Fairleigh Early Birds Toastmasters Club

(assuming a non-work speech) 

• Talk about yourself, or a part of your life – failures as well as successes as we can all more readily relate to human weakness stories although we are inspired by success stories.  The more personal you get, the more interested the audience will be.

• Select a topic you are familiar with or interested in, particularly a subject that you have strong views on – life is difficult enough so select a topic you know. 

• Select a topic from your interests ie hobby or from your employment. 

• Draw on your own experiences or experiences of family / friends eg something that has happened to you, your past holidays, something you do each day. 

• Select a topic relevant to the audience.  If you don’t know your audience – find out.  The topic can be an audience need or of general interest to them. 

• Ascertain the audience’s level of knowledge on the subject to know your starting point.

• Know precisely the point you want to make. 

• All of the points made in the speech should relate directly to the overall point you are trying to make. 

• Once decided, don’t change the topic close to the delivery of the speech date.  Go with what you have and do the best you can with it.

• Research topic using any means eg library, Internet etc. 

• If you are advancing arguments that can be supported by statistics, do so and quote the source.

Source: www.youthsspeak.com.au