Part 3: SPEAKER’S REFERENCE

• Seek out information about your audience in order to give a speech that will be meaningful to them.
• Maintain an audience-centered perspective as you prepare all aspects of a speech.

• Understand the nature of attitudes, beliefs, and values, and the central role they play in audience receptivity to a message.
• Seek information on audience members’ relevant attitudes, beliefs, and values about the topic and related issues.
• Appeal directly to important audience values related to your topic.
• Adjust your strategy depending on whether listeners are positively, negatively, or neutrally disposed toward the topic.

• Anticipate how audience members will perceive you and strive to establish credibility, or ethos.
• Stress shared experiences to create identification.
• Emphasize common goals and values.
• Use inclusive language.

• Consider the reason and circumstances for the speech.
• Consider whether the audience is captive or voluntary; adjust accordingly.

• Consider audience members’ age, ethnic and cultural background, socioeconomic status, religious and political affiliations, gender, group affiliations, and disability.

• Identify whom in the audience you are most likely to influence.
• Focus on target audience but aim to make topic relevant to all listeners.

• Appeal to concerns and motivations of audience age range.

• Appeal to the relevant ethnic and cultural composition of your audience.

• Consider that listeners’ attitudes may be closely tied to occupational status and income level.
• Use examples that are appropriate to the audience’s level of education.

• Identify potential religious and political sensitivities; tread carefully.

• Treat gender-related issues evenly.
• Consider the groups to which audience members belong and appeal to the interests and values they reflect.

• Use language and examples that are respectful of persons with disabilities.

• Identify listeners’ major values and cultural orientation related to your topic and adapt your speech accordingly.
• Consult cross-cultural polls to further identify audience attitudes.
• Focus on universal values.

• For classroom speeches, consider questionnaires or instant polls.
• Look for information about the audience in published sources.

• Consider interviewing one or more representatives of the audience.
• Distribute questionnaires using open- and close-ended questions.

• Find out in advance what the physical setting will be like.
• Plan appropriately for the length and timing of your speech.

• Know precisely what you will cover.
• Be clear about the purpose and goals of the speech.

• Follow personal interests, but ensure the topic will interest the audience.
• Survey current events.
• Consider civic issues, current events, and controversial issues.
• Avoid overused and trite topics.
• Brainstorm with word association, topic mapping, and Internet tools to generate ideas.

• Use an informative speech to increase audience understanding and awareness.
• Use a persuasive speech to effect change in audience attitudes, beliefs, values, or behavior.
• Use a special occasion speech when the specific event calls for entertainment, celebration, commemoration, inspiration, or setting a social agenda.

• Narrow your topic to align with audience expectations and interests, occasion, and time constraints.
• Consider using a library portal to research and narrow topics.
• Form a specific speech purpose—a statement of what you want the audience to gain from the speech.

• State the thesis as a single, declarative sentence that poses the central idea of your speech.
• Use the thesis to help you develop main points.
• Make the thesis statement relevant and motivating by adding key words or phrases and considering audience interests.