Topic 1: Informative Speeches

Activity 1: Reading – Informative Speeches

Please read the following text which introduces you to informative speeches.

^{This activity is adapted from 11.1: Informative Speeches which is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform. In this revised version, we have added and removed content, replaced images, and reworded information to suit this course.}
Many people are drawn to passionate political speeches or laugh-out-loud comedic monologues over a straightforward lecture. While informative speaking may not always be the most thrilling form of public speaking, it is by far the most common. Whether delivering reports, leading training seminars, or conducting demonstrations, informative speaking is a fundamental skill used in countless professional and academic settings.

Entire industries, such as consulting and corporate training, revolve around the clear and effective communication of information. Even university graduates have reported that, among various public speaking skills, informative speaking is the most essential (Verderber, 1991, p. 3). Since informative speaking is an inevitable part of life, why not master it? Becoming an engaging and compelling speaker will not only make your message more impactful but will also help you stand out in any field.

Creating an Informative Speech

The goal of informative speaking is to teach an audience something using objective, factual information. Interestingly, informative speaking is a newcomer in the world of public speaking theorizing and instruction, which began thousands of years ago with the ancient Greeks (Olbricht, 1968, p. 1–12). Ancient philosophers and statesmen including Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian conceived of public speaking as rhetoric, which is inherently persuasive. During that time, and until the 1800s, almost all public speaking was argumentative. Teaching and instruction were performed as debates, and even fields like science and medicine relied on argumentative reasoning instead of factual claims.

While most instruction is now verbal, for most of modern history, people learned by doing rather than listening, as apprenticeships were much more common than classroom-based instruction. So what facilitated the change from argumentative and demonstrative teaching to verbal and informative teaching? One reason for this change was the democratization of information.

Technical information used to be protected by individuals, families, or guilds. Today most people believe that information should be shared and made available to all. The increasing complexity of fields of knowledge and professions also increased the need for informative speaking. Now one must learn a history or backstory before actually engaging with a subject or trade. Finally, much of the information that has built up over time has become commonly accepted; therefore, much of the history or background information that we encounter isn’t disputed and can now be shared in an informative rather than argumentative way.

Choosing an Informative Speech Topic

Being a successful informative speaker starts with selecting a topic that excites and educates your audience. The level at which you are speaking plays a crucial role in shaping your approach. Informative speaking typically falls into three categories: formal, vocational, and impromptu (Verderber, 1991, p. 3).

1. Formal Speaking: When an audience gathers specifically to hear you speak, expectations are high. Keynote speakers at professional conferences, civic events, and special celebrations are usually experts in their fields who share valuable insights drawn from their experiences. These speeches must be well-researched, engaging, and impactful.
2. Vocational Speaking: Many careers require daily informative speaking. Teachers captivate students through lessons, human resource professionals provide training on policies and procedures, technicians break down complex systems and safety protocols, and restaurant servers explain menu options in an engaging way. In these settings, clear communication is key to efficiency and success.
3. Impromptu Speaking: Informative speaking extends beyond formal settings into our everyday interactions. Whether guiding a lost student across campus, recapping a must-watch TV episode for a friend, or explaining a local tradition to an international visitor, impromptu informative speaking happens all the time. The ability to think on your feet and deliver information concisely makes these moments more effective.

Regardless of the level, great informative speeches draw from diverse categories such as objects, people, events, processes, concepts, and issues. A formal keynote address might weave together multiple elements, while a vocational speech may focus on a single, industry-specific topic. Ultimately, the key to success is making your information clear, engaging, and meaningful to your audience.

Speakers delivering impromptu informative speeches rarely have the luxury of time to conduct extensive research or meticulously organize their content. As a result, these speeches often provide a concise yet engaging overview of a topic. When crafting your specific purpose and thesis statements, consider which category—or combination of categories—best supports your speech goals and use them to guide your research.

