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The context of your speech is the occasion, surrounding environment, and situation in which you will deliver your presentation. These factors often make one topic choice better than another.

For example, if you are asked to speak at an awards banquet for a campus organization to which you belong, the audience will expect an upbeat speech on a topic related to that organization. A speech on a more serious idea, such as the need for changes in higher education, would be better saved for a less celebratory occasion.

Situational characteristics—such as audience size and mobility, as well as the time of day and physical setting of your speech—should also influence your topic choice. For instance, suppose you need to play an audio snippet to present a certain topic you care about effectively. You would not choose that topic if you will be giving your speech in a large, noisy location, where listeners would have difficulty hearing the clip. You should also keep this in mind if you are in an online class and your speech is going to be recorded for later viewing by your classmates. As we will discuss in chapter 15, there are special considerations to take into account when your audience will not be physically present.

Outside of the classroom, speakers must also consider the context when selecting a speech topic. Consider the challenge faced by fashion designer and research fellow Suzanne Lee when she was asked to give “the talk of her life” at a TED conference. She selected a cutting-edge topic—Grow Your Own Clothes—but because she knew that few of the creative thinkers in her audience would be fashion or biology experts, she tailored her speech for a general audience. Rather than discussing the technical aspects of fabric farming from bacteria and microbes, she gave a basic step-by-step overview. She also supplemented her speech with compelling photos, animation, and videos. Her audience left with a new understanding of and appreciation for a topic that—until the speech—they hadn’t known existed.