Informative speech

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Have you ever listened to someone speak and at the end of it you learnt something new? Have you ever heard someone provide a deeper insight into something you have always known and you thought in your heart, “Wow! I never saw it like that before”? If you have, then you have come in contact with informative speech. So, what exactly in informative speech? An informative speech is one that is directed at enlightening the listeners. It is designed in such a way that valuable information is passed across to the audience either for the first time or to provide a fresh perspective.

If we look around us, we will discover that we are constantly exposed to so many types of informative speeches. For instance, if you are a student, all the lessons or lectures you take in school are informative in nature. This is because they teach you something new that you will need for your future career. One of the ways to know that school lectures are informative in nature is that you are given tests and examinations to evaluate your level of understanding. Also, there are several empowerment seminars these days. Some of them are on entrepreneurship, career development, skill acquisition, internet business, forex trading and computer training to mention a few. All of these are informative speeches. Their sole aim is to impact knowledge on the listener.

Some people are of the opinion that informative speech is different from demonstrative speech because one involves only information while the other takes it to the next level of demonstration. I am of the opinion that they are the same. Demonstration is an element of speech that does not necessarily need to stand alone. All the types of speeches mentioned above can be demonstrative depending on the preference of the speaker. Nevertheless, we shall examine this dimension later still under this topic. There are some basic requirements of an informative speech and they are the following:

•The Speaker Must be Knowledgeable: if it is true that an informative speech must contain fresh information or a different perspective to existing ones, then it goes without saying that the speaker must be knowledgeable. Can you imagine yourself paying a huge sum of money to learn forex trading from an instructor who just learnt it last week and is yet to execute his first trade? Can you employ an English teacher to teach your children Further Mathematics? How about you as an Art student being invited to a conference of computer professionals to deliver a lecture on Bioinformatics? You cannot give what you don’t have. As far as informative speech is concerned, the knowledge base of the speaker will go a long in determining the success of the speech.

•It Must be Systematic: this simply means that the presentation of the speech must follow a given pattern. It must be according to predetermined procedure. You have to plan your speech in such a way that the information will be effectively passed across to the audience. There are different approaches to this. On one hand, you may begin with what your audience is familiar with and then gradually move on to new facts until you “download” your entire information. On the other hand, however, you introduce the fresh fact directly in such a way that it interests them and makes them want to find out more. Whichever way, be systematic.

•Audience’s Knowledge Must Equal Speaker’s Knowledge: at the end of your informative speech, your audience must know exactly what you knew at the beginning. This is how it works- you had an idea you want to pass across to your audience. In your mind, the idea is complete. Then you begin the process of imparting that idea into your audience. At the end of your effort, the audience must not have a passing idea of what you talked about, they must not understand a part of it, but they must have the perfect picture that you had in your mind before you started. This is the only indication that you have communicated effectively.

To achieve all that we have talked about, it is important to understand the techniques for delivering an informative speech. We will explore some of those strategies next week, look forward to it.

Thanks for following me through our topic for today. I hope you have derived as much pleasure and inspiration as I have. Join me again next week as we explore another important topic on public speaking. Please write to share your experiences and ideas through: [email protected] You can also ask questions about our topic for today or any other one and I will be glad to make it a topic for discussion. Have a blessed week.