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One way to deliver an effective informative speech and ensure that the audience leaves your speech informed is to tailor the complexity of the speech to the specific audience.
Never presume that your audience has a lot of background knowledge on your subject, but also don't assume they know nothing. The audience is an integral part of public speaking; not only will they hear your speech, but they should be an important component that informs the writing of the speech, as well.
IN CONTEXT
Consider if you are preparing to deliver an informative speech on the topic of cloning to an audience of geneticists. Their professional training will have given them an extensive understanding of DNA. Because of this, you would want to tailor the complexity of the speech to match the knowledge that the audience already possesses, meaning that the speech could contain lots of technical terms with little explanation because the audience will already understand what those terms mean.
Conversely, consider delivering a speech on the same topic to an audience of college students. This audience, even if they have taken biology classes, will not possess the same expert knowledge that professionals do. Therefore, you would want to tailor the complexity of your speech to the knowledge of the students, using fewer technical terms and more general explanations.
Informative speaking is a speech meant to inform the audience. This speech can take on topics ranging from the newest, high-tech inventions from around the world that hope to cure cancer to more light-hearted topics like methods of dog training. The topic should be one that is timely and interesting.
In order to improve the likelihood that the audience will walk away informed by your speech, you should make your topic relevant. The topic of an informative speech should be one that is timely. This means that what was a good topic for a speech for Teddy Roosevelt is probably no longer going to be a good topic for a speech given now.
A relevant topic is one that is appropriate for the contemporary period. This is because the information that an informative speech contains should be the most recent, whether this information is statistical data or just the state of the conversation around a particular topic.
Another way to consider how to make the topic of a speech relevant is to consider the audience who will hear your speech. Ask yourself, "What topic would the audience find interesting or useful?" If you feel committed to a particular topic, then begin thinking about how you can demonstrate why the topic is relevant to your audience.
Doing this requires that you articulate why they should care about your chosen topic. But remember that an informative speech should try to communicate this in an unbiased way that does not rely heavily on emotional appeals.
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