How To Write a Speech

Learn how to write a speech with these easy-to-follow tips and suggestions. I know the thought of preparing an oral delivery can be overwhelming, but following these guidelines will help you organize your thoughts and craft a perfect presentation!

The first step in figuring out how to write a speech is to decide on the presentation's purpose.

In some rare instances, you may have complete and total freedom over the type of speech you intend to write.

In most cases, though, either the instructor in the communications class for which you are creating the speech or the occasion your performance is intended for, will dictate the type of expression you need to write.

Choosing the most appropriate type of speech to meet the needs of your situation, then, is crucial!

Informative speech is the most common type of assignment. The purpose of any good informative speech is to teach the audience about a topic. In determining how to create the outline and written draft, focus your goal on delivering the audience limited information and details about a specific given speech topic.
Persuasive speeches are also quite common in the world of public speaking. The goal of a persuasive speech is to get the audience to take action concerning a particular issue. That action may be as simple as changing their way of thinking on a topic, or as complicated as following an action plan. Sales speeches are often persuasive speeches, as the goal of any good sales speech is to get audience members to purchase a product.
Special-occasion speeches are the type required for a particular event - graduation speeches fall under this category, for example, as do welcome remarks or words presented at a wedding or birthday party.
Demonstration speeches round out the most popular types of presentations. Demonstrations speeches show audience members how to complete a given task. The most popular cooking shows on television today are merely an hour or half-hour demonstration speeches.

Half the battle is over once you have decided on the purpose of your speech.

Each type of presentation comes with its own general guidelines for how to write a speech

In most cases, you can plug your information into the layout for the type of speech you have chosen, and hey presto, you have a text you can work with in front of an audience!

Here's an example of a demonstration speech outline, an informative speech outline, plus some ideas for speech introductions. Good speech titles are essential as well as speech delivery!

Once you have a clear direction for the type of speech, you will write - and an idea of how to organize your thoughts - the next step is to pick a topic.

Topic decisions are never easy ones to make! Your topic choices ARE narrowed somewhat by the type of speech you'll be required to give, but you'll likely still have considerable latitude.

The most important thing to remember is to settle on an appropriate topic to the style of speech you're required to give, particularly if you're in an educational environment and will receive a grade on your efforts! For example, you would not choose a topic such as 'the history of my favorite video game' for a demonstration speech! Similarly, you would not persuade audience members to vote for a candidate in the next election if you're working on an informative speech about voting laws.

Figuring out the steps involved in how to write a speech isn't always easy, but deciding on both purpose and topic will help get you off to a good start.

Check out these top 5 tips for speech writing for even more help in putting pen to paper and creating your masterpiece!

Read our Grammarly review December 2018 concerning whether an intelligent software can improve the grammar and vocabulary of your presentation. I have found that my speech preparation and writing improves consistently with the feedback regularly received through the Grammarly product.