Informative Speech Definition
Informative speech gives you the opportunity of sharing your knowledge on a given topic with your listeners. It brings exciting and useful information to light. Informative means providing knowledge, especially useful or interesting information. An informative speech is one that aims to educate the listeners on a particular topic.
Main Goal of Informative Speeches
The main goal of an informative speech is to provide knowledge regarding a particular topic the audience knows nothing about. It may demonstrate anything from simple questions from our daily life to advanced technologies or provide information about a person of interest or a thing that the audience wants to learn more about so that they can make an educated decision or learn about a subject they are interested in.
Types of Informative Speeches
There are four types of informative speeches namely definition speech, explanatory speech, descriptive speech, and demonstrative speech.
- Definition Speech: The speaker explains the concept, theory, or philosophy of a specific topic that the audience likely does not know much about.
- Explanatory Speech: The speaker explains the state of a given topic with visual representations, data or statistics e.g. speeches at industry conferences.
- Descriptive Speech: The speaker creates an accurate mental image in the audience's mind regarding a specific object, person, animal, or place.
- Demonstrative Speech: The speaker here explains how to do something. Basically, it explains the steps and procedure involved with visualizations.
Ideas to Choose the Right Informative Topic
The most important part while delivering an informative speech or writing an informative essay is to select the right topic. Choosing a good topic can keep your audience entertained, your reader interested, and improve your own learning experience. Avoid picking an issue just because it appears sensational or controversial. Most significantly, you will have to be knowledgeable before delivering any speech. Remember that information with errors might destroy your credibility. With that said, here are a few ideas to help you choose a topic:
- Know and understand your audience/readers: To connect with your audience, you need to understand why your topic is important to them. The informative speech or essay should cover a subject not already well known to your audience, but still relevant to them. You can provide new, exciting, unknown facts and figures on the topics which are already known to them. It is also important to know the level of knowledge they have about your informational speech or essay so you can present the information with the correct tone to keep people interested and engaged.
- Show your passion: Choosing a topic for informative speech or essay you must care about your speech or essay be better received. Your passion and areas of expertise will keep them engaged and curious to learn more.
- Consider your time and length: Always consider the time allotted to you for your informative speech. You should be able to cover all your important points within the timeslot. While writing an informative essay the length of the essay should be able to thoroughly cover the topic. Consider any other topics if you think you don't have enough knowledge or personal interest to talk about a specific issue for the given time.