writing a speech for english

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How to write a speech that your audience remembers

Understand Yourself Better:

Big 5 Personality Test

Whether in a work meeting or at an investor panel, you might give a speech at some point. And no matter how excited you are about the opportunity, the experience can be nerve-wracking . 

But feeling butterflies doesn’t mean you can’t give a great speech. With the proper preparation and a clear outline, apprehensive public speakers and natural wordsmiths alike can write and present a compelling message. Here’s how to write a good speech you’ll be proud to deliver.

What is good speech writing?

Good speech writing is the art of crafting words and ideas into a compelling, coherent, and memorable message that resonates with the audience. Here are some key elements of great speech writing:

• It begins with clearly understanding the speech's purpose and the audience it seeks to engage. 
• A well-written speech clearly conveys its central message, ensuring that the audience understands and retains the key points. 
• It is structured thoughtfully, with a captivating opening, a well-organized body, and a conclusion that reinforces the main message. 
• Good speech writing embraces the power of engaging content, weaving in stories, examples, and relatable anecdotes to connect with the audience on both intellectual and emotional levels. 

Ultimately, it is the combination of these elements, along with the authenticity and delivery of the speaker , that transforms words on a page into a powerful and impactful spoken narrative.

What makes a good speech?

A great speech includes several key qualities, but three fundamental elements make a speech truly effective:

Clarity and purpose

Remembering the audience, cohesive structure.

While other important factors make a speech a home run, these three elements are essential for writing an effective speech.

The main elements of a good speech

The main elements of a speech typically include:

• Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for your speech and grabs the audience's attention. It should include a hook or attention-grabbing opening, introduce the topic, and provide an overview of what will be covered.
• Opening/captivating statement: This is a strong statement that immediately engages the audience and creates curiosity about the speech topics.
• Thesis statement/central idea: The thesis statement or central idea is a concise statement that summarizes the main point or argument of your speech. It serves as a roadmap for the audience to understand what your speech is about.
• Body: The body of the speech is where you elaborate on your main points or arguments. Each point is typically supported by evidence, examples, statistics, or anecdotes. The body should be organized logically and coherently, with smooth transitions between the main points.
• Supporting evidence: This includes facts, data, research findings, expert opinions, or personal stories that support and strengthen your main points. Well-chosen and credible evidence enhances the persuasive power of your speech.
• Transitions: Transitions are phrases or statements that connect different parts of your speech, guiding the audience from one idea to the next. Effective transitions signal the shifts in topics or ideas and help maintain a smooth flow throughout the speech.
• Counterarguments and rebuttals (if applicable): If your speech involves addressing opposing viewpoints or counterarguments, you should acknowledge and address them. Presenting counterarguments makes your speech more persuasive and demonstrates critical thinking.
• Conclusion: The conclusion is the final part of your speech and should bring your message to a satisfying close. Summarize your main points, restate your thesis statement, and leave the audience with a memorable closing thought or call to action.
• Closing statement: This is the final statement that leaves a lasting impression and reinforces the main message of your speech. It can be a call to action, a thought-provoking question, a powerful quote, or a memorable anecdote.
• Delivery and presentation: How you deliver your speech is also an essential element to consider. Pay attention to your tone, body language, eye contact , voice modulation, and timing. Practice and rehearse your speech, and try using the 7-38-55 rule to ensure confident and effective delivery.

While the order and emphasis of these elements may vary depending on the type of speech and audience, these elements provide a framework for organizing and delivering a successful speech.

How to structure a good speech

You know what message you want to transmit, who you’re delivering it to, and even how you want to say it. But you need to know how to start, develop, and close a speech before writing it. 

Think of a speech like an essay. It should have an introduction, conclusion, and body sections in between. This places ideas in a logical order that the audience can better understand and follow them. Learning how to make a speech with an outline gives your storytelling the scaffolding it needs to get its point across.

Here’s a general speech structure to guide your writing process:

• Explanation 1
• Explanation 2
• Explanation 3

How to write a compelling speech opener

Some research shows that engaged audiences pay attention for only 15 to 20 minutes at a time. Other estimates are even lower, citing that people stop listening intently in fewer than 10 minutes . If you make a good first impression at the beginning of your speech, you have a better chance of interesting your audience through the middle when attention spans fade. 

Implementing the INTRO model can help grab and keep your audience’s attention as soon as you start speaking. This acronym stands for interest, need, timing, roadmap, and objectives, and it represents the key points you should hit in an opening. 