1. Speeches About Objects: These speeches convey information about tangible, nonhuman subjects, including mechanical inventions, animals, plants, and even fictional artifacts. Given the vast range of possibilities, select an object that is either unfamiliar to your audience or offers fresh, intriguing insights about a well-known subject.
2. Speeches About People: These speeches explore the lives of real or fictional individuals, whether living or deceased. Unlike a basic encyclopedia entry, an informative speech about a person requires in-depth biographical research. Introduce an influential figure your audience may not know or shed light on unexpected details about a widely recognized individual. Even historical leaders and cultural icons have lesser-known personal stories that captivate audiences.
3. Speeches About Concepts: Concept-based speeches tackle abstract or multifaceted ideas, such as democracy, artificial intelligence, or mindfulness. Some concepts, like justice, are familiar, while others, such as qi (or chi)—the ancient idea of energy flowing through the body—may be new to your audience. Use storytelling, relatable examples, and practical applications to make abstract ideas more accessible and engaging.
4. Speeches About Events: These speeches highlight significant past or present occurrences. Whether discussing a pivotal historical moment, an annual celebration, or a rare celestial event, providing context and background information is essential. Instead of repeating commonly known details, focus on unique insights, untold perspectives, or lesser-known consequences of the event.
5. Speeches About Processes: Process-oriented speeches explain step-by-step procedures or natural phenomena. Speakers may demonstrate a practical skill, such as making homemade cheese or playing a strategy-based card game, or describe scientific processes like cell division or fermentation. Visual aids and clear sequencing enhance understanding and engagement.
   

   

6. Speeches About Issues: Informative speeches about issues present objective and balanced information on disputed topics or societal concerns. Rather than persuading the audience toward a particular viewpoint, the speaker’s role is to educate and increase awareness. A well-structured speech on an issue should provide multiple perspectives, relevant data, and historical context to help listeners form their own informed opinions.

Regardless of the category, a successful informative speech captures the audience’s curiosity, transforms information into compelling content, and leaves listeners feeling more informed and inspired.

Researching an Informative Speech Topic

Strong research skills are a crucial part of being an effective informative speaker. Since the goal is to convey factual and reliable information, speakers must carefully select sources that are credible, objective, and balanced. Books, scholarly articles, reputable newspapers, and credible websites all serve as valuable resources.

Beyond finding reliable sources, speakers should seek out engaging and unexpected information to make their speech more compelling. This requires the ability to sift through common or generic findings and uncover intriguing, lesser-known details. High-quality research often demands deeper exploration and critical thinking. Even seemingly ordinary topics can come to life with unique perspectives.

For example, a speech on the history of coupons could be elevated by including surprising facts: coupons have existed for over 125 years, they are most frequently used by wealthier and more educated households, and the infamous Ponzi scheme was named after Charles Ponzi, who originally used a fraudulent coupon system.

By conducting thorough research and presenting information in an engaging way, speakers can transform an ordinary topic into a memorable and informative experience for their audience.

To avoid boring an audience—and better yet—to keep the audience engaged, effective informative speakers possess good research skills and the ability to translate information to be engaging and relevant for an audience.

The goal of informative speaking is to teach your audience. People are more likely to stay engaged when they are actively learning. Striking the right balance is key—you want your audience to be challenged enough to stay interested but not so overwhelmed that they disengage.

Consider how much your audience already knows about your topic. Speakers who are highly familiar with their subject often overestimate their audience’s knowledge. As a result, it’s usually better to present information at a slightly lower level than you assume they know rather than at a level that is too advanced. Most people appreciate a quick review, but if they struggle to connect with the material or find it too complex, they may tune out.

A strong informative speech lingers in the audience’s mind long after it ends. To achieve this, try to include practical takeaways—memorable facts or useful insights. These might be surprising pieces of trivia, such as how Prohibition led to the creation of NASCAR or that the Eiffel Tower was originally meant to be built somewhere other than Paris. Alternatively, takeaways can be directly useful, like how to remove wine stains from clothing and carpet or an overview of different types of student financial aid. Providing your audience with engaging and applicable information makes your speech more impactful.

Organizing and Supporting an Informative Speech

You can already see that informing isn’t as easy as we may initially think. To effectively inform, a speaker must present quality information in an organized and accessible way. Once you have chosen an informative speech topic and put your research skills to the test in order to locate novel and engaging information, it’s time to organize and support your speech.

