You need some way to remember what you intend to say, in what order, and within your time constraints. The method you use affects both how you plan and how you deliver your speech.

Slides: Projected slides are the most popular method of supporting your delivery. You can build your whole presentation around your slide set, so slides are a good planning tool. When you design slides, think about purpose and audience: Is there a cartoon or an image that meets your purpose? Is there a way to allow your audience to interact with the slides?

As you plan, use a “less is more” philosophy: fewer slides than you think you need and fewer words on slides than you can fit. Slides can become numbing to an audience, especially if you read from them. When you present, let the audience absorb the message of a slide while you elaborate with an example or anecdote.

Notes: Confident speakers may rely on only brief notes to remind them of the main points in a certain order. You might have one note card or several. You might want to use notes to capture the exact wording of a quotation or the details of a research finding, or you might want to use notes as reminders to pause or to repeat key phrases. Some notes might be reminders to yourself (state the thesis, look at the audience, tell the story about Joachim.) Notes work best when you have rehearsed and know how much time to devote to each point. An advantage is that the audience will be looking at and listening to you; they won’t be reading a slide.

Memory: Memory is the riskiest approach, unless you have a method and have carefully rehearsed. Some speakers overestimate their ability to speak from memory, and a talk comes out disorganized or whole portions are skipped. So even if you rely on memory to deliver your speech, you still need to plan by writing it out or creating an outline.

There are many methods of remembering a complex series of ideas, some based on associating each part of a speech with a location and then taking a mental walk through those locations and recalling each element of the speech. You might try rehearsing a speech from memory to see if you can do it.

Text: Reading your speech is certainly an approach that is time-tested. But it can also severely test the attention of your audience. If you choose to read, you benefit from knowing exactly what you want to say in what order. You can concentrate on reading with expression and on varying the pace and volume to emphasize your points.

If you do choose to read your text, write a text that is meant to sound spoken, not written. Insert places where you look up, make eye contact, and perhaps depart from your text with a brief example or anecdote. When you read, you still need to connect to the audience.