Here’s what to include for each of these points: 

• Interest : Introduce yourself or your topic concisely and speak with confidence . Write a compelling opening statement using relevant data or an anecdote that the audience can relate to.
• Needs : The audience is listening to you because they have something to learn. If you’re pitching a new app idea to a panel of investors, those potential partners want to discover more about your product and what they can earn from it. Read the room and gently remind them of the purpose of your speech. 
• Timing : When appropriate, let your audience know how long you’ll speak. This lets listeners set expectations and keep tabs on their own attention span. If a weary audience member knows you’ll talk for 40 minutes, they can better manage their energy as that time goes on. 
• Routemap : Give a brief overview of the three main points you’ll cover in your speech. If an audience member’s attention starts to drop off and they miss a few sentences, they can more easily get their bearings if they know the general outline of the presentation.
• Objectives : Tell the audience what you hope to achieve, encouraging them to listen to the end for the payout. 

Writing the middle of a speech

The body of your speech is the most information-dense section. Facts, visual aids, PowerPoints — all this information meets an audience with a waning attention span. Sticking to the speech structure gives your message focus and keeps you from going off track, making everything you say as useful as possible.

Limit the middle of your speech to three points, and support them with no more than three explanations. Following this model organizes your thoughts and prevents you from offering more information than the audience can retain. 

Using this section of the speech to make your presentation interactive can add interest and engage your audience. Try including a video or demonstration to break the monotony. A quick poll or survey also keeps the audience on their toes. 

Wrapping the speech up

To you, restating your points at the end can feel repetitive and dull. You’ve practiced countless times and heard it all before. But repetition aids memory and learning , helping your audience retain what you’ve told them. Use your speech’s conclusion to summarize the main points with a few short sentences.

Try to end on a memorable note, like posing a motivational quote or a thoughtful question the audience can contemplate once they leave. In proposal or pitch-style speeches, consider landing on a call to action (CTA) that invites your audience to take the next step.

How to write a good speech

If public speaking gives you the jitters, you’re not alone. Roughly 80% of the population feels nervous before giving a speech, and another 10% percent experiences intense anxiety and sometimes even panic. 

The fear of failure can cause procrastination and can cause you to put off your speechwriting process until the last minute. Finding the right words takes time and preparation, and if you’re already feeling nervous, starting from a blank page might seem even harder.

But putting in the effort despite your stress is worth it. Presenting a speech you worked hard on fosters authenticity and connects you to the subject matter, which can help your audience understand your points better. Human connection is all about honesty and vulnerability, and if you want to connect to the people you’re speaking to, they should see that in you.

1. Identify your objectives and target audience

Before diving into the writing process, find healthy coping strategies to help you stop worrying . Then you can define your speech’s purpose, think about your target audience, and start identifying your objectives. Here are some questions to ask yourself and ground your thinking : 

• What purpose do I want my speech to achieve? 
• What would it mean to me if I achieved the speech’s purpose?
• What audience am I writing for? 
• What do I know about my audience? 
• What values do I want to transmit? 
• If the audience remembers one take-home message, what should it be? 
• What do I want my audience to feel, think, or do after I finish speaking? 
• What parts of my message could be confusing and require further explanation?

2. Know your audience

Understanding your audience is crucial for tailoring your speech effectively. Consider the demographics of your audience, their interests, and their expectations. For instance, if you're addressing a group of healthcare professionals, you'll want to use medical terminology and data that resonate with them. Conversely, if your audience is a group of young students, you'd adjust your content to be more relatable to their experiences and interests. 

3. Choose a clear message

Your message should be the central idea that you want your audience to take away from your speech. Let's say you're giving a speech on climate change. Your clear message might be something like, "Individual actions can make a significant impact on mitigating climate change." Throughout your speech, all your points and examples should support this central message, reinforcing it for your audience.

4. Structure your speech

Organizing your speech properly keeps your audience engaged and helps them follow your ideas. The introduction should grab your audience's attention and introduce the topic. For example, if you're discussing space exploration, you could start with a fascinating fact about a recent space mission. In the body, you'd present your main points logically, such as the history of space exploration, its scientific significance, and future prospects. Finally, in the conclusion, you'd summarize your key points and reiterate the importance of space exploration in advancing human knowledge.

5. Use engaging content for clarity

Engaging content includes stories, anecdotes, statistics, and examples that illustrate your main points. For instance, if you're giving a speech about the importance of reading, you might share a personal story about how a particular book changed your perspective. You could also include statistics on the benefits of reading, such as improved cognitive abilities and empathy.

