Here are four key speech writing tips to help you to plan out your speech material.
Remember this piece of speech writing is not meant for you to be used when you are in front of an audience.
It is basically to gather all the necessary ideas to help you come out with your well-polished speech key notes.
Key notes are the ones which you will be using during your speech or presentation to guide and prompt you.
1. Choosing A Suitable Speech Topic
If you are asked to select a topic for your speech, then pick topics which you know like the back of your hand.
You purpose is to express and not to impress.
Don't choose a particular topic just because it is currently in vogue or you merely want to sound intelligent.
Remember not to cramp too many ideas into your speech.
From my personal experience, just three solid ideas will win you hand down.
If you exceed your audience's attention span, they will perceive your talk as too long, or even as dreary.
Research shows that the audience usually has forgotten 75 percent of any speech 24 hours later.
The important thing is during your talk, you have to repeat and reinforce the key ideas.
2. Know Your Audience
The demographics of your audience.
You got to know their age, political affiliation, gender, race, ethnicity, education background and personal experience.
With all these information, then only you plan and tailor your speech to suit them.
3. The Purpose Of Your Talk
Are you there to train, to motivate, or to entertain?
Or is it the combination of some or all of these? You have to know precisely what is the purpose or the aim of your talk.
Just like tip #2, knowing the purpose of your talk has a major influence or impact on how you develop your speech material and also on the presentation itself.
4. Short & Conversational Language
As I have said earlier, this piece of writing is not meant to be read to your audience.
But you still write out sentences or phrases which you would like to use during the actual presentation.
By writing all these out, you won't leave out any good phrases, proverbs or quotes which you want to incorporate in your talk.
Remember you are there not to read but present, so go for short sentences. Avoid pompous or big words.
Use natural conversational style of language.
Don't worry about short abrupt incomplete sentences.
Choose strong suitable verbs and direct speech for stronger emphasis.
Spoken language need not have to follow all the rules of written English grammar.
Follow these four speech writing tips when you are planning your next speech or presentation.
