Speaking to Inform 15

“Not only is there an

art in knowing a thing,
but also a certain art
in teaching it.”
—Cicero
OU T LINE

15.a Types of Informative Speeches 15.c Strategies to Maintain Audience Interest

Speeches about Objects Motivate Your Audience to Listen to You
Speeches about Procedures Tell a Story
Speeches about People Present Information that Relates to Your Listeners
Speeches about Events Use the Unexpected
Speeches about Ideas 15.d Strategies to Enhance Audience Recall
15.b Strategies to Enhance Audience Understanding Build in Redundancy
Speak with Clarity Make Your Key Ideas Short and Simple
Use Principles and Techniques of Adult Learning Pace Your Information Flow
Clarify Unfamiliar Ideas or Complex Processes Reinforce Key Ideas
Appeal to a Variety of Learning Styles 15.e Developing an Audience-Centered
Informative Speech

309
310 15 SPEAKING TO INFORM

A
s you participate in your company’s management training classes, the group
facilitator turns to you and asks you to summarize your team’s discussion about
the importance of leadership.
Your sociology professor requires each student to give an oral report describing the
latest findings from the U.S. census.
At the conclusion of your weekly staff meeting, your boss turns to you and asks for
a brief report summarizing the new product you and your team are developing.
In each of these situations, your task is to give information to someone. Whether
you are having spontaneous conversation or delivering a rehearsed speech, you will
often find that your speaking purpose is to inform, or tell someone something you
know. One survey of both speech teachers and students who had taken a speech course
found that the single most important skill taught in a public-speaking class is how to
give an informative speech.1
A speech to inform shares information with others to enhance their knowl-
edge or understanding of the information, concepts, and ideas you present. When
you inform someone, you assume the role of a teacher by defining, illustrating,
clarifying, or elaborating on a topic. You’re not trying to persuade listeners by
asking them to change their behavior. You are giving them information that is
useful or interesting.
When you inform, you’re typically attempting to achieve three goals:

• You speak to enhancing understanding. Understanding occurs when a listener accu-

rately interprets the intended meaning of a message.
• You speak to maintain interest. You may have carefully selected words, examples,
and illustrations that your listeners would understand, but if you listeners become
bored and do not focus on your message, you won’t achieve your informative-
speaking goal.
• You speak to be remembered. In Chapter 4, we noted that one day after hearing a
presentation, most listeners remember only about half of what they were told.
Two days after the presentation, they recall only about 25 percent. Your job as an
informative speaker is to improve on those statistics.

Conveying information to others is a useful skill in most walks of life. You may
find that informing others will be an important part of your job. As a regional man-
ager of a national corporation, you might have to report sales figures every fiscal
quarter; as an accountant, you might have to teach your administrative assistant
how to organize your files. Other activities, such as teaching a Chinese cooking class
or chairing monthly meetings of the Baker Street Irregulars, can also require you to
provide information.
In this chapter, we will suggest ways to build on your experience and enhance
your skill in informing others. We will identify different types of informative speeches
and provide suggestions for achieving your informative-speaking goals: enhancing un-
derstanding, maintaining interest, and improving listener recall. Finally, we’ll review
the audience-centered model of public speaking to help you plan and present your
informative message.
 Types of Informative Speeches 15.a 311

QUICK CHECK Goals of Informative Speeches

• Enhance understanding
• Gain and maintain interest
• Ensure that listeners can remember what was said

15.a Types of Informative Speeches

Informative speeches can be classified according to the subject areas they cover. In
many informative presentations that you will deliver, your topic will be provided for
you, or the nature of the specific speaking opportunity will dictate what you talk about.
For example, if you’re updating your boss about your work team’s project, you need not
wrack your brain for a speech topic.
But if you have an invitation (or assignment) to give an informative speech and
the topic choice is up to you, you might need help in selecting a topic and developing
your purpose. Understanding the different types of informative speeches can give you
ideas about what to talk about.
Classifying your speech can also help you to decide how to organize the informa-
tion you want to present. As you will see in Table 15.1 and in the following discussion,
the demands of your purpose often dictate a structure for your speech. As you look at
these suggestions about structure, however, remember that good organization is only

TABLE 15.1 Types of Informative Speeches

Typical
Organizational
Subject Purpose Patterns Sample Topics
Objects Present information Topical The Rosetta Stone
about tangible things Spatial Museums
Chronological International space station
Voting machines
Procedures Review how something Chronological How to . . .
works or describe a Topical Fix a carburetor
process Complexity Operate a nuclear-power plant
Buy a quality used care
Trap lobsters
(continued )
312 15.a SPEAKING TO INFORM

TABLE 15.1 (continued )

Typical
Organizational
Subject Purpose Patterns Sample Topics

People Describe famous Chronological Sojourner Truth

people or personal Topical Nelson Mandela
acquaintances Indira Gandhi
Your grandfather
Your favorite teacher
Events Describe an event that Chronological The death of Michael Jackson
either has happened or Topical Inauguration Day
will happen Spatial Cinco de Mayo
Ideas Present abstract Topical Communism
information or discuss Complexity Immigration
principles, concepts, Buddhism
theories, or issues Reincarnation

one factor in your audience’s ability to process your message. After discussing types of
informative speeches, we will offer specific techniques to help your audience under-
stand, maintain interest in, and remember your message.

