How to Organise your Speech
All good writing must have structure. A good speech is no exception. By providing your speech with a beginning, middle, and an end, you will lay the foundations for a successful speech.
Opening
10 - 20 seconds.
- The first few seconds of your speech are probably the most important. In that period of time you must grab the attention of the audience, and engage their interest in what you have to say. You could raise a thought-provoking question or recite a relevant quotation.
- Make sure you explain and define the topic you will be talking about.
- You may want to explore the consequences associated with your topic. For example, the consequences of not belonging or other ways to view the idea of belonging: why do people belong or not? To what effect or result?
- Introduce the texts and composers that you will be discussing.
- You do not need to say who you are; this can be a little cliched. Just jump straight into the topic.
Body
Approximately 4 and a half minutes.
- The body of your speech will always be the largest part of your speech.
- The best way to set out the body of your speech is by formulating a series of points (messages or themes/technique/ evidence/analysis) that you would like to raise.
- The points should be organised in a specific way - do not just move from one idea to the next and back again.
- For each text you must:
Clearly source the text (provide the title and author)
Outline what aspect of your subject is being represented and how (message/technique/evidence/quote)
Analyse how it is represented (effectiveness) - Explain how the ideas in the texts you have analysed can be linked to other related texts (if studying more than one text).
Conclusion
10-20 seconds
- Summarise the main points of your speech.
- End with a final thought about the subject you are discussing.
Further Notes
- Remember not to be biased (or one-sided). Your personal opinions are not really important - you are presenting information and exploring the connections whether or not you dislike the text or author.
- Make sure you use persuasive language.
- Remember to use palm cards. You should only be writing brief notes on your palm cards - your objective is talk about the text more so than just read about it.
- Do not try and be humorous; it often comes off as conceited.
- Be careful with your body language - do not fidget or move around a lot.
- Eye contact and voice projection are important. Both of these count, as body language is a huge part of presenting a speech. It is not just a spoken essay.
- Be confident in what you are doing, even if you are nervous, try not to let the audience know.
Structure
There are several ways that you could set out the body of your speech. Here are two examples:
Firstly, you could discuss in order of the texts. This can be a slight disadvantage as you do not necessarily draw upon connections between the texts.
Firstly, you could discuss in order of the texts. This can be a slight disadvantage as you do not necessarily draw upon connections between the texts.
- Text 1
- Text 2
- Text 3
- Message 1: Text 1 and Text 2
- Message 2: Text 1 and Text 2
Speeches | |
File Size: | 86 kb |
File Type: | docx |