6. Maintain clarity and simplicity

It's essential to communicate your ideas clearly. Avoid using overly technical jargon or complex language that might confuse your audience. For example, if you're discussing a medical breakthrough with a non-medical audience, explain complex terms in simple, understandable language.

7. Practice and rehearse

Practice is key to delivering a great speech. Rehearse multiple times to refine your delivery, timing, and tone. Consider using a mirror or recording yourself to observe your body language and gestures. For instance, if you're giving a motivational speech, practice your gestures and expressions to convey enthusiasm and confidence.

8. Consider nonverbal communication

Your body language, tone of voice, and gestures should align with your message . If you're delivering a speech on leadership, maintain strong eye contact to convey authority and connection with your audience. A steady pace and varied tone can also enhance your speech's impact.

9. Engage your audience

Engaging your audience keeps them interested and attentive. Encourage interaction by asking thought-provoking questions or sharing relatable anecdotes. If you're giving a speech on teamwork, ask the audience to recall a time when teamwork led to a successful outcome, fostering engagement and connection.

10. Prepare for Q&A

Anticipate potential questions or objections your audience might have and prepare concise, well-informed responses. If you're delivering a speech on a controversial topic, such as healthcare reform, be ready to address common concerns, like the impact on healthcare costs or access to services, during the Q&A session.

By following these steps and incorporating examples that align with your specific speech topic and purpose, you can craft and deliver a compelling and impactful speech that resonates with your audience.

Tools for writing a great speech

There are several helpful tools available for speechwriting, both technological and communication-related. Here are a few examples:

• Word processing software: Tools like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or other word processors provide a user-friendly environment for writing and editing speeches. They offer features like spell-checking, grammar correction, formatting options, and easy revision tracking.
• Presentation software: Software such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides is useful when creating visual aids to accompany your speech. These tools allow you to create engaging slideshows with text, images, charts, and videos to enhance your presentation.
• Speechwriting Templates: Online platforms or software offer pre-designed templates specifically for speechwriting. These templates provide guidance on structuring your speech and may include prompts for different sections like introductions, main points, and conclusions.
• Rhetorical devices and figures of speech: Rhetorical tools such as metaphors, similes, alliteration, and parallelism can add impact and persuasion to your speech. Resources like books, websites, or academic papers detailing various rhetorical devices can help you incorporate them effectively.
• Speechwriting apps: Mobile apps designed specifically for speechwriting can be helpful in organizing your thoughts, creating outlines, and composing a speech. These apps often provide features like voice recording, note-taking, and virtual prompts to keep you on track.
• Grammar and style checkers: Online tools or plugins like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor help improve the clarity and readability of your speech by checking for grammar, spelling, and style errors. They provide suggestions for sentence structure, word choice, and overall tone.
• Thesaurus and dictionary: Online or offline resources such as thesauruses and dictionaries help expand your vocabulary and find alternative words or phrases to express your ideas more effectively. They can also clarify meanings or provide context for unfamiliar terms.
• Online speechwriting communities: Joining online forums or communities focused on speechwriting can be beneficial for getting feedback, sharing ideas, and learning from experienced speechwriters. It's an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and improve your public speaking skills through collaboration.

Remember, while these tools can assist in the speechwriting process, it's essential to use them thoughtfully and adapt them to your specific needs and style. The most important aspect of speechwriting remains the creativity, authenticity, and connection with your audience that you bring to your speech.

5 tips for writing a speech

Behind every great speech is an excellent idea and a speaker who refined it. But a successful speech is about more than the initial words on the page, and there are a few more things you can do to help it land.

Here are five more tips for writing and practicing your speech:

1. Structure first, write second

If you start the writing process before organizing your thoughts, you may have to re-order, cut, and scrap the sentences you worked hard on. Save yourself some time by using a speech structure, like the one above, to order your talking points first. This can also help you identify unclear points or moments that disrupt your flow.

2. Do your homework

Data strengthens your argument with a scientific edge. Research your topic with an eye for attention-grabbing statistics, or look for findings you can use to support each point. If you’re pitching a product or service, pull information from company metrics that demonstrate past or potential successes. 

Audience members will likely have questions, so learn all talking points inside and out. If you tell investors that your product will provide 12% returns, for example, come prepared with projections that support that statement.