Speeches about Objects

A speech about an object might be about anything tangible—anything that you can see
or touch. You may or may not show the actual object to your audience while you are
talking about it. Almost any kind of object could form the basis of an interesting speech:
Something from your own collection (rocks, compact discs, antiques,
baseball cards)
Sports cars
Cellos
Smartphones
Digital video cameras
World War II Memorial
Toys
Vintage Fiestaware
Staffordshire dogs
The time limit for your speech will determine the amount of detail you can share
with your listeners. Even in a 30- to 45-minute presentation, you cannot talk about
every aspect of any of the objects listed. So you will need to focus on a specific purpose.
Here’s a sample outline for a speech about an object:
 Types of Informative Speeches 15.a 313

Topic: Dead Sea Scrolls

General Purpose: To inform
Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience should be able to
describe how the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, why they
are important to society, and the key content of the
ancient manuscripts.
Main Ideas: I. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found by accident.
A. The scrolls were found in caves near the Dead Sea.
B. The scrolls were first discovered by a shepherd
in 1947.
C. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, archeologists and
Bedouins found ten caves that contained Dead Sea
Scrolls.
II. The Dead Sea Scrolls are important to society.
A. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest known
manuscripts of any books of the Bible.
B. The Dead Sea Scrolls give us a look at Jewish life in
Palestine over 2000 years ago.
III. The content of the Dead Sea Scrolls gives us a glimpse of
the past
A. The Dead Sea Scrolls include all the books of the
Old Testament except the book of Esther.
B. The Dead Sea Scrolls include fragments of the
Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the
Old Testament.
C. The Dead Sea Scrolls include a collection of hymns
used by the inhabitants of the Qumran Valley.

Speeches about objects may be organized topically, chronologically, or spatially.

The speech about the Dead Sea Scrolls is organized topically. It could be revised chrono-
logically, however. The first major idea could be Jewish life in Palestine two thousand
years ago. The second point could present information about how the scrolls were
found in the 1940s and 1950s. The final major idea could be the construction in the
1960s of the museum in Jerusalem that houses the famous scrolls. Or the speech could
be organized spatially, describing the physical layout of the caves in which the scrolls
were found.

Speeches about Procedures

A speech about a procedure discusses how something works (for example, the human cir-
culatory system) or describes a process that produces a particular outcome (for example,
how grapes become wine). At the close of such a speech, your audience should be able
314 15.a SPEAKING TO INFORM

to describe, understand, or perform the procedure you have described. Here are some
examples of procedures that could be the subjects of effective informative presentations:

How state laws are made

How the U.S. patent system works
How an e-book reader works
How to refinish furniture
How to select an inexpensive stereo system
How to plant an organic garden
How to select a graduate school

Notice that all these examples start with the word How. Speeches about procedures
usually focus on how a process is completed or how something can be accomplished and
are often presented in workshops or other training situations in which people learn skills.
Anita, describing how to develop a new training curriculum in teamwork skills,
used an organizational strategy that grouped some of her steps like this:

I. Conduct a needs assessment of your department.

A. Identify the method of assessing department needs.
1. Consider using questionnaires.
2. Consider using interviews.
3. Consider using focus groups.
B. Implement the needs assessment.
II. Identify the topics that should be presented in the training.
A. Specify topics that all members of the department need.
B. Specify topics that only some members of the department need.
III. Write training objectives.
A. Write objectives that are measurable.
B. Write objectives that are specific.
C. Write objectives that are attainable.
IV. Develop lesson plans for the training.
A. Identify the training methods you will use.
B. Identify the materials you will need.

Anita’s audience will remember the four general steps much more easily than they
would have if each aspect of the curriculum-development process had been listed as a
separate step.
Many speeches about procedures include visual aids (see Chapter 14). Whether you
are teaching people how to hang wallpaper or how to give a speech, showing them how
to do something is almost always more effective than just telling them how to do it.
 Types of Informative Speeches 15.a 315

Speeches about People

A biographical speech could be about someone famous or about someone you know
personally. Most of us enjoy hearing about the lives of real people, whether famous or
not, living or dead, who had some special quality. The key to presenting an effective
biographical speech is to be selective. Don’t try to cover every detail of your subject’s
life. Relate the key elements in the person’s career, personality, or other significant life
features so that you are building to a particular point rather than just reciting facts
about an individual. Perhaps your grandfather was known for his generosity; mention
some notable examples of his philanthropy. If you are talking about a well-known per-
sonality, pick information or a period that is not widely known, such as the person’s
private hobby or childhood.
One speaker gave a memorable speech about his neighbor:

To enter Hazel’s house is to enter a combination greenhouse and zoo. Plants are ev-
erywhere; it looks and feels like a tropical jungle. Her home is always warm and humid.
Her dog Peppy, her cat Bones, a bird named Elmer, and a fish called Frank can be seen
through the philodendron, ferns, and pansies. While Hazel loves her plants and animals,
she loves people even more. Her finest hours are spent serving coffee to her friends and
neighbors, playing Uno with family until late in the evening, and just visiting about the
good old days. Hazel is one of a kind.

Note how the speech captures Hazel’s personality and charm. Speeches
about people should give your listeners the feeling that the person is a unique,
authentic individual.
One way to talk about a person’s life is in chronological order: birth, school, career,
marriage, achievements, death. However, if you are interested in presenting a specific
theme, such as “Winston Churchill, master of English prose,” you might decide instead
to organize key experiences topically. First you would discuss Churchill’s achievements
as a brilliant orator whose words defied Germany in 1940; you might then trace the
origins of his skill to his work as a cub reporter in South Africa during the Boer War of
1899–1902.

Speeches about Events

Where were you on September 11, 2001? Even though you might have been in elemen-
tary school, chances are that you clearly remember where you were and what you were
doing on that and other similarly fateful days. Major events punctuate our lives and
mark the passage of time. A major event can form the basis of a fascinating informative
speech. You can choose to talk about either an event that you have witnessed or one
that you have researched.

Make the Event Come Alive Your goal is to describe the event in concrete,
tangible terms and to bring the experience to life for your audience. Were you living
in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck? Have you witnessed the inauguration
316 15.a SPEAKING TO INFORM

of a president, governor, or senator? Have you experienced the ravages of a flood or

earthquake? Or you might want to re-create an event that your parents or grand-
parents lived through. What was it like to be in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941?
You might have heard a recording of the famous radio broadcast of the explosion
and crash of the dirigible Hindenburg in 1937. The announcer’s ability to describe
both the scene and the incredible emotion of the moment has made that broadcast
a classic. As that broadcaster was able to do, your purpose as an informative speaker
describing an event is to make that event come alive for your listeners and to help
them visualize the scene.

