The choices you make about the introduction can affect the outcome of the entire speech. In the first several minutes (one speaker pegs it at ninety seconds), audience members will decide whether they are interested in the topic of your speech, whether they will believe what you say, and whether they will give you their full attention.

A good introduction serves to:

The introduction comes first in a speech, but plan on preparing it after you’ve completed the speech body. This way, you will know exactly what material you need to preview. Keep the introduction brief—as a rule, it should occupy no more than 10 to 15 percent of the entire speech.

Gain Audience Attention

The first challenge faced by any speaker is to win the audience’s attention. Some time-honored techniques for doing this include sharing a compelling quotation or story, posing a question, providing unusual information, using humor, acknowledging the audience and establishing common ground, and referring to the occasion.

Use a Quotation

A Czech proverb says, “Do not protect yourself by a fence but rather by your friends.” A good quotation, one that elegantly and succinctly expresses an idea relevant to your topic, is a very effective way to draw the audience’s attention. Quotations can be culled from literature, poetry, film, the Internet, or directly from people you know. Clever sayings of any kind, whether spoken by a three-year-old child or by a wise friend, may express precisely the idea you are looking for.

Tell a Story

Noted speechwriter and language expert William Safire once remarked that stories are “surefire attention getters.”¹ Speakers like to use stories, or narratives, to illustrate points, and audiences like to hear them, because they make ideas concrete and colorful. Stories personalize issues by encouraging audience identification and making ideas relevant. And they are, importantly, entertaining.

Recall from Chapter 8 that anecdotes—brief stories of meaningful and entertaining incidents based on real life, often the speaker’s own—can serve as a powerful tool to command the audience’s attention. Dutch researchers discovered this when audience members they studied rated speeches introduced with anecdotes as more interesting and understandable than those that were not. The anecdotes also boosted speaker credibility and helped the subjects retain more of the speech.² Scientific studies aside, the key to successfully introducing a speech with any anecdote is choosing one that strikes a chord with the audience and which, like a good joke, can stand on its own without explanation.

Pose Questions

“Are you concerned about student loans?” Posing questions such as this can be an effective way to draw the audience’s attention to what you are about to say. Questions can be real or rhetorical. Rhetorical questions do not invite actual responses. Instead, they make the audience think.

Whenever you use a rhetorical question in an introduction, always let the audience know that your speech will attempt to answer it:

Are you concerned about whether you’ll be able to find a job when you graduate? Are you worried that unemployment will remain high? If so, we are in this together. Today I’m going to talk about some steps you can take in college that will help you enter the job market sooner once you graduate.

Posing questions that seek an actual response, either in a show of hands or by verbal reply, also sparks interest. Here is an example of how a speech about trends in technology usage might be introduced by using real, or “polling,” questions:

How many of you have gone 24 hours without using any mobile devices? (Speaker waits for a show of hands.) How many of you think you’d enjoy doing so? (Speaker waits for show of hands.) Do you think you’d be comfortable not using a cell phone, iPad, Droid, laptop, or whatever other devices you own, for a week? (Speaker waits for a show of hands.) A month? (Speaker waits for a show of hands.) As you can see by looking around this room, not many of us can visualize being particularly comfortable without our electronic devices. Today I’m going to describe trends in technology usage and our dependence on these modern devices. . . .

Polling audience members is an effective way to gain their attention if your questions are thought-provoking and novel, but it has drawbacks. Bear in mind when using this attention-gaining technique that it is possible that no one will respond, or that the responses will be unexpected. Analyzing your audience will be helpful in designing effective rhetorical questions (see Chapter 6).

Offer Unusual Information

“In the United States, a woman is physically abused every nine seconds.” Surprising audience members with startling or unusual information is one of the surest ways to get their attention. Such statements stimulate your listeners’ curiosity and make them want to hear more about your topic.

Speakers frequently base their startling statements on statistics, a powerful means of illustrating consequences and relationships and of quickly bringing things into focus (see Chapter 8). In the following example, a student introducing a speech on domestic violence uses statistics to gain the audience’s attention:

Thirty percent of female homicide victims are murdered by their intimate partners compared with 5 percent of male homicide victims. . . . Today we will see . . . ³

Use Humor—Perhaps

Handled well, humor can build rapport and set a positive tone for a speech. Humor can also enliven a speech about a topic that is dry, difficult, or complex. Using humor can be a challenge, however, and it can backfire easily. Include humor in your speech with caution. Simply telling a series of unrelated jokes without making a relevant point will likely detract from your purpose. And few things turn an audience off more quickly than tasteless or inappropriate humor. In any speech, you should strictly avoid humor or sarcasm that belittles others—whether on the basis of race, sex, ability, or otherwise. A good rule of thumb is that speech humor should always match the audience, topic, purpose, and occasion.

Refer to the Audience and Establish Common Ground

Just as friendships are formed by showing interest in others, audiences are won over when speakers express interest in them and show that they share in the audiences’ concerns and goals. This creates goodwill and a feeling of common ground (or identification; see also Chapter 6). Finding common ground helps overcome the natural human divisions that separate people.

When the late Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid leader in South Africa who later became the country’s president, was first released from prison after twenty-seven years, he addressed a huge crowd of supporters beginning this way:

Friends, comrades, and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy, and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.⁴

Although Mandela had just tasted his first hours of freedom after more than two decades in prison, he chose to express goodwill toward the audience rather than focus on himself. In response, Mandela’s listeners could not help but hold him in even higher esteem.

Refer to the Occasion

Introductions that include references to the speech occasion and to any relevant facts about the audience make listeners feel recognized as individuals. People appreciate a direct reference to the event, and they are interested in the meaning the speaker assigns to it. In her introduction to a ceremony honoring the fiftieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Oprah Winfrey began this way:

On this date, in this place, at this time, 50 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King shared his dream for America with America. . . . Dr. King was the passionate voice that awakened the conscience of a nation and inspired people all over the world. The power of his words resonated because they were spoken out of an unwavering belief in freedom and justice, equality and opportunity for all. “Let Freedom Ring” was Dr. King’s closing call for a better and more just America.⁵

Preview the Purpose and Topic

Once you’ve gained the audience’s attention, use the introduction to alert listeners to the speech topic and purpose. You may already have alluded to your topic in the attention-getting phase of the introduction. If not, declare what your speech is about and what you hope to accomplish. Note an exception to this rule: When your purpose is to persuade, and the audience is not yet aware of this purpose, “forewarning” may predispose listeners in the opposite direction and thwart your persuasive goal. However, when the audience knows of your persuasive intent, previewing the topic and purpose can enhance understanding.⁶

Topic and purpose are clearly explained in this introduction to a speech by Marvin Runyon, postmaster general of the United States:

This afternoon, I want to examine the truth of that statement—“Nothing moves people like the mail, and no one moves the mail like the U.S. Postal Service.” I want to look at where we are today as a communications industry, and where we intend to be in the days and years ahead.⁷