Events

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Noteworthy occurrences (past and present) are good topics for informative speeches. Our understanding of history is shaped by events, and at a more intimate level, events of personal significance can also make interesting and compelling topics for speeches.

You might build an informative speech around important, tragic, funny, or instructive events in your personal life—the day you went skydiving, your bar mitzvah, the death of a close friend, or the birth of your first child. Just remember that these stories of personal events must be ethical and truthful, and exaggeration or fabrication is never ethical.

In addition to helping an audience understand the meaning of personal and historical single events, a speaker can also explore the social significance of collections of events. A speaker might, for example, talk about the significance of dances for Native American tribes, of high school football games in a small town, or of the role of weddings and funerals in his or her family.