There are a number of social situations in which you might find yourself asked to make a speech. This page examines some of those situations and offers some advice on how to handle them.

Speech of Introduction: A speech of introduction is when you are asked to introduce the “main” speaker at the function. Your speech should answer the following questions for the audience:

1. Who is the speaker?- Talk about the speaker’s credentials and expertise and why they were chosen to speak.

2. What will the speaker be discussing?- Give a short preview of the upcoming speech.

It’s critically important when giving a Speech of Introduction to get the speaker’s name and speech topic correct, naturally. Whenever possible, go over your introduction with the speaker beforehand to avoid potential embarrassment for both of you.

Welcoming Speech: The goal of a welcoming speech is to bring people or groups of people together. For example, you might deliver a Welcoming Speech about a new employee in your company. The purpose is to formally introduce the newcomer(s) to the others. This involves telling the audience who the newcomer(s) is/are, where they came from, what they will be doing.

Award Presentation Speech: When you are presenting someone with a gift or an award you have two goals to accomplish:

1. Discuss the award itself- Who sponsors it, who it is named after, the history of the award, and the requirements to earn it.

2. Discuss the winner of the award- Who they are, what they have done to earn the award.

When presenting an award, hand the award off with your left hand and shake hands with recipient with your right hand.

Award Acceptance Speech: When receiving an award, your audience will most likely expect you to be gracious and humble. To this end, a good award acceptance speech involves thanking others who made your receiving the award possible. Be sure to thank those involved in helping you get the award, and the giver of the award.

Tribute Speech: Situations for a Tribute Speech might be a eulogy at a funeral, or a speech given at a retirement party, or any other occasion where a person is being honored. Basically, sincerity is the key to a good Tribute Speech. You should focus on the positive aspects of the person, tell humorous or otherwise interesting stories about the person, and speak of the person’s accomplishments and admirable qualities.

Toast: In most toasting situations (weddings, retirement parties, birthday parties) the person delivering the toast can anticipate that they will be asked to do so. Because of this, and because toasts are usually quite short, a good toast is often written in advance. A toast needs to be positive, and to include words of praise or encouragement for those to whom it is directed.

In an informative speech situation, as in any speech situation, it is important to have your audience in mind at all times.

First, you need to pick a topic that will appeal to your audience members. To be appealing to audience members, a topic must be:

1. Dealt with at a stimulating level: If you are merely teaching the audience information that they already know, you will certainly bore them. If you teach them information that is “over their heads”, you will lose their attention and interest. The key is to find a happy medium, new information that they will readily grasp.

2. Dealt with creatively: Surprise your audience. Think about your topic in unexpected ways. Don’t merely step behind the podium with a modified version of an essay you wrote in another class. Be an entertainer. When an audience is entertained, they pay closer attention.

Your audience will also appreciate it if you pick a topic that is relevant to their lives. Whether we care to admit it or not, deep down, we all have one primary interest: ourselves. If your audience does not see a personal benefit that they will receive by listening to your speech, the speech will not be very appealing.

When presenting an informative speech, it is important to have proper supporting material to enhance your audience’s understanding of your topic. Some forms of support include:

A. Examples- It’s difficult to listen to someone speaking about an abstract idea with which you have little familiarity. As a listener in this situation, you are forced to do a lot of mental work and you may or may not fully grasp what the speaker is trying to say. It’s a whole different experience when the speaker uses an example that illustrates the abstract idea. For example (ha-ha), a speaker might be talking about poor economic conditions in a certain area of the country. Rather than just leaving the concept of a “poor economy” as an idea, they should speak about the specific struggles of real live people with names and anecdotes.

B. Statistics- People tend to avoid statistics in a speech because they are afraid that people will find them boring. To the contrary, statistics can be interesting and informative if used correctly. The key is to pick statistics that are particularly startling or shocking. You can’t build an entire speech around statistics, of course. However, as long as the statistics add to the quality of the speech, and they don’t misrepresent the situation, they can be used liberally.

