Informative Speech Requirements

The goal isn’t to convince your audience with your point of view, but rather to inform (teach) them and raise awareness. This isn’t an opportunity to get your opinion out. This is about raising awareness and implications on society. The goal is to inform someone who is unaware of the importance of an issue, innovation, or person. Your chosen topic must be specific, interesting, researchable, and selected from the 17 Sustainable Goals of the United Nations. (Any issue, innovation, or person within those Goals.)

Topics must advocate for a specific issue, innovation, or person. Wishy-washy topics that are ill-defined don’t help your audience grasp the importance of the subject matters.

Requirements:

• Time Requirements: 5-7 Minutes
• Sources: 6-8 (at minimum)- A minimum of one statistic, one testimony, and one quote are required but a total of 6 sources is expected and ideally 8 sources.

For example:

• • • Statistic:  One in every two or 25% ……….
    • Quote:  President Bill Clinton once said, ……………………..”
    • Testimony:  According to the Texas Highway Sheriff, Bill Johnson, “the most deaths I have seen this year, texting and driving have been a complete correlation…”
• Visual Aid Requirements:  A minimum of 3 visual aids are required One must be a PowerPoint or Prezi, one must be a physical object, and the 3^rd item is your choice (see textbook for additional options.) It can also be a video, or picture within your PowerPoint. 3 different mediums are required.  They must be listed on your outline, where you are using them. Videos must be limited to about 30 seconds.
• Review the Visual Aid Requirements (click here) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSPPFYxx3o   The second is called Life After Death by PowerPoint. It is basically what NOT to do in your PowerPoint. It is funny, but please pay attention.
  • • Examples of types of visual aid mediums: graphs, word art decision trees, photographs, movies, videos (30 seconds max), physical objects, handouts, brochures, fliers, postcards, etc.  These are detailed in your book- read it.
    • Three photographs are not three mediums…it is three of the same medium type.
    • You will also show these items during your speech as part of the presentation.
    • If you have a picture, scan it into your computer and put it into your PowerPoint so your audience can see it better.

• When using source information, you need to state your source information in your speech and on your slides (if using slides).
  • • For example, “According to the October 2017 Time magazine article, 60% of the U.S. population is overweight” Include your source information in the body of your outline.
    • Images must have sources listed at the bottom
    • Graphs need sources listed if not in the original image
    • But it needs to be on the slide itself (Image Source: XXXXXXXX) (Source: American Psychological Association, 2018)
    • Everything should be in APA.
    • View an Example PowerPoint/Presentation Here
      • No title slide (start with blank screen)
      • Blanks between slides so that your images aren’t hanging up on the screen long after you’re done with that point
      • Abide by the 6×6 rule
        • No more than 6 lines per slide
        • No more than 6 words per line
        • Includes lines for any citations
        • Focus needs to be on your visuals, not your audience reading your slides
        • Think of these slides as extra notecards.
        • If it does not enhance your speech, don’t use it. Find something else.
      • Slide Rule (for number of slides)- take the amount of time and divide by 2- so we will take the average here and go with 7minutes / 2 = 3.5. Round up to 4. (we need whole numbers since you can’t have half of a slide.)  Now, add 1. So, our total number of slides for this presentation is 5.
      • There is NO intro slide and you will NEVER have a works cited slide. If you have done your speech and citations correctly, you cited your sources DURING your speech. (If for whatever reason someone has you put a works cited slide in your PPT, one has been included here for you as an example.)

• Make sure your topic contains the criteria for the informative speech. 1) Your topic must be on a specific issue, innovation, or person. 2) It must correlate to one of the 17 Sustainable Goals of the United Nations. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ https://www.17sustainabledevelopmentgoals.org/ 3) and please ensure it is not on the “Do Not Go There List” in the syllabus. This includes the following:
  • are gun control (or any gun related discussion),
  • abortion,
  • legalization of drugs,
  • texting and driving,
  • drinking and driving,
  • smoking,
  • lowering the legal drinking age,
  • the death penalty (pro or con),
  • and religious conversions (attempts to or sharing of own experience),
  • My personal taboo subject deals with meat and where it comes from. Again, don’t go there. 
  • Sources that are off limits consist of religious texts; (Bible, Torah, Quran, etc.) Dictionaries and encyclopedias may be used as secondary sources but do not count as one of your required source citations in any presentation. Additionally, Wikipedia and Google (or Google Scholar) may not be used as a credible, scholarly, research source as they are not college level but can be used as a starting point. A GREAT research location can come from the College Library Databases.

• Quite a few of you seem to be selecting the same topic- something about school reform. (This falls under the Goal of Quality Education for those of you that did not select this topic.) I have no clue where this one is coming from, but you are asking the government to change the schools. I have questions about this. 1. Do you REALLY want the government to interfere in the schools even more than they do? 2. Since this speech is about teaching the audience about this topic, how are you keeping this out of the realm of persuasion?

• You MUST use the Informative Speech Outline Template that I have provided for you. Do not change it in any way other than to add your information to it for your speech.

• This speech requires raising awareness. How do you do that? You do that by providing specific examples.

• A BAD specific example: We should “raise awareness” for dog adoption instead of breeders
  • Okay, so HOW do we raise awareness?
  • Where do I go? What do I do?
  • Doesn’t specify how we take action, just that we should- there is a big difference.
• A GOOD specific example: Tell friends and family who want a purebred dog to check out Petfinder.com where they can search for a purebred dog or the next mutt love of their life without funding the backyard breeder program.
  • Gives a specific action and website
  • Easy to follow
  • Identifies how it solves the problem.
• A GOOD specific example: Pull up this image and walk your audience through the process of determining whether a breeder is following these requirements to separate reputable breeders from backyard breeders.
  • Provides a visual aid
  • Helps audience track their options
  • Informs your audience about bad breeders and how to tell the difference
  • You can do the same thing with a picture of a new innovation and how it works.

• Speech is deducted 5 points for 30 seconds your speech is short or long of the time limit.

• You should branch out with your sources. Sources must meet credibility requirements. Use the College Library databases. For pictures, Evaluate your sources (these are for pictures) using the CRAAP test carefully.