As you will recall from Chapter 14, presentation aids can add value to your speech by helping audiences follow and understand the information you present. Such aids can be especially helpful in informative speeches. For example, in an informative speech about the importance of a person’s credit score, the speaker might show (via slides or handouts) sample credit reports. Seeing this information in addition to hearing about it will underscore the importance of your message: everyone has a credit report and a credit score.

Informative speeches also benefit greatly from the use of graphic presentation aids. In a speech describing a process, for example, a flowchart outlining the steps you describe in your speech can help audiences visualize how the process works. Graphs can also be helpful in conveying numerical or statistical information. The combination of hearing your message (the speech content) and seeing your message (through presentation aids) helps the audience retain the content of your informative speech.

Let’s take a look at an informative speech by Anna Davis. She chose to inform her audience about how and why social media are being harnessed as a tool to advance social causes and motivate people to act on them.

Anna organizes the speech in a topical pattern: each of her main points is a subtopic or category of the overall speech topic of social media movements. This is one of the most frequently used patterns for informative speeches. Anna’s speaking outline and references are included here as well.