Organizational Patterns

Three organizational patterns that are particularly useful for informative speaking are topical, chronological, and spatial. To organize a speech topically, the speaker will break a larger topic down into logical subdivisions. An informative speech about labour unions could focus on unions in three different areas of employment, three historically significant strikes, or three significant legal/legislative decisions. Speeches organized chronologically trace the development of a topic or overview the steps in a process. An informative speech could trace the rise of an economic crisis in a specific geographical area or explain the steps in creating a home compost pile. Speeches organized spatially convey the layout or physical characteristics of a location or concept. An informative speech about the layout of a fire station or an astrology wheel would follow a spatial organization pattern.

Methods of Informing

There are some specific ways to go about developing ideas within informative speeches. Speakers often inform an audience using definitions, descriptions, demonstrations, and explanations. It is likely that a speaker will combine these methods of informing within one speech, but a speech can also be primarily organized using one of these methods.

Informing through Definition

Informing through definition entails defining concepts clearly and concisely and is an important skill for informative speaking. There are several ways a speaker can inform through definition: synonyms and antonyms, use or function, example, and etymology (Verderber, 1991, p. 3). Defining a concept using a synonym or an antonym is a short and effective way to convey meaning. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar meanings, and antonyms are words that have opposite meanings. In a speech about how to effectively inform an audience, using concrete words helps keep an audience engaged. What does “concrete” mean? Words such as tangible and relatable are similar. Antonyms such as abstract and theoretical are not concrete.

Identifying the use or function of an object, item, or idea is also a brief way of defining. We may think that we already know the use and function of most of the things we interact with regularly. This is probably true in obvious cases like cars, elevators, and smartphones. But there are many objects and ideas that we may rely on and interact with but not know the use or function. For example, QR codes (or quick response codes) are frequently seen in magazines, at airports, and even on t-shirts (Vuong, 2011). Many people may notice them but not know what they do, or they may not know how easy it is to make them. As a speaker, you could define QR codes and their function by informing the audience that QR codes allow businesses, organizations, and individuals to get information to consumers/receivers through a barcode-like format that can be easily scanned by most smartphones.

A speaker can also define a topic using examples, which are cited cases that are representative of a larger concept. In an informative speech about anachronisms in movies and literature, a speaker might provide the following examples: the film Titanic shows people on lifeboats using flashlights to look for survivors from the sunken ship (such flashlights weren’t invented until two years later) (Ibrahim, 2022); Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar includes a reference to a clock, even though no mechanical clocks existed during Caesar’s time (Mahler, 2017). Examples are a good way to repackage information that has already been presented to help an audience retain and understand the content of a speech.

Etymology refers to the history of a word. Defining by etymology entails providing an overview of how a word came to its current meaning. Dictionaries and online tools are arguably the best source for finding basic information on etymology and often contain interesting facts that can be presented as novel information to better engage your audience. For example, the word shampoo comes from Hindi, and means “to massage.” It is derived from the Sanskrit root chapati (चपति), and initially referred to any type of pressing, kneading, or massage. The definition was later extended to mean ‘wash the hair’ in the nineteenth century, but it was only in the 1950s that its meaning was further extended to refer to the washing of carpets and other materials.

Informing through Description

We’ve all heard the cliche, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

Informing through description entails creating verbal pictures for your audience. Description is also an important part of informative speeches that use a spatial organizational pattern because you need to convey the layout of a space or concept. Good descriptions are based on good observations, as they convey what is taken in through the senses and answer these type of questions: What did that look like? Smell like? Sound like? Feel like? Taste like? If descriptions are vivid and well written, they can actually invoke a sensory reaction in your audience. Just as you might salivate thinking about a warm slice of pizza, so can your audience be transported to a setting or situation through your descriptions.

