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If you want audience members to actively listen to your speech—and ignore everything else going on—you must motivate them to focus on what you’re saying. By selecting supporting materials that appeal to your listeners’ interests, you sweeten the odds that they will pay attention to you. For example, suppose you are developing a speech on cooking with locally grown products. Your supporting materials should focus on ingredients that are available at farmers’ markets in your region—citrus or tropical fruits in Florida, avocados in California, or summer squash in Michigan. It would also be important to choose foods your fellow college students could afford.

By including supporting materials that surprise audience members, make them laugh, or touch their emotions, you increase the chances that they will listen to what you are saying.