Organize for Effect Most speeches that are built around an event follow a
chronological arrangement. But a speech about an event might also describe the com-
plex issues or causes behind the event and be organized topically. For example, if you
were to talk about the Civil War, you might choose to focus on the three causes of
the war:

I. Political
II. Economic
III. Social

Although these main points are topical, specific subpoints may be organized
chronologically. However you choose to organize your speech about an event, you
want your audience to be enthralled by your vivid description.

Speeches about Ideas

Speeches about ideas are usually more abstract than the other types of speeches are. The
following principles, concepts, and theories might be topics of idea speeches:

Principles of communication
Freedom of speech
Evolution
Theories of aging
Islam
Communal living
Positive psychology

Most speeches about ideas are organized topically (by logical subdivisions of the
central idea) or according to complexity (from simple ideas to more complex ones).
The following example illustrates how one student organized an idea topic into an
informative speech:
 Strategies to Enhance Audience Understanding 15.b 317

Topic: Communication theory

General Purpose: To inform
Specific Purpose: At the end of my speech, the audience should be able to
identify and describe three functions and three types of
communication theory.
Main Ideas: I. Communication theory has three important functions.
A. Communication theory helps us to explain how
communication works.
B. Communication theory helps us to make predictions
about how people will communicate with others.
C. Communication theory helps us to be more in control
of communication situations because we can explain
and predict communication behavior.
II. There are several types of communication theory.
A. Communication systems theory helps to explain the
transactive nature of communication.
B. Rhetorical communication theory helps us to make pre-
dictions about how people will communicate with others.
C. Functional group communication theory identifies the
important group-communication behaviors that can
enhance group communication.

15.b Strategies to Enhance Audience

Understanding
The skill of teaching and understanding is obviously important to teachers, but it’s also
important to virtually any profession. Whether you’re a college professor, chief execu-
tive officer of a Fortune 500 company, or a parent raising a family, you will be called
on to teach and explain.
At the heart of creating understanding in someone is the ability to describe both
old and new ideas to the person. Just because an idea, term, or concept has been around
for centuries doesn’t mean that it is easy to understand. A person who is hearing an old
idea for the first time goes through the same process that he or she would experience in
learning about the latest cutting-edge idea. How do you enhance someone’s knowledge
or understanding? We can suggest several powerful strategies.

Speak with Clarity

To speak with clarity is to express ideas so that the listener understands the intended
message accurately. Speaking clearly is an obvious goal of an informative speaker. What
318 15.b SPEAKING TO INFORM

is not so obvious is how to speak clearly. As a speaker, you might think you’re being
clear, but only the listener can tell you whether he or she has received your message.
One study made the point that because information is clear to you, you will likely
think that it is also clear to your listeners.2 People were asked to tap the rhythm of a
well-known song, such as “Happy Birthday to You” or “The Star-Spangled Banner,” so
that another person could guess the song just by hearing the rhythm. About half of
the people who tapped the song thought that the listener would easily guess the song.
However, fewer than 2 percent of listeners could identify the song. (Try it—can you
beat the 2 percent average?) The point is that when you know something, you tend to
think that it’s clear to someone else. Whether it’s how to drive a car or how to care for
an aardvark, if you are already familiar with a topic, you’re likely to think your task of
communicating an idea to someone is easier than it is.
Give careful thought to how you will help listeners understand your message. The
most effective speakers (those whose message is both understood and appropriately acted
on) build in success by consciously developing and presenting ideas with the listener
in mind rather than flinging information at listeners and hoping that some of it sticks.
The How To box lists several research-based strategies that you can use to enhance
message clarity.3 Another important suggestion for enhancing message clarity is this:
Don’t present too much information too quickly. Audiences can comprehend only so
much information. If you present too much information, your listeners won’t under-
stand all of the details. Burying your listeners in an avalanche of details, data, and dates
is a sure-fire way to make them stop listening. If you need to share detailed informa-
tion, put that information in writing.
HOW TO

Enhance Message Clarity

Communication research Joseph Chesebro has collected the following suggestions:

• Preview your main ideas in your introduction.

• Tell your listeners how what you present relates to a previous point.
• Summarize key ideas frequently.
• Provide a visual outline to help listeners follow your ideas.
• Provide a handout prior to your talk with the major points outlined. Leave space on your outline
so that listeners can jot down key ideas.
• Once you have announced your topic and outline, stay on message.

Use Principles and Techniques of Adult Learning

Most public-speaking audiences you face will consist of adults. Perhaps you’ve heard
of pedagogy, the art and science of teaching children. The word pedagogy is based on
the Greek words paid, which means “child,” and agogos, which means “guide.” Thus,
pedagogy is the art and science of teaching children.
 Strategies to Enhance Audience Understanding 15.b 319

Adult learning is called andragogy.4 The prefix andr comes from the Greek word that
means “adult.” Andragogy is the art and science of teaching adults. Researchers and
scholars have found that andragogical approaches that are best for adults. (If you’re a
college student over the age of 18, you are an adult learner.) What are andragogical, or
adult-learning, principles? Here are some of the most important ones:

• Provide information that can be used immediately. Most people who work in business
have an in-basket on their desk to receive letters that must be read and work that
must be done. Each of us also has a kind of mental in-basket, an agenda for what
we want or need to accomplish. If you present adult listeners with information that
they can apply immediately to their “in-baskets,” they are more likely to focus on
and understand your message.
• Actively involve listeners in the learning process. Rather than having your listeners sit
passively as you speak, consider asking them questions to think about or, in some
cases, to respond to on the spot.
• Connect listeners’ life experiences with the new information they learn. Adult listeners
are more likely to understand your message if you help them to connect the new
information with their past experiences. The primary way to do this is to know the
kinds of experiences that your listeners have had and then refer to those experi-
ences as you present your ideas.
• Make new information relevant to listeners’ needs and their busy lives. Most adults are
busy—probably, if pressed, most will say they are too busy. So when speaking to an
adult audience, realize that any information or ideas that you share will more likely
be heard and understood if you relate what you say to their chock-full-of-activity
lives. People who are working, going to school, raising families, and involved in
their community need to be shown how the ideas you share are relevant to them.
• Help listeners to solve their problems. Most people have problems and are looking for
solutions to them. People will be more likely to pay attention to information that
helps them to better understand and solve their problems.