C. Facts- A good informative speech is filled with facts. A “fact” is any bit of information that be verified as being “true”. Whenever you present facts in a speech, you should cite the source of those facts so that the audience believes them (and you) to be credible.

D. Expert Opinion- An informative speech is not the time for your personal opinion, that time will come on the persuasive speech. Expert opinion, however, can and should be used in an informative speech. Expert opinion involves using exerpts and quotations from people who are highly respected in the field about which you are speaking. It is important to state the credentials of the person whom you are quoting, if the audience is not familiar with this person. Otherwise, your quote will not have much impact.

Whatever forms of support you may be using in your informative speech, it is important to select those sources carefully. Make sure that you are using up-to-date information. Make sure you are using unbiased sources (these can be especially hard to find on the Internet). And finally, make sure that you are working from a broad base of information. Do not base your entire speech on information found in a single source.

There are a couple questions that you need to ask yourself after you’ve selected a persuasive speech topic:

1. Does my audience agree or disagree with the position which I am advocating?

If they already tend to agree with you, you’ve got things a little bit easier, of course. The only problem here might be that your topic and position may not be controversial or novel enough to hold the audience’s interest. It might be a fine topic, though, and it will be your goal to convince your audience that the position which they support is the correct position.

If you audience disagrees with your perspective, you’ve probably got a little more work to do. We’ll get back to that…

2. How much does my audience care about my topic and how much thought are they willing to put into my speech?

If the audience doesn’t really care a whole lot about your topic, it’s a double-edged sword. On one hand (or edge), they are going to be easier to persuade. On the other hand, you may not have picked a good topic if it isn’t an important issue to your audience. Again, if you believe in the topic, go with it.

If the audience really cares a lot about your topic, you’re not going to be able to win them over with flimsy persuasive tactics and logical fallacies. They are going to need to hear solid arguments and evidence in support of your perspective to be persuaded.

The Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle identified three tactics which persuasive speakers had available to persuade an audience, which he called Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

Ethos: Aristotle said that if an audience wasn’t particularly interested in and willing to think about the topic at hand that a speaker could be persuasive simply by demonstrating to the audience that they were someone who was both credible and trustworthy. The idea was that this type of audience wouldn’t be sufficiently motivated to think deeply about the topic, and that they would be inclined to blindly accept whatever the speaker had to say. After all, the speaker is credible and trustworthy, right?

For some strategies on establishing Ethos, check out the article on writing introductions.

Pathos: Aristotle said that if, again, an audience wasn’t particularly interested in and willing think about the topic at hand that a speaker could be persuasive by using various emotional appeals to win over an audience. A few example of Pathos appeals:

a. Appeal to Fear – The speaker arouses fear in the audience by describing something bad that could happen, then tells the audience that the can be relieved of that fear by simply doing what the speaker desires.

b. Appeal to Social Support – The speaker tells the audience that their perspective is a popular one. The audience is supposed to think that because the position is so popular, it must have some merit.

c. Appeal to Scarcity – The speaker shows the audience how they can get some more of a scarce commodity (usually time or money) by doing what the speaker desires.

d. Appeal to Authority – The speaker tells the audience that people “in the know” support the speaker’s perspective.

There are many more Pathos appeals.

Logos: Finally, Aristotle said that if an audience really cared about an issue and were motivated to think deeply about it, that the only way they were going to be persuaded was through the use of sound logical argument.

In it’s most basic form, a logical argument is a claim supported by evidence. In most cases, when you see a lawyer speaking in a courtroom, they are making a logos appeal to the audience (the jury). The “claim” which the lawyer is making is the innocence or guilt of the person on trial. The “evidence”, of course, is the support that the lawyer offers to back up their claim.

Your persuasive speech should follow the same process. Your “claim” is the position you support, your “evidence” is the various facts, stories, statistics, expert testimony, and other backing that demonstrates that your position is the position which the audience should also support.