Informative speech writing: preparing a draft

Writing and giving informative speeches can be really enjoyable for those who choose topics they're excited about. Being passionate about your subject is a great start, but it can also lead to some problems. When you're extremely passionate about a subject, it can be easy to ramble about it, or to assume the audience is equally as excited—that may not be the case. Remember, you're not just speaking to yourself; a great informative speaker makes a connection to their audience and incites their interest. One way to accomplish these things is to organize your speech well, and the key to doing so is in creating outlines and drafts that fulfill your goals.

Outlining Your Informative Speech

The first thing you'll want to do is to create a comprehensive outline of your speech, from the introduction and body of the speech through its conclusion. Break each section down and make notes about both the content (information) it should include and its intent (grabbing attention, building rapport, transitioning).

Multiple Drafts

For a truly coherent, enjoyable, informative speech it's best to create multiple drafts. That's because there are several goals you'll want to keep in mind which need to be accomplished by your speech. It's often difficult to write an initial draft that covers all of these goals.

  • Rough Draft for Content
  • The first draft you want to write simply adds detailed content to the structure you've already decided on when you created your outline. This draft should include your detailed thesis, all of your facts, anecdotes, and research, and it should adhere to the outline structure. For the content draft, you don't need to worry much about sentence structure, speech flow, or holding the audience's interest. The goal is simply to get down all of your content in one place.

  • Rough Draft for Style
  • Now, revisit the your rough draft for content and reference the notes you made on intent in your outline. Proofread and edit the draft to be sure that each section, in addition to including the content it should, also fulfills your intentions. Is the content a bit dry here? Spice it up. Is a transition rough there? Smooth it out. Does the section as a whole work to pique the listener's interest? If not, give it a few tweaks and edits to improve the flow and anticipation.

  • Read & Polish
  • Finally, practice reading your speech to someone else and polish it until you've got a final product you're happy with.

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11 2016

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