Description is a way of verbally expressing things you have experienced with your senses. Although most speeches use some type of description, some focus on this task more closely than others. The primary task of a descriptive presentation is to paint a mental picture for your audience to portray places, events, persons, objects, or processes clearly and vividly. An effective descriptive speech begins with a well-structured idea of what you want to describe and why. As you move through the development process, you emphasize important details and eliminate unimportant ones, all the while considering ways to make the details more vivid for your audience.

Descriptive speeches are most effective when the topic is personally connected to the speaker. Consider the following excerpt from President Barack Obama’s April 2013 “They picked the wrong city” speech to honor those killed and wounded in the Boston Marathon bombings. Many people found Obama’s description of the youngest victim, Martin Richard, to be particularly moving:

And our hearts are broken for 8-year-old Martin, with his big smile and bright eyes. His last hours were as perfect as an 8-year-old boy could hope for, with his family, eating ice cream at a sporting event. And we’re left with two enduring images of this little boy, forever smiling for his beloved Bruins and forever expressing a wish he made on a blue poster board: No more hurting people. Peace. No more hurting people. Peace.¹

From these few vivid lines, audience members learn who Martin was and are moved by this young boy’s advocacy of peace; they can imagine who he might have become had his life not been cut so short.