Informing through Demonstration

When informing through demonstration, a speaker gives verbal directions about how to do something while also physically demonstrating the steps. Early morning cooking demonstrations on morning talk shows are good examples of demonstrative speaking. Whether straightforward or complex, it is crucial that a speaker be familiar with the content of their speech and the physical steps necessary for the demonstration. Speaking while completing a task requires advanced psycho-motor skills that most people can’t improvise, so they need to practice ahead of the speech. Tasks suddenly become much more difficult than we expect when we have an audience. Have you ever had to type while people are reading along with you? Even though we type all the time, even one extra set of eyes seems to make our fingers more clumsy than usual.

Television chefs are excellent examples of speakers who frequently inform through demonstration. While many of them make the process of speaking while cooking look effortless, it took much practice over many years to make viewers think it is effortless.

Part of this practice also involves meeting time limits. Television segments are limited and chefs may be demonstrating and speaking live, so they have to be able to adapt as needed.

Demonstration speeches in communication courses are notorious for going over time, especially if speakers haven’t practiced with their visual aids / props. Be prepared to condense or edit as needed to meet your time limit. The reality competition show “The Next Food Network Star” captures these difficulties, as many experienced cooks who have the content knowledge and know-how to physically complete their tasks fall apart when faced with a camera challenge because they just assumed they could speak and cook at the same time.

Tips for Demonstration Speeches

1. Include personal stories and connections to the topic in addition to the “how-to” information to help engage your audience.
2. Ask for audience volunteers (if appropriate) to make the demonstration more interactive.
3. Include a question-and-answer period at the end (if possible) so audience members can ask questions and seek clarification.
4. Follow an orderly progression. Do not skip around or backtrack when reviewing the steps.
5. Use clear signposts like first, second, and third.
6. Use orienting material like internal previews, reviews, and transitions.
7. Group steps together in categories, if needed, to help make the information more digestible.
8. Assess the nonverbal feedback of your audience. Review or slow down if audience members look lost or confused.
9. Practice with your visual aids / props many times. Things suddenly become more difficult and complicated than you expect when an audience is present.
10. Practice for time and have contingency plans if you need to edit some information out to avoid going over your time limit.

Informing through Explanation

Informing through explanation entails sharing how something works, how something came to be, or why something happened. This method of informing may be useful when a topic is too complex or abstract to demonstrate. When presenting complex information, make sure to break the topic up into manageable units, avoid information overload, and include examples that make the content relevant to the audience. Informing through explanation works well with speeches about processes, events, and issues. For example, a speaker could explain the context surrounding the process that takes place during provincial elections or how trades work in the NHL.

Activity 2: Videos – Watch Two TED Talks

Watch the following TED Talks:

^{How to Use One Paper Towel: Joe Smith [duration 4:27]
(TEDx Talks, 2012) CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International}

^{Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are: Amy Cuddy [duration 21:02]
(TED, 2012)}

Activity 3: Personal Reflection Journal – Reflection Question 1

Please answer the following reflection questions in any format you like (such as in writing, a video, note form, or a drawing). Save your reflection responses in one large file so you can refer to them later in the course if needed. Please read the text after you have completed the reflection question activity.

^{This activity contains text from 11.1: Informative Speeches which is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Anonymous via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform. In this revised version, we have added and removed content, and reworded information to suit this course.}

Effective Informative Speaking

There are several challenges to overcome to be an effective informative speaker. They include avoiding persuasion, avoiding information overload, and engaging your audience.

Avoiding Persuasion

We should avoid thinking of informing and persuading as dichotomous, meaning that it’s either one or the other. It’s more accurate to think of informing and persuading as two poles on a continuum, as in Figure 10.1.1 below. Most persuasive speeches rely on some degree of informing to substantiate the reasoning. And informative speeches, although meant to secure the understanding of an audience, may influence audience members’ beliefs, attitudes, values, or behaviours.

Speakers can look to three areas to help determine if their speech is more informative or persuasive: speaker purpose, function of information, and audience perception (Verderber, 1991, p. 3). First, for informative speaking, a speaker’s purpose should be to create understanding by sharing objective, factual information. Specific purpose and thesis statements help establish a speaker’s goal and purpose and can serve as useful reference points to keep a speech on track. When reviewing your specific purpose and thesis statement, look for words like should/shouldn’t, good/bad, and right/wrong, as these often indicate a persuasive slant in the speech.