Clarify Unfamiliar Ideas or Complex Processes

If you are trying to tell your listeners about a complex process, you will need more
than definitions to explain what you mean. Research suggests that you can demystify
a complex process if you first provide a simple overview of the process with an analogy,
vivid description, or word picture.5

Use Analogies If a speaker were to say, “The Milky Way galaxy is big,” you would
have a vague idea that the cluster of stars and space material that make up the Milky
Way was large. But if the speaker said, “If the Milky Way galaxy were as big as the con-
tinent of North America, our solar system would fit inside a coffee cup,” you’d have a
better idea of just how big the Milky Way is and, by comparison, how small our solar
system is.6 An analogy is a comparison between two things. It’s an especially useful
technique to describe complex processes because it can help someone to understand
320 15.b SPEAKING TO INFORM

something that’s difficult to grasp (the size of the Milky Way) by comparing it to some-
thing that the person already understands (the size of a coffee cup).7
By helping your listeners compare something new to something they already know
or can visualize, you are helping to make your message clear. Here’s an example of this
idea based on what professor of business Chip Heath and communication consultant
Dan Heath call the principle of “using what’s there—using the information you have
(what’s there) and relating it to something more familiar.”8 Try this short exercise: Take
15 seconds to memorize the letters below; then close the book and write the letters
exactly as they appear in the book.

J FKFB INAT OUP SNA SAI RS

Most people, say these experts, remember about half the letters. Now note the dif-
ference when the same letters are organized just a bit differently:

JFK FBI NATO UPS NASA IRS

The letters haven’t changed, but we have regrouped them into acronyms that prob-
ably make more sense to you. You are more likely to make sense out of something for
which you already have a mental category. An analogy works the same way.

Use Vivid Description When you describe, you provide more detail than you do
when just defining something. Using descriptive terms that bring a process to life is
especially effective in clarifying something that is complex.
Descriptions answer questions about the who, what, where, why, and when of the
process. Who is involved in the process? What is the process, idea, or event that you want
to describe? Where and when does the process take place? Why does it occur, or why
is it important to the audience? (Not all of these questions apply to every description.)

Use a Word Picture A word picture is a lively description that helps your listen-
ers to form a mental image by appealing to their senses of sight, taste, smell, sound,
and touch. The How To box walks you through instructions for developing effective
word pictures.
HOW TO

Paint a Word Picture

• Imagine it. Form your own clear mental image of the person, place, or object before you try to
describe it. See it with your mind’s eye.
• Sense it. Examine the details of your mental image. What would listeners see if they were look-
ing at it? What would listeners hear? If they could touch it, how would it feel to them? If your
listeners could smell or taste it, what would that be like?
• Describe it. To describe these sensations, choose the most specific and vivid words possible. Ono-
matopoeic words—words that sound like the sounds they name—such as buzz, snort, hum, crackle,
or hiss are powerful. So are similes and other comparisons. “The rock was rough as sandpaper”
and “the pebble was as smooth as a baby’s skin” appeal to both the visual and tactile senses.
 Strategies to Enhance Audience Understanding 15.b 321

When you create a word picture, do not stop after describing the physical sensa-
tions. Be sure to describe the emotions that a listener might feel if he or she were to
experience the situation you relate. Ultimately, your goal is to use just the right words
to evoke an emotional response from the listener. If you experienced the situation,
describe your own emotions. Use specific adjectives rather than general terms such
as happy or sad. One speaker, talking about receiving her first speech assignment, de-
scribed her reaction with these words:

My heart stopped. Panic began to rise up inside. Me? . . . For the next five days I lived in
dreaded anticipation of the forthcoming event.9
Note how effectively her choices of such words and phrases as “my heart stopped,”
“panic,” and “dreaded anticipation” describe her terror at the prospect of making a
speech—much more so than if she had said simply, “I was scared.” The more vividly
and accurately you can describe emotion, the more intimately involved in your descrip-
tion the audience will become.

Appeal to a Variety of Learning Styles

Would you rather hear a lecture, read the lecture, see pictures about what the speaker
is saying? Your choice reflects your preferred learning style. Not everyone has a single
preferred style, but many people do. Four common styles are auditory, visual print,
visual, and kinesthetic.

• Auditory learners. If you would rather listen to a recorded audio book than read a
book, you may be an auditory learner, a person who learns best by hearing.
• Visual print learners. If you learn best by seeing words in print, then you are a vi-
sual print learner. Most likely, you would much rather read material than hear it
presented orally.
• Visual learners. Barraged daily with images from TV and the Internet, many peo-
ple have grown to depend on more than words alone to help them remember
ideas and information. They are visual learners who learn best with words and
images.
• Kinesthetic learners. Kinesthetic learners learn best by moving while learning. They
would rather try something than hear it, watch it, or read about it. These learners
like active learning methods such as writing while listening or, better yet, partici-
pating in group activities.

