Informative Speech

Informative Speech Assignment*

A 4-6 minute Oral Presentation

Thinking about this assignment

We are often audiences for informative speaking: we watch cooking demonstrations, attend orientation sessions for new students or new employees, participate in classes and workshops, or find ourselves in tour groups. In each of these contexts, the speaker presents information we need to know to be better cooks, students, employees, or tourists.

Informative speakers succeed when they are excited about the content, know it well, and make the subject important and beneficial to the audience. As with the success speech, you should begin work on the speech by asking yourself, “What am I interested in? Involved with? What do I know something about?” Then move outside yourself to ask, “What can I say or do that will share my excitement and knowledge with the audience?” and “How and why should the audience be interested in this?” and “How can I research this topic more?” Don’t pick a topic that is too broad.

The purpose of this speech is informative, but you must also persuade the audience (through your content and performance) that you are worth listening to and learning from. This involves finding common ground and establishing your credibility through research.

Objectives of this assignment

• To conduct library research
• To support a clear one sentence thesis
• To utilize 3-5 different kinds of supporting material, cited properly
• To organize the speech with an appropriate and discernible structure
• To develop and use appropriate visual aids

Steps to building an Informative Speech

• Choose a subject area based on one of the following categories:
• Something you do. This may be a skill, a talent, or a hobby.
• Share about your cultural background or nationality.
• A cause you support or organization you belong to.
• Consumer information that is important to you.
• Repurposing a research paper that you did for another class
• An historical figure, event, country, city, or trip
• A current event or political issue
• “How-to” demonstrations
• Conduct research on this topic. You should consult a wide variety of sources: newspapers, magazines, journals, brand-name websites, and books. You may not rely solely on your experience. Of course, you can and should include your experience but this does not count as one of the three sources you cite.
• Remember to gather examples, stories, rich illustrations, and statistics. Use the evidence to ground your claims in fact.
• Adapt the topic and information to the audience. Ask yourself the question “why should my audience be interested in this?” Your thesis statement should reflect the benefits of your speech to the audience. Remember to explain any culturally specific words or technical terms. Remember, you know about this topic but your audience may not.
• Choose a suitable visual aid. Consider a single slide to show on screen; a photo printed on an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper; a prop; a diagram, or a chart. Whatever your visual aid is, don’t pass it around the room, because this is distracting. Remember that sometimes, when it comes to visual aids, “less is more.”
• Select an organizational pattern for the speech. Organizational patterns include: topical, chronological, narrative, causal, problem-solution, and others. Consult chapter 9 and 15 in the textbook to select the best pattern.
• Include 3-5 different kinds of support material from different sources. In other words, your three sources can’t all be from one website. Use a diversity of sources including online newspaper articles, online magazine articles, books and even in-person interviews.
• Prepare your outline. All of your key information should be included on the outline, although it doesn’t have to be written out in full sentences. Your speech should follow your outline closely.
• After each fact, put the author and year in brackets (Lee, 2015) so that your reader can look up your complete source in the “Works Cited” section at the end of your outline. In the “Works Cited” include author’s name, year /day, title of publication, title of newspaper or magazine, and the URL. Example:

Parker-Pope, T. (2008, May 6). Psychiatry handbook linked to drug industry. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com

• Also cite verbally, “out-loud” as you are giving the speech. Include wording on the outline that makes it clear you are going to cite your source out-loud. For example “According to the New York Times….”
• For more information about how to cite, see the document “About Citations” available on Blackboard.
• Rehearse! Make sure that your speech is within the 4-6 minute time limit.

*This assignment was adapted from SPC 2600, A Student Handbook. 2008, Catawba Publishing