Second, information should function to clarify and explain in an informative speech. Supporting materials shouldn’t function to prove a thesis or to provide reasons for an audience to accept the thesis, as they do in persuasive speeches. Although informative messages can end up influencing the thoughts or behaviours of audience members, that shouldn’t be the goal.

Third, an audience’s perception of the information and the speaker helps determine whether a speech is classified as informative or persuasive. The audience must perceive that the information being presented is not controversial or disputed, which will lead audience members to view the information as factual. The audience must also accept the speaker as a credible source of information. Being prepared, citing credible sources, and engaging the audience help establish a speaker’s credibility.

Last, an audience must perceive the speaker to be trustworthy and not have a hidden agenda. Avoiding persuasion is a common challenge for informative speakers, but it is important to consider, as violating the speaking occasion may be perceived as unethical by the audience. Be aware of the overall tone of your speech by reviewing your specific purpose and thesis to make sure your speech isn’t tipping from informative to persuasive.

Words like should/shouldn’t, good/bad, and right/wrong in a specific purpose and/or thesis statement often indicate that the speaker’s purpose is tipping from informative to persuasive.

Avoiding Information Overload

Many informative speakers have a tendency to pack a six-minute speech with as much information as possible. This can result in information overload, which is a barrier to effective listening that occurs when a speech contains more information than an audience can process. Editing can be a difficult task, but it’s an important skill because you will be editing more than you think. Whether it’s reading through an e-mail before you send it, condensing a report down to an executive summary, or figuring out how to fit a client’s message on the front page of a brochure, you will have to learn how to discern what information is best to keep and what can be thrown out. In speaking, being a discerning editor is useful because it helps avoid information overload. While a receiver may not be attracted to a brochure that’s covered in text, they could take the time to read it and reread it if necessary. Audience members cannot conduct their own review while listening to a speaker live. Unlike readers, audience members can’t review words over and over (Verderber, 1991, p. 3). Therefore, competent speakers, especially informative speakers who are trying to teach their audience something, should adapt their message to a listening audience. To help avoid information overload, adapt your message to make it more listenable.

Although the results vary, research shows that people only remember a portion of a message days or even hours after receiving it (Zielinski, 2018). If you spend 100% of your speech introducing new information, you have wasted approximately 30% of your time and your audience’s time. Information overload is a barrier to effective listening, and as good speakers, we should be aware of the limitations of listening and compensate for that in our speech preparation and presentation. A reasonable guideline is to spend no more than 30% of your speech introducing new material and 70% of your speech repackaging that information. I specifically use the word repackaging and not repeating. Simply repeating the same information would also be a barrier to effective listening, because people will simply get bored. Repackaging will help ensure that your audience retains most of the key information in the speech. Even if they don’t remember every example, they will remember the main point.

Avoiding information overload requires a speaker to be a good translator of information. To be a good translator, you can compare an unfamiliar concept with something familiar, give examples from your own life, connect your information to current events or popular culture, or supplement supporting material like statistics with related translations of that information. These are just some of the strategies a good speaker can use. While translating information is important for any oral presentation, it is especially important when conveying technical information. Being able to translate complex or technical information for a lay audience leads to more effective informing because the audience feels like they are being addressed on their level and don’t feel lost or “talked down to.” The History Channel show “The Universe” provides excellent examples of informative speakers who act as good translators. The scientists and experts featured on the show are excellent at translating technical information, like physics, into concrete examples that most people can relate to based on their everyday experiences.

Comparing the turbulent formation of the solar system to the collisions of bumper bars and spinning rides at an amusement park makes content more concrete.

Engaging Your Audience

As a speaker, you are competing for the attention of your audience against other internal and external stimuli. Getting an audience engaged and then keeping their attention is a challenge for any speaker, but it can be especially difficult when speaking to inform. As was discussed earlier, once you are in the professional world, you will most likely be speaking informatively about topics related to your experience and expertise. Some speakers fall into the trap of thinking that their knowledge is enough to sustain them through an informative speech or that their position in an organization means that an audience will listen to them and appreciate their information despite their delivery. Content expertise is not enough to be an effective speaker. A person must also have speaking expertise (Verderber, 1991, p. 3). Effective speakers, even renowned experts, must still translate their wealth of content knowledge into information that is suited for oral transmission, is audience centered, and is well organized.

