The Informative Speech

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Informative Speech


You have two choices for this speech. You can either give a basic "How to" speech, or tell about an interesting place you’ve been. The aims of the Informative Speech are to give you some practice organizing your thoughts and to give you a chance to get comfortable in front of the class before you have to talk about your policy controversy. The stakes are not very high for this assignment; it is a stepping stone. Just do your best, organize your speech well, try to apply what you’ve learned, and you should do fine. Here are some particulars:

"How to" option:

Explain a process, such as "how to tune a car," or "how to do a back flip on a trampoline." A simple process is perfect material for a speech like this. Why? Simple processes are explained in steps, and this is a speech that emphasizes organization.


The interesting place:

If you’ve gone somewhere interesting lately, telling your audience about it, trying to motivate them to want to go there too, is a decent approach to this assignment. What you would do in this case is, rather than explain a process, step-by-step, think of a way to divide the body of your speech into two or three distinct points. For example, "the people, the landscape, the food." Remember Plato’s Clever Butcher analogy!

Details, details:

  • 4-5 minutes (not much time, so, keep it simple and narrow your topic!)
  • Hand in two copies of your critique sheet (with your name on it, please) and one typed complete sentence outline. I’ll return one critique with feedback, and save the other for my files (to track improvement).

That’s all there is to it. This is a very basic assignment, but seems like a logical place to begin systematically cultivating rhetorical arts. It emphasizes clear organization, so you need a strong introduction, body and conclusion. Work on your transitions a bit, and make sure the whole thing "hangs together."

Don’t forget to have fun!

"What if my topic’s boring?"