4 Tips of Choosing Good Topics for Speeches
Have you been asked to give a speech for a certain event and you had a very hard time choosing a good topic to begin with? Well here are 4 tips on choosing good topics for speeches:
- Know the event. Are you asked to give a speech for a graduating class, or an anniversary party of a law firm? The event usually tells you what general topic you can begin with. Moreover, events nowadays have themes. When invited to give a speech, it will be helpful to ask the organizers about the theme so that you can relate your speech to its tone and deliver its message to your audience.
- Know your audience. Are you talking to fifth graders or young professionals? Are your listeners mostly women? Are they of the same profession? Do they belong to different cultures? Knowing your audience means looking at an array of topics which they may be interested in. When giving a speech for children, look into what amuses them; cartoons, computer game characters, new toys and gadgets, or probably the same old sports. Adolescents may benefit from health-related topics and career opportunities. Young adults who appear to be working all the time may take a moment to listen to stress relief, work-related anecdotes and family planning. Older audiences would probably prefer homemaking topics, and leisure activities to fill up their day. By knowing what your audiences do, you will know what to talk about. Sometimes, it also works by talking about something that they do not do, so as to introduce new concepts to get them curious.
- Know what is happening around. Current events are always good to integrate into your speech, so that your listeners will see and understand its social relevance. It is actually easy to relate current events with the theme of happening because themes are set in relation to current events.
- Good topics for speeches as mentioned earlier may be things that your target audiences do not know much. It may actually be a field of your expertise. Usually, one is invited to give a speech because of his or her mastery of a certain topic. Talk about what you do and how it is relevant or related to what they do.
It must always be remembered that in selecting topics for speeches, there is no single topic which can deliver the message well, nor can arouse the interest and sustain the audiences’ attention for the whole time. A good speech combines two or three topics which are integrated under a theme, or general topic.
