The purpose of an informative speech is to communicate new information or a new perspective on a topic to an audience and bring the listeners to greater understanding or insight.

• A competent speaker
– Appreciates informative speaking in the informative age
– Realizes that motivation understanding and retention of information is difficult skills
– Respects the importance of informative ethics
• A competent speaker
• A competent speaker understands
– What informative speaking is
– The three types and how to use them
– The challenges
– Uses the five organizational patterns
– Develops an outline
– Gathers and uses support materials
– Overcomes the challenges

Types of Informative Speeches
• Speaking to Describe
– Descriptions are used when the listeners are unfamiliar with the information.
• Speaking to Explain
– Explanations are necessary to clarify something that is already known but not well understood, or to explain how something works.
• Speaking to Instruct
– Instructions are useful when the objective is to teach the audience.

Organizing the Informative Speech
The body of an informative speech is structured using any one of the five organizational patterns.
introduction topic chronology optimizing body space comparison and contrast cause and effect conclusion

Five Organizational Patterns
•
Topical organization divides information into subcategories that will be the main points.
•
Chronological organization describes changes or developments in any situation or circumstance.
•
Spatial organization is based on the positioning of objects in physical space, or relationships between locations.
•
Comparison and contrast describes or explains how a subject is similar to, or different from, something else.
•
Cause and effect examines why something happens and what happens as a result.

Using Supporting
Materials to Inform
• Definitions and descriptions add clarity and precision.
• An example is a specific item, person, or event that helps explain or illustrate an idea, clarify a difficult concept, or add interest and reality.
– A hypothetical example is something that hasn’t actually happened but could happen.

• Stories elicit emotional responses and set the tone for the speech.
• Testimonies utilize the opinion of an expert or the account of an event by a witness.
– A quotation makes use of a person’s exact words.
• A fact is an individual piece of information that listeners could verify for themselves.
• Statistics are numerical summaries of facts, figures, and research findings that provide pictures of data.
– Descriptive statistics describe or present pictures of what whole groups of people do, think, or are like.

View the following video clip and then discuss how storytelling can elicit emotional responses and set the tone for a speech.

A visual aid can be used to dramatize a descriptive statistic
BONE MARROW
TRANSPLANT
DONORS
96% don’t get donors

A visual aid can be used to dramatize a descriptive statistic.
BONE MARROW
TRANSPLANT
DONORS
96% don’t get donors
4% get donors

Challenges to
Informative Speaking
• Inappropriate subject or topic
• Faulty information
• Poor organization

Overcoming Challenges to Informative
Speaking
• Select a topic that evolves from your own knowledge and is appealing to the listeners.
– According to the Greeks, common places are standardized ways of finding something to say based on common knowledge or awareness of a subject.
• Organize simply and logically.
• Motivate listeners to learn.