1. 10. Beginning and Ending Your Speech
AL AKHAWAYN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES
10. Beginning and Ending Your Speech
Lecture by Dr. Mohammed Ibahrine
based on
Clella Jaffe’s Public Speaking

2. Structure of the Lecture
1. Plan Your Introduction
1.1. Gain Attention
1.1.1 Ask Question
1.1.2 Provide a Vivid Description
1.1.3 Begin with a Question
Use an Audio or Visual Aid
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3. Structure of the Lecture
1.1.5 Tell a Joke or Funny Story
1.1.6 Refer to a Current Event
1.1.7 Begin with an Example
Start with Startling Numbers
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4. Structure of the Lecture
1.2 Give your audience a Reason to listen
1.3 Establish your Credibility
1.4 Preview Your Ideas
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5. Structure of the Lecture
2. Conclude With Impact
2.1 Signal the Ending
2.2 Review Your Main Ideas
2.3 Provide Psychological Closure
2.4 End Memorably
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6. Structure of the Lecture
3. Connect Your Ideas
3.1 Signposts and Transitions
3.2 Internal Previews and Internal Summaries
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7. Associative Statement
Organized thought is the basis of organized action
Alfred North Whitehead
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8. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.1. Gain Attention
Gaining attention is the first step in the listening process, so you must immediately answer your listener's question:
“What is this speech about”
Introduce your topic in a creative way
Good speakers often choose more effective techniques
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9. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.1. Gain Attention
Strategies for introductions
Ask a question
Provide a vivid description
Begin with a quotation
Use an audio or visual aid
Tell a joke or funny story
Refer to a current event
Begin with an example
Start with stating numbers
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10. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.1. Gain Attention
Choose either a rhetorical or participatory question
Rhetorical questions are the kind listeners answer in their mind
Participatory questions call for an overt response
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11. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.1. Gain Attention
Provide a vivid description
Draw your audience’s attention to your subject by describing a scene in such vivid language that your listeners are compelled to visualize it mentally
The scene can be either real or imagery
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12. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Begin with a quotation
You can often gain listener attentions with a quotation or a familiar cultural proverb
Choose a saying that encapsulates your overall theme and cite its source
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13. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Use an Audio or visual aid
Posters
Charts
Tape recordings
Other visual and audio materials
successfully in drawing attention to your topic
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14. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Tell a joke or funny story
Professional speakers often begin by telling a joke that creates an informal, humorous atmosphere at the outset of the speech
Make sure your joke relates to the topic of your speech
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15. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Refer to a Current event or recent happenings
To identify with your listeners and establish common ground, you can begin with well-known current happenings
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16. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Begin with an Example
Examples provide your listeners with the opportunity to become emotionally involved with your topic
We generally become more attentive, when we hear a of real people involved in real situations
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17. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Start with Startling Numbers
Cite a little-known facts
Numbers can be dry
They, however, can also capture and hold your listeners attention if they are shocking enough or if they are put into an understandable context
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18. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.2 Give Your Audience a Reason to Listen
Once you have your listener's attention, start answering their questions “Why should I listen to to this speech”
You can frame your topic within a larger issue
Stress the importance of the topic
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19. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.3 Establish your Credibility
After you have the audience’s attention
Give them a reason to listen by briefly sharing your subject-related experiences, interest, and research findings
Express similarities with the audience
Establish a speaker-audience-topic relationship by expressing pleasure in addressing the audience
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20. 1. Plan Your Introduction
1.4 Preview Your Ideas
Give a detailed orientation that previews what you will cover
“Tell them what you are going to say; say it; tell them what you said”
The preview is the short statement you make as the transition between the introduction and the body of your speech in which you state some form of your central idea
Preview helps listeners who are taking notes or outlining the talk
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21. 1. Plan Your Introduction
Some common faults of introduction
Do not apologize
Do not make hollow promises
Do not rely on Gimmicks
Do not preface your introduction (before I begin my talk, I want)
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22. 2. Conclude with Impact 2.1 Signal the Ending
Signals make the audience aware that you are concluding
Both beginning and professionals use common phases such as “In conclusion” or “Finally”
Do not overlook nonverbal actions as way to signal to your conclusion
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23. 2. Conclude with Impact 2.1 Signal the Ending
Do not overlook nonverbal actions as a way to signal to your conclusion
Pause and shift your posture
Take a step away from the podium
Slow down a bit
Speak more softly
Combining both verbal and nonverbal transitions generally works well
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24. 2. Conclude with Impact 2.2 Review Your Main Ideas
Briefly summarizing your main points fulfills the “Tell them what you said” axiom
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25. 2. Conclude with Impact 2.3 Provide Psychological Closure
Looping back to something from your introduction - which one professor calls an “echo” provides your audience with a sense of psychological closure
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26. 2. Conclude with Impact 2.4 End Memorably
Finally, plan to leave a positive and memorable impression
End with impact by choosing some of the same types of material you used to gain attention in the beginning:
End with humor
Ask a thought-provoking question
Use a quotation
Issue a challenge
Tie the subject to a larger cultural theme or value
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27. 2. Conclude with Impact Some common faults of conclusion
Do not introduce new material
Do not dilute your position (This info is dated, but it was all I could find) Credibility
Do not drag out your conclusion (do not prolong)
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28. 3. Connect Your Ideas 3.2 Internal Previews and Internal Summaries
Internal interviews occur within he body of your speech and briefly summarize the sub points you will develop under a major point
Connective are words, phrases and complete sentences you will use to connect your ideas to one another and to your speech as a whole
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29. 3. Connect Your Ideas 3.2 Internal Previews and Internal Summaries
Take your listeners from their various mental worlds and move them into the world of your speech
Do this by gaining their attention, relating your topic to their concerns, establishing your credibility on the subject, and previewing your main points
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30. 3. Connect Your Ideas 3.2 Internal Previews and Internal Summaries
Plan a conclusion that provides a transition from the body
Summarizes your major points
Gives a sense of closure by referring back to the introduction
Leave your listeners with a challenge or memorable saying
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31. 3. Connect Your Ideas 3.2 Internal Previews and Internal Summaries
Throughout your speech, use connectives to weave your points and subpoints into a coherent whole
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32. Summary After you have organized the body of your speech,
Plan an introduction that will take your listeners from their various internal mental worlds and move them into the world of your speech
Throughout your speech, use connectives to weave your points and sub points into a coherent whole
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