Audience members are more likely to stay engaged with a speaker they view as credible. So complementing good supporting material with a practiced and fluent delivery increases credibility and audience engagement. In addition, good informative speakers act as translators of information. Repackaging information into concrete familiar examples is also a strategy for making your speech more engaging. Understanding relies on being able to apply incoming information to life experiences.

“Getting Real”: Technical Speaking

People who work in technical fields, like engineers and information technology professionals, often think they will be spared the task of public speaking. This is not the case, however, and there is actually a branch of communication studies that addresses public speaking matters for people in STEM fields. The field of technical communication focuses on how messages can be translated from expert to lay audiences.

Have you ever been completely lost when reading an instruction manual for some new product you purchased? Have you ever had difficulty following the instructions of someone who was trying to help you with a technical matter? If so, you’ve experienced some of the challenges associated with technical speaking. There are many careers where technical speaking skills are needed. According to the Society for Technical Communication, communicating about specialized or technical topics, communicating by using technology, and providing instructions about how to do something are all examples of technical speaking (Society for Technical Communication, n.d.).

People with technical speaking skills offer much to organizations and businesses. They help make information more useable and accessible to customers, clients, and employees. They can help reduce costs to a business by reducing unnecessary work that results from misunderstandings of instructions, by providing clear information that allows customers to use products without training or technical support and by making general information put out by a company more user friendly. Technical speakers are dedicated to producing messages that are concise, clear, and coherent (Society for Technical Communication, n.d.). Such skills are used in the following careers: technical writers and editors, technical illustrators, visual designers, web designers, customer service representatives, salespeople, spokespeople, and many more.

Media Attributions

Charlesdeluvio. (2017, August 24). Black pug yawning on casper pet bed inside room [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/black-pug-yawning-on-casper-pet-bed-inside-room-S2AcayPkszE

Christina @ wocintechchat.com. (2019, November 7). Group of people sitting beside rectangular wooden table with laptops [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/group-of-people-sitting-beside-rectangular-wooden-table-with-laptops-34GZCgaVksk

Richardson, Z. (2021, June 27). White round food on stainless steel tray [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/white-round-food-on-stainless-steel-tray-YFmkU2EOm-8

TED. (2012). Your body language may shape who you are: Amy Cuddy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc

TEDx Talks. (2012). How to use one paper towel: Joe Smith [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc

References

Anonymous. (n.d.). 11. Informative and Persuasive Speaking. In Communication in the Real World – An Introduction to Communication Studies. LibreTexts. https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Communication/Introduction_to_Communication/Communication_in_the_Real_World_-_An_Introduction_to_Communication_Studies/11%3A_Informative_and_Persuasive_Speaking/11.01%3A_Informative_Speeches

Ibrahim, N. (2022, April 14). Were these actual mistakes in the 1997 ‘Titanic’ film? Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/04/14/mistakes-1997-titanic-film/

Mahler, A. (2017). Anachronism. LitCharts. https://www.litcharts.com/literary-devices-and-terms/anachronism

Olbricht, T. H. (1968). Informative speaking. Scott, Foresman.

Society for Technical Communication. (n.d.). Defining technical communication. https://www.stc.org/about-stc/defining-technical-communication/

TED. (n.d.). About TED. http://www.ted.com/pages/about

TED. (2012). Your body language may shape who you are: Amy Cuddy [Video]. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are?language=en

TEDx Talks. (2012). How to use one paper towel: Joe Smith [Video]. https://www.ted.com/talks/joe_smith_how_to_use_a_paper_towel

Verderber, R. (1991). Essentials of informative speaking: Theory and contexts. Wadsworth.

Vuong, A. (2011, April 18). Wanna read that QR code? Get the Smartphone App. The Denver Post. http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17868932

Zielinksi, D. (2018, August). The science of being memorable. Toastmaster.