Show Your Audience What’s in It for Them
After you have revealed your thesis, you need to generate audience in-
To accomplish this goal, provide one sentence or a short paragraph that indicates why the audience should take an interest in your topic. Instead of going on and on, give listeners just enough to whet their appetite. You’ll go into more detail in the body of your speech, where you’ll show how the ideas or suggestions in your presentation will benefit listeners.
Following are some examples of effective WIIFM statements:
The dangerous practice drunkorexia—
or eating little food during the day to offset calories consumed by drinking in the evening— is not just a problem on somebody else’s campus. The director of our health center reports that this is a growing concern at our college. I doubt that many of you have lost sleep over the state budget deficit. It did not make my “Top Ten Worries” list, either. But when I found out that our tuition had increased by 27 percent this year as one means of making up the shortfall, I started to worry. And you should, too.
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Today we will consider the history of the 1846 war between the United States and Mexico from a Mexican perspective. This will provide an alternative to the romanticized version many of us were taught in our high school history classes.
My survey showed that 77 percent of this class believes they are spending too much time on school and work at the expense of their social lives. So instead of focusing on academics today, let’s take a brief look at the art of asking someone out on a date.
