First week of the new semester and there is a speech assignment already waiting to welcome you, the pressure is definitely for real. There are students who absolutely dread public speaking while there are some who can nail it with the confidence and enthusiasm. However, in both the categories the agenda of choosing an effective topic is crucial.
A topic should be able to grab the attention of the listeners leaving an emotional or a psychological impact on the audience. Many of the students spend most of the time in the research on the facts and statements to support the speech content whereas the key to be the star of the event is choosing good persuasive speech topics.
Before actually establishing the guidelines behind good persuasive speech topics,the speaker needs to develop a relationship with the audience. Believe it or not but they must have seen thousands of such performances worth their interest and attention.
They would not prefer to sit through something that does not excite them or grabs their attention. Brainstorming is the key here, the speaker actually needs to get into the listener’s shoe to finalise a topic worthy of investment.
The amount of time you spend in brainstorming and research is parallel to the success of your event. Let’s discuss the guidelines behind good persuasive speech topics to unveil different characteristics about our audience:
- What matters to them?
Imagine yourself at the center of a stage, reading a few lines about political tension in the country with all the facts and enthusiasm but end up in disappointment because not even one person from the crowd has undivided attention towards you. This would end up being one of the major falls in your speaking career or school assignment. In order to come up with good persuasive speech topics, one needs to know the audience in an out.
It is vital to do a demographic study or a dipstick on the age group, gender, preferred areas of interest etc.
- Differentiate between an insight or facts
Amidst the thousand speeches that they have heard, think of the possibility of the audience having to listen to the same facts repeatedly. As a speaker it is the call of action to learn to differentiate between an insight and a fact. Opinionated topics results in being far more interesting than the facts.
Merely saying that Sun rises in the east versus throwing light upon from where, how, what time and the affect of the sunrise from the east are two different scenarios. It’s important to focus on the insight in order to figure out good persuasive speech topics.
- Find a topic that goes home with your audience
The topic should come with an edge. It should be able to broaden discussions, arguments and questions from the audience. While it is good to target emotional aspects to strike a rapport with your audience, it is also necessary to base the topic on facts and logical statements to leave the audience in a state to introspect about the topic.
- Consider a topic of your personal interests and experiences
Actually, considering a topic that you have some history or a personal connection could be so much fun. You would not realize how in your lookout for good persuasive speech topics, you end up speaking on a topic that is the most relatable and brings personalization in the opinions.
- Research about latest news and developments
Think about giving a speech to teenagers about wars and developments and find all the eyes dozing off in return. It is extremely important to make sure that the selected topic is connectable to any recent news or development; basically it needs to be relevant. It would need an extensive research to jot down the most relevant topic amongst that list of good persuasive speech topics one ends up with. However, the research can help one cross paths with supporting statements, relevant cases and so on.
While these five guidelines can help with the selection process of some good persuasive speech topics, here are some hacks to make you the star speaker of the day:
- Dress to impress:
Believe it or not but this is one of the most scoring point in the race. While one can speak on the most brilliant topic of the month and still fails to impress the listeners, on the other hand a common topic with the convention to deliver could make a huge impact. It is necessary to ensure a neat, clean and strong appearance to come out as a leader.
- It’s all about the eye contact:
The audience is there to listen to their speaker and establish an immediate connect to introspect about things. If you do not take your eyes off the paper and make it look like a reading competition, your audience will not take more than a minute to show the aggression. Make sure there is a proper eye contact with the audience and the judges which will eventually result in making one look confident.
- Look at that posture:
There is a reason our elders always insisted on that correct posture, giving examples about their own time and how they managed to stay fit and all. Yes it is extremely important to take care of the posture while delivering the speech of your life that you have worked really hard on. Lack of right posture might make you look clumsy and nervous, so yeah back straight and attention!!
While we discussed the guidelines and some tips on delivering a good speech to make you land up the best speaker opportunity, one need to remember that even after all the tips and guidelines all you need is to speak from the heart. Never force a topic on yourself that even you are not convinced of properly. Choose a topic amongst all those good persuasive speech topics that you connect with the most and you will end up surprising yourselves with the conviction and enthusiasm. Happy speaking!!