As you develop your speech and your supporting materials, consider how you can
appeal to a variety of learning styles at the same time. Since you will be giving a speech,
your auditory learners will like that. Visual learners like and expect an informative talk
to be illustrated with PowerPoint™ images. They will appreciate seeing pictures or hav-
ing statistics summarized using bar or line graphs or pie charts. Kinesthetic learners will
appreciate movement, even small movements such as raising their hands in response
to questions. Visual print learners will appreciate handouts, which you could distribute
after your talk.
322 15.c SPEAKING TO INFORM

QUICK CHECK
Enhancing Audience Understanding
• Keep your message clear.
• Apply adult-learning principles.
• Clarify the unfamiliar or complex:
Use analogies.
Use vivid descriptions.
Use word pictures.
• Plan for many different learning styles.

15.c Strategies to Maintain

Audience Interest
Before you can inform someone, you must gain and maintain his or her interest. No
matter how carefully crafted your definitions, how skillfully delivered your descrip-
tion, or how visually reinforcing your presentation aid, if your listeners aren’t paying
attention, you won’t achieve your goal of informing them. Strategies for gaining and
holding interest are vital in achieving your speaking goal.
In discussing how to develop attention-catching introductions in Chapter 9, we
itemized several specific techniques for gaining your listeners’ attention. The following
strategies build on those techniques.

Motivate Your Audience to Listen to You

Most audiences will probably not be waiting breathlessly for you to talk to them. You
will need to motivate them to listen to you.
Some situations have built-in motivations for listeners. A teacher can say, “There
will be a test covering my lecture tomorrow. It will count as 50 percent of your semester
grade.” Such threatening methods might not make the teacher popular, but they cer-
tainly will motivate the class to listen. Similarly, a boss might say, “Your ability to use
these sales principles will determine whether you keep your job.” Your boss’s statement
will probably motivate you to learn the company’s sales principles. However, because
you will rarely have the power to motivate your listeners with such strong-arm tactics,
you will need to find more creative ways to get your audience to listen to you.
Don’t assume that your listeners will be automatically interested in what you have
to say. Pique their interest with a rhetorical question. Tell them a story. Tell them
how the information you present will be of value to them. As the British writer G. K.
Chesterton once said, “There is no such thing as an uninteresting topic; there are only
uninterested people.”10
 Strategies to Maintain Audience Interest 15.c 323

Tell a Story
Good stories with interesting characters and riveting plots have fascinated listeners for
millennia; the words “Once upon a time . . .” are usually surefire attention-getters. A
good story is inherently interesting. Stories are also a way of connecting your message
to people from a variety of cultural backgrounds.11
The characteristics of a well-told tale are simple yet powerful. As the How To box
describes, a good story includes conflict, incorporates action, creates suspense, and may
also include humor.
HOW TO

Tell a Good Story

• Identify a conflict. Stories that pit one side against another and that include descriptions of
opposing ideas and forces in government, religion, or personal relationships foster attention.
• Pay attention to plot. Good stories have a beginning that sets the stage, a heart that moves to
a conclusion, and then an ending that ties up all the loose ends.
• Stay in action. The key to holding audience interest is a plot that moves along. An audience is more
likely to listen to an action-packed message than to one that listlessly lingers on an idea too long.
• Keep them in suspense. Suspense is created when the characters in the story may do one of
several things. Tell a story in which the outcome is in doubt. Keeping people on the edge of their
seats because they don’t know what will happen next is another element in good storytelling.
• Consider using appropriate humor. Not all stories have to be funny. Stories may be sad or
dramatic without humor. But adding humor at appropriate times usually helps to maintain
interest and attention while you make your point.

Present Information That Relates to Your Listeners

Being an audience-centered informative speaker means being aware of information that
your audience can use. For example, if you are going to teach your audience pointers
about recycling, be sure to talk about specific recycling efforts on your campus or in
your community. Adapt your message to the people who will be in your audience.

Use the Unexpected

On a flight from Dallas, Texas, to San Diego, California, flight attendant Karen Wood
made the following announcement:

If I could have your attention for a few moments, we sure would love to point out our
safety features. If you haven’t been in an automobile since 1965, the proper way to fasten
your seat belt is to slide the flat end into the buckle. To unfasten, lift up on the buckle
and it will release.
As the song goes, there might be fifty ways to leave your lover, but there are only
six ways to leave this aircraft: two forward exit doors, two over-wing removable window
324 15.c SPEAKING TO INFORM

exits, and two aft exit doors. The location of each exit is clearly marked with signs over-
head, as well as red and white disco lights along the floor of the aisle.
Made ya look!12
This clever flight attendant took a predictable announcement and added a few sur-
prises and novel interpretations to make a boring but important message interesting.
With just a little thought about how to make your message less predictable and un-
expected, you can add zest and interest to your speeches. Listeners will focus on the
unexpected. The Sample Informative Speech in this chapter includes a surprise in the
introduction.

SAMPLE INFORMATIVE SPEECH

CHOOSING A SPEECH TOPIC
by Roger Fringer13
Roger cleverly captures attention
Today I’d like to talk to you about [pause] tables. Tables are wood . . . by purposefully starting with an
usually . . . and they are. . . . How often do we sit in a class and feel unimaginative topic and using
the intelligence draining out of us? In a speech class, we are given halting delivery that makes
the opportunity to add to that feeling or to add to the intelligence. listeners wonder, “What’s this
Selecting a meaningful speech topic will make our speeches interesting, really about?”
important, as well as being informative. As students, we’ve all been
in the situation of being more anxious than necessary because we are Roger establishes a common
bond with his listeners by
talking about an unfamiliar or uninteresting speech topic. In our public
relating to them as fellow
speaking class, we spend a number of hours giving speeches and students who are often
listening to them. If we have four days of speeches, at what—seven confronted with the same
speech topics, that equals 28 hours spent listening to speeches. Let’s problem: how to select a topic
not forget that we are paying to listen to those speeches. If our tuition for a speech.
is, say, $15,000 a year, that’s $875 that we have spent listening to those
28 hours of speeches. We work hard for our tuition, so we should spend Rather than just saying that we
it wisely. Spending it wisely means we don’t waste our time. We don’t waste time and money when
waste our own time on preparing and giving the speeches, and we listening to speeches, Roger
don’t waste our classmates’ time who have to listen to our speeches. uses statistics specifically
The solution is simple if we take choosing our topic seriously. adapted to the audience to
whom he is speaking; this
is a good example of being
I recommend that we choose topics following The Three I’s to
audience-centered.
guide us. The irst I is to make speeches interesting. By doing so, we
can alleviate the boredom that so often permeates the public speaking
He clearly previews his major
classroom. If the topic is interesting to us, we will present it in a manner ideas and links them together
that shows our interest. We will also keep our audience’s attention when by beginning each point with a
we know, as students, they can be thinking about a million other things. word that begins with I.
Choosing an interesting topic will also alleviate some of the angst,
anxiety we feel while giving the speech topic.
Here, he uses a signpost by
The second I is to make the speech important. The speech should clearly noting he’s moved to his
not only be interesting but important to us. It should be relevant to our second point.
lives now or in the future.
 Strategies to Maintain Audience Interest 15.c 325

