that you can apply in any circumstance.

How to Prepare a Speech

If you want to be a good architect for your speech, take care of its quality and put thought into the structure. Most likely, when you started collecting material and setting the main goals of your speech, you certainly began to build an approximate plan for the speech. If so, then you are on the right track. Try to constantly strive to improve this structure within the framework of the chosen goals.

Schemes that would be suitable for all speeches just don’t exist, but there are some key principles and rules that can be used in any case, regardless of the topic of the speech:

• Keep a logical structure. There must be a certain logic of presenting material in the structure of the speech. On this basis the speaker achieves the stated goal and communicates his position to the audience.
• Maintain attention and the visibility of the speech plan. The plan should help compress material to the required minimum. After all, real eloquence involves saying all of the most important information without overloading the listeners attention with unnecessary details and digressions. You need to be able to say the most important things with a maximum level of audience concentration.
• Identify the introduction and conclusion. In the structure of any speech there should be an introduction and conclusion to frame the main part of the speech. In terms of any speech, the introduction and conclusion must be clearly distinguished. Without them, the structure of the public speech loses beauty and, in part, logic. The introduction and conclusion are designed to frame the speaker’s speech. It allows listeners to understand what kind of problem will be discussed in the speech, and secondly, to realize what conclusions the speaker came to.

We suggest to observe the rule of three parts in any speech: introduction, main part, conclusion. Let’s consider each part separately.

Introduction

Much needs to be understood and done in the first minutes of your speech: it is necessary to determine the mood of the audience, interest them in your topic, and it is also necessary to prepare people for the next actions. That’s why the very first minutes of the performance are very important.

The first thing to do is to attract the public interest. Here are five possibilities of what to write in a speech to attract and preserve the attention of the public:

• Use humor. Your topic may be a serious thing, but this does not mean that you can not include light, humorous insets and comments. Humor helps to relax – it’s good to adjust the audience to yourself. But be attentive and use it carefully.

• Tell a story. Most people are interested in different kinds of stories and listen to them with pleasure, so you can easily find a suitable story illustrating the fact that you need.

• Build a statement around a vivid example. Psychologists say that you can make people remember the important points of your speech by linking with a specific image.

•Ask a question. Asking questions involves the public in your speech.

• Give interesting statistics. People love the details. If you provide interesting statistics, it will help to awaken the public.

This is the best way to start your speech in order to initially capture the attention of the public.

In addition, the introduction should briefly contain the main idea of the speech, identify additional (supporting) data, and specify the further development of the speech.

Once you have installed the framework of the speech and captured the attention of the audience, you can proceed to the main part.

Main Part of the Speech
Remember that the main part should contain not more than three to four basic thoughts, otherwise the audience will understand the speech poorly. You can use the same type of construction for the main part as in letters and reports, but it is necessary to strive for simplicity and avoid complex verbal constructions, so as not to immediately lose the attention of the audience.

The longer the speech, and the more facts and thoughts you provide, the more difficult it is for the audience to perceive it. Therefore, if you go from one important thought to another, briefly repeat the main idea of the previously said part.

Here are some tips to help keep the audience’s attention:

• Relate the presentation object to the needs of the audience. People are interested in things that concern them personally.

• Use simple language. People will fall asleep quickly if the speaker uses formal language, full of complex constructions and conglomerations. If the speech includes abstract ideas, try to show how this abstraction relates to real life.

• Refer to previous experience. Explain how your object relates to familiar and accepted ideas.

• Give examples. This allows listeners to understand what you are talking about and remember it.

You can also attract attention by changing the tone of voice, and using gestures and facial expressions.

Conclusion

Once you have finished spreading the main points of your presentation, proceed to the conclusion.

Don’t let yourself crumble after the main part. The conclusion is also important, and perhaps even more important than the introduction or main part of the speech. For the conclusion, plan about 10% of the total duration of the speech.

Start the conclusion by telling the public about it. This will allow listeners to make a final effort to keep their attention. After this, you can briefly repeat the main thoughts of the speech. A few suggestions are enough to remind people of the things said and to fix it in their memory.

If the purpose of the presentation is to convince someone, end it by repeating the main arguments. If the goal is motivation, end up with the motto.

If an agreement is reached with the audience, repeat the consensus in several sentences.

Finish on a positive note. The last words should be memorable and enthusiastic. An alternative to this is to end with a question. Leave the audience and make them think.

Remember that the conclusion must end the presentation. You must leave the audience with a satisfied feeling, with a sense of completeness. Don’t declare any new ideas during the conclusion and don’t try to change the public’s mood.

Where to Find Help
It’s not easy to write a good speech and the main difficulty is to start it. Sometimes it’s a pity to see a good student or professional who doesn’t know what to write in a speech nervously crumple the paper. If you are in those rows and need help, ask WriteMyEssayOnline. Our specialists are adepts of speech writing and know how to prepare a speech for any occasion. Also, you can check more tips in our previous article How to Write a Speech Quickly and Easily. Still don’t know what to do? Place an order on our page right now and get a paper for you!

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