An Informative Speech

How to give an Informative Speech

To give an informative speech you need to give tasty mental fodder for the brains of your audience. It must leave them mentally nourished and satisfied.

There are three principles or keys to consider when preparing an informative speech. Use these keys wisely and your speech to inform will motivate the audience to want the information and to want to use it.

Following the three principles will require putting all your material through your mental meat grinder. If you fulfill the three requirements, you will not only impart knowledge, you will help the audience grow in wisdom.

Wisdom can be defined as using knowledge in a beneficial way.

Beyond 'What’s in it for Me?'

To benefit an audience, you need to go beyond just giving an informative speech in the traditional sense, telling them what they already know. Otherwise it would only be a review. As a result, you may lose their attention.

To be truly informative, your goal will be to

• Stimulate Thinking Ability
• Give a gift of knowledge to the audience
• Leave the audience feeling they have benefited

Stimulate Thinking Ability

To stimulate thinking ability will require going beyond 'what's in it for me?' What is unique about the self serving interest to the audience that you want them to see? Why is or should this particular material be of interest to them? How will you frame the information so as to help the audience see, feel, or hear their personal benefit in accepting what your presenting?

If they only needed to be informed, they could get a memo or an e-mail. To give an informative speech that will move an audience requires mental stimulation, imparting knowledge and showing the benefit.

The foundation of all speaking is knowing the audience. To prepare material for your audience you need you need to know what the audience knows. This is the determining factor in what you say.

To stimulate thinking ability, you will next mix something old and something new. Something they know with the new information you are delivering. This makes the new material easier to assimilate. All the listener has to do is add the new to the old rather than find a place to file all new information.

There is a theory of remembering. We only remember 15 percent of what we hear. 25-35 percent of what we see and hear, and up to and even over 75 percent of what we see, hear, and do. This applies to new memories. What about linking to existing memories.

The memory benefit can be exponential. It can increase if you combine something old with something new. Add to what they already know the information that is new.

If you do this, not only will you motivate their minds, you will motivate their hearts.

Give a Gift of Knowledge

Any informative speech you may give may have many facets. You only need to present one facet. You can present two, but no more than three. Preferably, those never before considered. By doing this, you give the audience a fresh way of looking at something they already know. You give them knowledge as a gift.

It is like eggs. How many days of our life have we had eggs or what ever prepared meal for breakfast. We need it for nourishment. It is vital for life. Yet how many tasty ways can eggs be prepared? If you’re giving an informative speech, like eggs, you come up with something new and then the audience will be impressed. Think of it as being tasty for the mind.

Leave the Audience Feeling they have Benefited

Weave into the information how knowing this is beneficial. Even if you have taken something old and instead of a review, you made it into something new, there can be benefits too.

If nothing other than the fresh look, it will have the effect of lighting a new fire.

It may be that by looking at something from a new view will help the audience see additional things through from a new viewpoint.

It is not enough to expect that the audience will make the connection. You need to connect the dots for them. Not only does it help them to grasp the concept, it becomes a part of the repetition that helps memory.

In addition to aiding memory, it imparts the greatest benefit, wisdom.

How will it help audience gain wisdom? This is perhaps one of the vital aspects of a great speech and the most important part of the benefit of the material. Information only gives knowledge. Understanding and knowing how to use information gives wisdom. Wisdom is power. When you give power to another individual, both benefit.

If within an informative speech you do these three things, stimulate thinking ability, give a gift of knowledge to the audience, and leave the audience feeling they have benefited, you will have learned an elemental aspect of Speechmastery.

Knowing Your Audience will improve your ability to share information.

Learn how the Audience Mind works to master public speaking.

Speechmastery.com: An Informative Speech Resource

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