Week 05: Explain Speech Assignment (Speech #3)

See you text pp. 161-62 and the rubric on pp. 165-66.

What Does It Mean to Explain?
Merriam Webster’s online dictionary defines the word explain as the ability “to make (something) clear or easy to understand”(“Explain”). This is your job for the explanation speech: to choose a topic about which your audience may know very little and make it clear and easy for them to understand.

What Is the Explanation Speech Assignment?
The explanation speech is your opportunity to teach your audience about a concept, process, event, object or individual. It is a chance for you to speak about a topic that is important to you. Your job will be to relate that topic to your audience and educate your relatively uneducated or uninformed audience about your topic.

What Helps Define a Good Explanation Speech Topic?
A good explanation speech topic is one that interests you, for which you can find relevant research, and that your audience does or could consider significant. Make sure to review carefully Section 2.2 on topic selection. The three elements of scope, significance, and appropriateness are vital to a good explanation speech topic. The area of significance might be the most challenging for this speech. You will want to choose a topic that is interesting to you, but also something that is significant enough for the audience to want to learn about. Some topics might not automatically appear significant because the audience does not even know or think about them. But you should be able to explain how the topic is important to your audience. If that is the case, make sure to include information in your speech that addresses why this particular topic is important to your audience.

What Makes an Explanation Speech Effective?
There are three elements that help you plan and deliver an exemplary explanation speech: understanding the audience, conducting effective research, and using appropriate organization. Since your goal is to teach, understanding what your audience already knows will ensure you are not telling the audience things they are already aware of, nor are you talking over their heads. Sometime the knowledge of the audience is well known or easily defined, but a careful speaker can also use a survey or talk to her classmates to discern their level of understanding about the topic. Learning about your audience will help you develop your explanation speech in a way that demonstrates audience-centeredness.

Research is the second element that is vital to an excellent explanation speech. While research from the library and reliable internet sites are certainly helpful, many classroom speakers have found an interview with an expert on the topic to be very helpful because they can get detailed answers to their questions. As an example, years ago a student decided to speak about Anne Frank. She sent an e-mail to the Anne Frank museum in Amsterdam. This student ended up having an e-mail conversation with the director and was able to use information that no one else in the audience could have possibly known. Imagine how that enhanced her credibility as a speaker.

Finally, there is the element of organization. You will notice that this is the first speech that does not recommend a specific organizational structure. If you review Section 2.7, you will see the variety of organizational patterns available for informative speakers. In many cases, a topic can be presented in multiple ways, so the organizational pattern becomes a choice. You might find that your topic and your research dictate the most effective organizational pattern for your speech to explain.

Now What Do I Do?
Return to the “What Should I Do Now?” section on page 152 and review your task list to make sure you can successfully complete all of the tasks associated with this assignment.