The third I is to make the speech informative. Let’s not waste our tuition Again, he uses a verbal signpost
money by not learning anything new in those 28 hours of class time. This is to indicate that this is his third
our opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences and expertise. point.

Now, just picture yourself putting these ideas into practice. Imagine Although Roger’s primary
sitting in a classroom, listening to your classmates talk about issues or purpose is to inform, he uses a
ideas that are important to them. They are so excited that you can’t hypothetical example to tell the
help but be excited about the topic with them. You’re learning from audience how the information
their life experiences, experiences that you would not have had the he has given them will help them
solve a problem: how to find a
opportunity to learn about if it had not been for their speech. Then,
good speech topic.
imagine being able to talk about the experiences and knowledge that
are important to you. Sometimes you only have seven minutes to express
what is most important to you. Besides that, it’s to a captive audience that
has no choice but to listen to you. There are few times in our lives when
we can have an impact on someone else’s life, and we have only a short
amount of time to do it. But in our public speaking class, we can have that
chance. Let’s all think about how we use our time and energy in our public Roger provides closure to his
speaking class. I don’t want to waste my time or have any unnecessary message by making a reference
stress over [pause] tables. I would like all of us to use our opportunities to the example he used in his
wisely by choosing topics that are interesting, important, and informative. introduction.

Source: Student Speeches Video II, 1st ed. By Allyn & Bacon. Copyright © 2003 by
Allyn & Bacon. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle
River, NJ.

Besides surprising your listeners, you can maintain their attention by creating
mystery or suspense. As we have seen, stories are a great way to add drama and interest
to a talk—especially a story that moves audience members to try to solve a riddle or
problem. Another way to create a “mini-mystery” is to ask a rhetorical question. You
don’t necessarily expect an audible answer from audience members, but you do want
them to have a mental response. For example, you might ask, “Would you know what
to do if you were stranded, out of gas, at night, without your cell phone?” By getting
listeners to ponder your question, you actively engage them in your message rather
than relying on them to passively process your words.14
QUICK CHECK

Keeping the Audience Interested

• Tell them why they should want to listen.
• Tell them a good story.
• Tell them how it affects them.
• Tell them something that surprises them.
326 15.d SPEAKING TO INFORM

15.d Strategies to Enhance Audience Recall

Think of the best teacher you ever had. He or she was probably a good lecturer with a
special talent for being not only clear and interesting but also memorable. The very fact
that you can remember your teacher is a testament to his or her talent. Like teachers,
some speakers are better than others at presenting information in a memorable way.
In this final section, we review strategies that will help your audiences to remember
you and your message.

Build in Redundancy
It is seldom necessary for writers to repeat themselves. If readers don’t understand a pas-
sage, they can go back and read it again. When you speak, however, it is useful to repeat
key points. Audience members generally cannot stop you if a point in your speech is
unclear or if their minds wander.
How do you make your message redundant without insulting your listeners’
intelligence?

• Provide a clear preview at the beginning of your talk and a summary statement in
your conclusion.
• Include internal summaries—short summaries after key points during your speech.
• Use numeric signposts (numbering key ideas verbally by saying, “My first point
is . . . , My second point is . . . , And now here’s my third point: . . . .”).
• Reinforce key ideas by displaying them in a visual aid.
If you really want to ensure that listeners come away from your speech with essen-
tial information, consider preparing a handout or an outline of key ideas. (When using
a handout, make sure the audience is focusing on you, not on your handout.)

Make Your Key Ideas Short and Simple

When we say that you should make your messages simple, we don’t mean that you need
to give 30-second speeches. Rather, we mean that if you can distill your ideas down to
brief and simple phrases, your audience will be more likely to remember what you say.15
Can you remember more than seven things? One classic research study concluded
that people can hold only about seven pieces of information in their short-term mem-
ory (such as the numbers in a seven-digit phone number).16 If you want your listeners
to remember your message, don’t bombard them with a lengthy list. With the advent of
PowerPoint, some speakers may be tempted to spray listeners with a shower of bulleted
information. Resist this temptation.
An important speech-preparation technique that we’ve suggested is to crystallize
the central idea of your message into a one-sentence summary of your speech. To help
your audience remember your central-idea statement, make it short enough to fit on
a car bumper sticker. For example, rather than saying, “The specific words that people
use and the way in which people express themselves are influenced by culture and
 Strategies to Enhance Audience Recall 15.d 327

other socioeconomic forces,” say, “Language shapes our culture, and culture shapes our
language.” The message not only is shorter, but also uses the technique of antithesis.
Perhaps you’ve heard this advice as the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Sweetheart. Make
your message simple enough for anyone to grasp quickly. Here’s this idea phrased as a
bumper sticker: Make it short and simple.

