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Five purposes of the speech introduction

"Introducing and Concluding Your Speech"

1. List the five purposes of the speech introduction. Identify these functions and explain their significance to a speech.

The five purposes of the speech introduction are first is to get the audience's attention, second is to introduce the subject, third is to give the audience a reason to listen, fourth establish your credibility and five is to preview your main idea.

Getting the audience's attention - we can get the audience attention by telling a story about our self. We can also get their attention by asking questions. The questions will make them think and if they are curious about their answers or want to know answers they would pay attention to the speech. You will want to make sure that you start your speech by allowing them to know that it is okay for them to join in and give their opinion. Also, you will want to make sure that you try to encourage everyone to join in on some part of the speech or discussion. Therefore, the audience will wait desperately until the conclusion. Furthermore, you can use humor in order to get your audience attention. However, you have to make sure that you don't embarrass yourself or the audience by your jokes.

Introduce the subject - by making sure that you don't go off the topic, and stick on your topic. It should be brief and not too long. You should always plan ahead on what you are going to talk about. Moreover, you should have enough knowledge on your subject. This way you won't have to read from your paper and also you shouldn't memorize your speech. Know your material so well that you can speak with power without having to read sentences or memorize. The person should always be comfortable while talking about his/her topic. Therefore, you should always choose an interesting topic which will get your audience interest as well.

Give the audience a reason to listen - when you have your audience attention and you also introduced the subject then you have to give them a reason to want to listen. There are a few things you can do for instance, providing information that can be useful for audience in certain situations is also an important tool to grasp their attention and a reason to listen to your speech. Therefore, you want your audience to be mentally and physically be involved in your speech. Make a positive impression on your listeners by giving them a reason to care about your message. We should let them know that next few minutes will be valuable for them. Also make your message memorable by grabbing the attention of your listeners right away.

Establish your credibility - Getting the audience to believe you is an important part of giving a speech. The audience needs to know that you have the qualifications to speak on your topic and that they should listen to what you tell them. One way to do that is you should show your confidence. If you make it clear that you understand your topic, the audience is more likely to believe you. I personally feel that keeping a good eye contact can show your confidence. Also, you should pronounce all your words correctly. Otherwise, you won't establish your credibility while speaking if you're mispronouncing words. Give evidence that supports what you're saying

Preview your main idea - look at the information that you gathered and try to find a way to organize your main points For example, if you want to tell your audience about your background, education, and hobbies you would organize them in that order. First main point is background, second main point is education, and third is hobbies. You can improve the organization of your presentation by using transitions from one section to the next and from one main point to the next. Transitions provide clear guides to your audience as they listen to your speech. For example: "I'll begin by talking about the methods I used to conduct my experiment." "Now that we understand the methods, let me move on to discuss my results." Other transitional words include: first, second, third, last, finally, another, or next. Make sure to summarize your main points and end with a strong line that supports the important of your speech. You can always end your speech with a quote or positive message.

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