3. Sound like yourself

Memorable speakers have distinct voices. Think of Martin Luther King Jr’s urgent, inspiring timbre or Oprah’s empathetic, personal tone . Establish your voice — one that aligns with your personality and values — and stick with it. If you’re a motivational speaker, keep your tone upbeat to inspire your audience . If you’re the CEO of a startup, try sounding assured but approachable. 

4. Practice

As you practice a speech, you become more confident , gain a better handle on the material, and learn the outline so well that unexpected questions are less likely to trip you up. Practice in front of a colleague or friend for honest feedback about what you could change, and speak in front of the mirror to tweak your nonverbal communication and body language .

5. Remember to breathe

When you’re stressed, you breathe more rapidly . It can be challenging to talk normally when you can’t regulate your breath. Before your presentation, try some mindful breathing exercises so that when the day comes, you already have strategies that will calm you down and remain present . This can also help you control your voice and avoid speaking too quickly.

How to ghostwrite a great speech for someone else

Ghostwriting a speech requires a unique set of skills, as you're essentially writing a piece that will be delivered by someone else. Here are some tips on how to effectively ghostwrite a speech:

• Understand the speaker's voice and style : Begin by thoroughly understanding the speaker's personality, speaking style, and preferences. This includes their tone, humor, and any personal anecdotes they may want to include.
• Interview the speaker : Have a detailed conversation with the speaker to gather information about their speech's purpose, target audience, key messages, and any specific points they want to emphasize. Ask for personal stories or examples they may want to include.
• Research thoroughly : Research the topic to ensure you have a strong foundation of knowledge. This helps you craft a well-informed and credible speech.
• Create an outline : Develop a clear outline that includes the introduction, main points, supporting evidence, and a conclusion. Share this outline with the speaker for their input and approval.
• Write in the speaker's voice : While crafting the speech, maintain the speaker's voice and style. Use language and phrasing that feel natural to them. If they have a particular way of expressing ideas, incorporate that into the speech.
• Craft a captivating opening : Begin the speech with a compelling opening that grabs the audience's attention. This could be a relevant quote, an interesting fact, a personal anecdote, or a thought-provoking question.
• Organize content logically : Ensure the speech flows logically, with each point building on the previous one. Use transitions to guide the audience from one idea to the next smoothly.
• Incorporate engaging stories and examples : Include anecdotes, stories, and real-life examples that illustrate key points and make the speech relatable and memorable.
• Edit and revise : Edit the speech carefully for clarity, grammar, and coherence. Ensure the speech is the right length and aligns with the speaker's time constraints.
• Seek feedback : Share drafts of the speech with the speaker for their feedback and revisions. They may have specific changes or additions they'd like to make.
• Practice delivery : If possible, work with the speaker on their delivery. Practice the speech together, allowing the speaker to become familiar with the content and your writing style.
• Maintain confidentiality : As a ghostwriter, it's essential to respect the confidentiality and anonymity of the work. Do not disclose that you wrote the speech unless you have the speaker's permission to do so.
• Be flexible : Be open to making changes and revisions as per the speaker's preferences. Your goal is to make them look good and effectively convey their message.
• Meet deadlines : Stick to agreed-upon deadlines for drafts and revisions. Punctuality and reliability are essential in ghostwriting.
• Provide support : Support the speaker during their preparation and rehearsal process. This can include helping with cue cards, speech notes, or any other materials they need.

Remember that successful ghostwriting is about capturing the essence of the speaker while delivering a well-structured and engaging speech. Collaboration, communication, and adaptability are key to achieving this.

Give your best speech yet

Learn how to make a speech that’ll hold an audience’s attention by structuring your thoughts and practicing frequently. Put the effort into writing and preparing your content, and aim to improve your breathing, eye contact , and body language as you practice. The more you work on your speech, the more confident you’ll become.

The energy you invest in writing an effective speech will help your audience remember and connect to every concept. Remember: some life-changing philosophies have come from good speeches, so give your words a chance to resonate with others. You might even change their thinking.

Elizabeth Perry

Content Marketing Manager, ACC

10+ interpersonal skills at work and ways to develop them

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How to write a good speech in 7 steps

By:  Susan Dugdale  

- an easily followed format for writing a great speech

Did you know writing a speech doesn't have be an anxious, nail biting experience?

Unsure? Don't be.

You may have lived with the idea you were never good with words for a long time. Or perhaps giving speeches at school brought you out in cold sweats.