Pace Your Information Flow

Organize your speech so that you present an even flow of information, rather than
bunching up a number of significant details around one point. If you present too much
new information too quickly, you may overwhelm your audience. Listeners’ ability to
understand may falter.17
You should be especially sensitive to the flow of information if your topic is new or
unfamiliar to your listeners. Make sure that your audience has time to process any new
information you present. Use supporting materials both to help clarify new informa-
tion and to slow down the pace of your presentation.
Again, do not try to see how much detail and content you can cram into a speech.
Your job is to present information so that the audience can grasp it, not to show off
how much you know.

Reinforce Key Ideas

The last point is one of the most powerful techniques in the entire chapter: Reinforce
key ideas verbally or nonverbally to make your idea memorable.

Reinforce Key Ideas Verbally You can verbally reinforce an idea by using
such phrases as “This is the most important point” or “Be sure to remember this next
point; it’s the most compelling one.” Suppose you have four suggestions for helping
your listeners to avoid serious sunburn and your last suggestion is the most important.
How can you make sure your audience knows that? Just tell them. “Of all the sugges-
tions I’ve given you, this last tip is the most important one: The higher the SPF level on
your sunscreen, the better.” Be careful not to overuse this technique. If you claim that
every other point is a key point, soon your audience will not believe you.

Reinforce Key Ideas Nonverbally How can you draw attention to key ideas
nonverbally? Just the way you deliver an idea can give it special emphasis. Gestures
serve the purpose of accenting or emphasizing key phrases.
A well-placed pause can provide emphasis to set off and reinforce a point. Paus-
ing just before or just after making an important point will focus attention on your
thought. Raising or lowering your voice can also reinforce a key idea.
Movement can help to emphasize major ideas. Moving from behind the lectern to tell
a personal anecdote can signal that something special and more intimate is about to be
said. As we discussed in Chapter 13, your movement and gestures should be meaningful
and natural rather than seemingly arbitrary or forced. Your need to emphasize an idea can
provide the motivation to make a meaningful movement.
328 15.e SPEAKING TO INFORM

QUICK CHECK
Enhancing Audience Recall
• Build in redundancy. Say it again.
• Say it short and simple.
• Say it at a steady pace.
• Say why it’s important.
• Don’t just say it; reinforce ideas nonverbally.

15.e Developing an Audience-Centered

Informative Speech
As Figure 15.1 shows, you can rely on the audience-centered speaking model we’ve
been following throughout this book to guide you step by step through the process of
preparing and presenting an informative speech.

Select and
Narrow
Deliver Topic
Speech
Determine
Purpose

Rehearse CONSIDER
Speech
THE Develop
AUDIENCE Central
Idea

Organize
Speech Generate
Gather Main Ideas
Supporting
Material

FIGURE 15.1 You can follow the steps of the audience-centered model of
public speaking to craft a successful informative speech.
 Developing an Audience-Centered Informative Speech 15.e 329

Consider Your Audience

As with any type of speech, an informative talk requires that you consider three general
questions of audience analysis:

• To whom are you speaking?

• What are their interests, attitudes, beliefs, and values?
• What do they expect from you?
When your general purpose is to inform, you should focus on specific aspects of
these three general questions:

• Part of considering who your audience is will include figuring out, as best you can,
their preferred learning styles.
• Determining listeners’ interests, attitudes, beliefs, and values can help you to bal-
ance your use of strategies to enhance understanding and recall with your need
for strategies to maintain interest. You won’t need to work as hard to maintain the
interest of listeners who are already highly interested in your topic, for example.
• Careful consideration of the audience’s expectations can also help you to maintain
their interest, perhaps by surprising listeners with something they do not expect.

Select and Narrow Your Informational Topic

During the early stages of preparing your message, ask yourself, and answer, the ques-
tion “What does my audience already know about my topic?” If you misjudge what an
audience already knows about your topic, that misjudgment may hamper your devel-
opment of an effective and precise specific-purpose statement.
You should also consider the question “How interested are they in my topic?”
If your audience is both knowledgeable about and interested in your topic, you can
provide greater detail and build on the information audience members already have. If
they are likely to be uninterested or uninformed, then you’ll need to establish, early in
your message, a clear and engaging reason why they should tune you in.

Determine Your Informative Purpose

You already know that your general purpose is to inform. You also need to develop a
specific behavioral purpose. That is, you need to identify what you would like the audi-
ence to be able to do when your finish your speech. “Wait a minute,” you might think.
“Shouldn’t an informative speech be about what the audience should learn rather than
do?” Yes, your purpose is focused on what you want the audience to learn, but we sug-
gest that you phrase your learning goal in terms of behavior. The How To box gives
some suggestions for formulating your specific-purpose statement.

Develop Your Central Idea

With a clear and precise specific-purpose sentence, you’ll be better prepared to iden-
tify your central idea—a one-sentence summary of your message. Rather than a fuzzy
330 15.e SPEAKING TO INFORM

HOW TO
Formulate Your Informative Specific-Purpose Statement
• Use behavioral verbs. Say that what you want your audience members to state, restate, de-
scribe, enumerate, identify, list, summarize, or otherwise do to demonstrate their learning,
rather than merely indicating that you want your audience to know or appreciate some general
information.
• Be precise. Give numbers or other benchmarks to describe the behavior in your verb. A precise
specific-purpose sentence will guide you as you develop your central idea and main ideas,
and it is especially important when you organize your message. One precise and effective
informative-purpose statement might be: At the end of my speech, the audience should be
able to state three reasons C.S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia.
• Think of your specific-purpose sentence as a test question. Imagine that you’re writing a test
for your audience. A test question that asks what you know about why the Narnia Chronicles
were written is less specific than a question that asks you to identify three reasons why the
stories were written. You might never actually ask your audience your “test question,” but by
thinking of your specific purpose as a test question, you’ll have a clearer goal in mind, one that
will help you in other areas of preparing your message.

central-idea sentence such as “C. S. Lewis wrote the Narnia stories for many reasons,”
your more specific central idea might be “Three reasons Lewis wrote the Narnia stories
are to connect the ‘pictures’ he visualized in his head, to write an engaging story for
children, and to make a larger point about Christianity.” Your central-idea sentence is
your speech in brief. Someone who heard only your central idea would understand the
essence of your message.

