Demonstration

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New York City resident Peggy Paul was offered the opportunity to appear on The Rachael Ray Show after informing the celebrity host that she could prepare a four-course gourmet dinner in her tiny apartment with just a toaster oven, a microwave, and a hot plate (Annino, 2007). Sound impossible? But what if she showed you? Rachael Ray (and Peggy Paul) caught on to an important truth: often the best way to explain how something works is to demonstrate it. Demonstration speeches answer “how” questions—how to use a smart phone, how to bake a pie crust, how to salsa dance—by showing an audience the way something works. In this case, Peggy used a combination of explanatory narration and physical demonstration to show how she whips up baked apple pork chops, pear and gorgonzola salad, and chocolate hazelnut quesadillas as easily as we make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, all the while making use of props, models, and other visual aids.

The key to delivering an effective demonstration speech is to begin with a clear statement of purpose and to follow a very straightforward organizational pattern. In most cases, a chronological pattern works best for a demonstration, with the process broken down into a number of steps that are presented in order of completion. Even with a strict chronological format, however, it can be helpful to introduce the completed end product first, before going through the process of creating or finishing it from step one.