Types of Information to Consider

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A variety of types of support materials in your speech, including testimony, scholarship and statistics, anecdotes, quotations, and comparisons and contrasts, will enliven your speech and make it more effective.

Testimony. When you need to prove a point about which you are not an authority, incorporating the voice of an expert into your speech can lend it some validity. Expert testimony is the opinion or judgment of an expert, a professional in his or her field. Opinions from doctors, coaches, engineers, and other qualified, licensed professionals serve as expert testimony. In a speech about knee surgery, for example, you might cite an orthopedic surgeon when explaining the difference between arthroscopy and knee replacement surgery. Lay testimony is the opinion of a nonexpert who has personal experience or witnessed an event related to your topic. In a speech on weather disasters, you could provide the testimony from a witness who survived a tornado.

Scholarship and Statistics. If you can bolster testimonies with hard numbers and facts, you’ll be more effective as a speaker. Scientific research findings carry a lot of weight with audiences, particularly if your topic is related to medicine, health, media, or the environment. For example, in a speech about educational television programs, a speaker might point out that studies have found that children who watched Sesame Street as preschoolers were more likely to enjoy elementary school and to achieve higher grades even in high school (Huston & Wright, 1998).

Statistics—information provided in numerical form—can also provide powerful support for a speech, sometimes more than mere words can. Statistics reveal trends, explain the size of something, or illustrate relationships. They can be made more meaningful when paired with or made part of factual statements—truthful, realistic accounts based on actual people, places, events, or dates. For example, when speaking about domestic violence, you might use a combination of statistics and factual statements to back your assertion that a person is more likely to be killed by a family member or close acquaintance than by a stranger:

Out of 13,636 murders studied in the United States, 30.2 percent of the victims were murdered by persons known to them (4,119 victims), 13.6 percent were murdered by family members (1,855 victims), 12.3 percent were murdered by strangers (1,676 victims), and 43.9 percent of the relationships were unknown (investigators were not able to establish any relationship). (U.S. Department of Justice, 2010)

Anecdotes. While facts and statistics are useful for gaining credibility, they can also be boring and easily forgotten. An effective way to breathe life into them—and into your speech in general—is by including personal details that give faces to statistics and facts and make them part of a memorable and cohesive story. Anecdotes are brief, personal stories that have a point or punch line. The statistics on murder presented above would be greatly enhanced if they were paired with one or two personal stories that bring them down to a more intimate and relatable level. Anecdotes can be pointed or emotionally moving; they can also be humorous or inspiring. When used well, they add a personal and memorable element to your speech.

Quotations. You can also call on the words of others to lend your speech a sense of history, perspective, and timeless eloquence. Quotations, repeating the exact words of another person, are usually most effective when they are brief, to the point, and clearly related to your topic. You might quote a historical figure, a celebrity, a poet, or a playwright. Your sources do not need to be famous—you may be motivated to quote a friend or family member: “My grandfather always told me, ‘An education is never a burden.’” Be sure to point out the source of your quote and, if necessary, explain who the person is or was.

Comparisons and Contrasts. Comparisons and contrasts, used separately or played against each other, have the potential to make your speech more memorable. Comparisons measure the similarity of two things. In a comparison, the likeness or resemblance of two ideas or concepts is pointed out. Contrasts show dissimilarities between two or more things. By illustrating differences, speakers can make distinctions among ideas they are discussing. A speech on school funding, for example, might call attention to disparities between schools by providing contrasting descriptions of the equipment in their science labs or gyms. You could follow that up by contrasting statistics on their students’ average test scores or graduation rates.