Generate Your Main Ideas

If you have developed a specific-purpose sentence and have a well-crafted central-idea
sentence, it should be easy to generate your main ideas. In our C. S. Lewis example, we
identified in our central idea three reasons why Lewis wrote the stories. Those three
reasons will become the main ideas of the speech.
The type of informative talk you are planning will influence your central and main
ideas. A speech about an object may lend itself to certain main ideas such as history, fea-
tures, and uses of the object, whereas a speech about a person might be more likely to have
main ideas related to the person’s accomplishments or relationship to you, the speaker.

Gather Your Supporting Materials

As you read and research, you look for examples, illustrations, stories, statistics, and
other materials that help you to achieve your specific purpose. The type of informative
speech you plan to make will often suggest ideas for supporting materials. Biographical
details and stories will most likely support a speech about a person. Stories, examples,
or statistics may help you to teach your audience about an event or idea.
 Developing an Audience-Centered Informative Speech 15.e 331

Remember that supporting materials include presentation aids. As we noted earlier in

this chapter, visual aids often make “how to” speeches about procedures more effective.
Speeches about objects also often benefit from visual aids, especially when the actual object
is appropriate to show. As you gather supporting material, continue to think about your audi-
ence, who will ultimately judge whether your supporting material is interesting and helpful.

Organize Your Speech

As you continue to keep your audience in mind, you now determine what the best se-
quence of your main points should be. Your topic and purpose can also help to guide
you. As we discussed earlier in the chapter, different types of informative speeches lend
themselves to different organizational patterns.

Rehearse Your Presentation

For informative speeches, it is especially helpful to rehearse in front of other people,
especially people who are similar to your listeners, if possible. Seek their feedback about
whether you are effectively teaching them about your topic. You might even wish to
ask your sample audience the test question you developed as your specific-purpose
statement, to determine whether your speech is meeting your learning objectives.

Deliver Your Speech

As we discussed in Chapter 13, effective speakers continually look for ways to adapt and
modify their message as they speak. Such adaptation is especially important in infor-
mative speaking. As you speak, watch your audience closely for signs—such as puzzled
facial expressions—that indicate that your listeners do not understand something. Be
alert, too, for signs of wandering attention, such as fidgeting or lack of eye contact. Be
prepared to adapt your message, using the strategies discussed earlier in this chapter for
enhancing listeners’ understanding and maintaining their attention.
QUICK CHECK

Audience-Centered Informative Speaking

• Select and narrow your topic. Consider the characteristics of the audience, their interests, and
how much they already know.
• Determine your purpose. State specific audience actions that will show learning.
• Formulate your central and main ideas. Make the audience support your specific purpose.
• Gather supporting material. Choose material types to support your topic and keep audience
attention.
• Organize. Match organization to topic and audience needs.
• Rehearse. Get sample audience feedback.
• Deliver. Adapt to ensure audience comprehension.
 STUDY GUIDE
Remember These Main Ideas
• To inform is to teach someone something you know. Public speakers use
specific goals, principles, and strategies to inform others.
• Informative speeches have three goals: to enhance understanding, to gain
and maintain interest, and to be remembered.
• Speeches about objects discuss tangible things.
• Speeches about procedures explain a process or describe how something
works.
• Speeches about people can be about either the famous or the little
known.
• A speech about an event should describe the event in concrete, tangible
terms to bring the experience to life for your audience.
• Speeches about ideas are often abstract and generally discuss principles,
concepts, or theories.
• To enhance your listeners’ understanding of a message, (1) speak with
clarity, (2) use principles and techniques of adult learning, (3) clarify
complex processes, and (4) use descriptions effectively.
• Combine spoken words, visuals, and kinesthetic opportunities to appeal to
listeners with a variety of learning styles.
• To gain and maintain interest in your informative talk, establish a motive
for your audience to listen to you. Present information that relates to your
listeners’ interest; in essence, be audience-centered.
• A well-told story almost always works to keep listeners focused on you and
your message.
• Use the unexpected to add zest and interest to your speech.
• Help your listeners to remember what you told them by being redundant,
making your key ideas short and simple, and pacing the flow of your
information.
• Reinforcing your ideas verbally and nonverbally can also help your audience
to remember important points.
• You can apply the principles of informative speaking as you follow the
audience-centered model of speaking

Understand These Key Terms

andragogy (p. 319) speech to inform word picture (p. 320)
pedagogy (p. 318) (p. 310)

332
 Study Guide 15 333

Think about These Questions

• To give your five-minute speech about nuclear energy, you must greatly
simplify what is a very complex process. How can you avoid misrepresenting
your topic? Should you let your audience know that you are oversimplifying
the process?
• Hillary Webster, M.D., will be addressing a medical convention of other physi-
cians to discuss the weight-loss technique she has recently used successfully with
her patients. What advice would you give to help her present an effective infor-
mative talk?
• Ken’s boss has given him the task of presenting a report to a group of potential
investors about his company’s recent productivity trends. The presentation
includes many statistics. What suggestions would you offer to help Ken give
an interesting and effective informative presentation?
• Before giving a speech to your class in which you share a story that includes
personal information about one of your friends, should you ask permission
from your friend?

Learn More Online

Here are two sites where you can learn more about adult learning and learning
styles:
Ageless Learner This commercial site offers a good summary of adult learning
principles as well as several self-quizzes.
http://www.agelesslearner.com/
Learning Styles Online This site gives a very thorough rundown of many
possible learning styles and lets you take a free quiz to see which styles you
prefer.
http://www.learning-styles-online.com/