However learning how to write a speech is relatively straight forward when you learn to write out loud.

And that's the journey I am offering to take you on: step by step.

To learn quickly, go slow

Take all the time you need. This speech format has 7 steps, each building on the next.

Walk, rather than run, your way through all of them. Don't be tempted to rush. Familiarize yourself with the ideas. Try them out.

I know there are well-advertised short cuts and promises of 'write a speech in 5 minutes'. However in reality they only truly work for somebody who already has the basic foundations of speech writing in place.

The foundation of good speech writing 

These steps are the backbone of sound speech preparation. Learn and follow them well at the outset and yes, given more experience and practice you could probably flick something together quickly. Like any skill, the more it's used, the easier it gets.

In the meantime...

Step 1: Begin with a speech overview or outline

Are you in a hurry? Without time to read a whole page? Grab ... The Quick How to Write a Speech Checklist And come back to get the details later.

• WHO you are writing your speech for (your target audience)
• WHY you are preparing this speech. What's the main purpose of your speech? Is it to inform or tell your audience about something? To teach them a new skill or demonstrate something? To persuade or to entertain? (See 4 types of speeches: informative, demonstrative, persuasive and special occasion or entertaining for more.) What do you want them to think, feel or do as a result of listening the speech?
• WHAT your speech is going to be about (its topic) - You'll want to have thought through your main points and have ranked them in order of importance. And have sorted the supporting research you need to make those points effectively.
• HOW much time you have for your speech eg. 3 minutes, 5 minutes... The amount of time you've been allocated dictates how much content you need. If you're unsure check this page: how many words per minute in a speech: a quick reference guide . You'll find estimates of the number of words required for 1 - 10 minute speeches by slow, medium and fast talkers.

Use an outline

The best way to make sure you deliver a perfect speech is to start by carefully completing a speech outline covering the essentials: WHO, WHY, WHAT and HOW.

Beginning to write without thinking your speech through is a bit like heading off on a journey not knowing why you're traveling or where you're going to end up. You can find yourself lost in a deep, dark, murky muddle of ideas very quickly!

Pulling together a speech overview or outline is a much safer option. It's the map you'll follow to get where you want to go.

Get a blank speech outline template to complete

Click the link to find out a whole lot more about preparing a speech outline . ☺ You'll also find a free printable blank speech outline template.  I recommend using it!

Understanding speech construction

Before you begin to write, using your completed outline as a guide, let's briefly look at what you're aiming to prepare.

• an opening or introduction
• the body where the bulk of the information is given
• and an ending (or summary).

Imagine your speech as a sandwich

If you think of a speech as a sandwich you'll get the idea.

The opening and ending are the slices of bread holding the filling (the major points or the body of your speech) together.

You can build yourself a simple sandwich with one filling (one big idea) or you could go gourmet and add up to three or, even five. The choice is yours.

But whatever you choose to serve, as a good cook, you need to consider who is going to eat it! And that's your audience.

So let's find out who they are before we do anything else. 

Step 2: Know who you are talking to

Understanding your audience.

Did you know a  good speech is never written from the speaker's point of view?  ( If you need to know more about why check out this page on  building rapport .)

Begin with the most important idea/point on your outline.

Consider HOW you can explain (show, tell) that to your audience in the most effective way for them to easily understand it.   

Writing from the audience's point of view

To help you write from an audience point of view, it's a good idea to identify either a real person or the type of person who is most likely to be listening to you.

Make sure you select someone who represents the "majority" of the people who will be in your audience. That is they are neither struggling to comprehend you at the bottom of your scale or light-years ahead at the top.

Now imagine they are sitting next to you eagerly waiting to hear what you're going to say. Give them a name, for example, Joe, to help make them real.

Ask yourself

• How do I need to tailor my information to meet Joe's needs? For example, do you tell personal stories to illustrate your main points? Absolutely! Yes. This is a very powerful technique. (Click storytelling in speeches to find out more.)
• What type or level of language is right for Joe as well as my topic? For example if I use jargon (activity, industry or profession specific vocabulary) will it be understood?

Step 3: Writing as you speak

Writing oral language.

Write down what you want to say about your first main point as if you were talking directly to Joe.

If it helps, say it all out loud before you write it down and/or record it.

Use the information below as a guide

(Click to download The Characteristics of Spoken Language  as a pdf.) 

You do not have to write absolutely everything you're going to say down * but you do need to write down, or outline, the sequence of ideas to ensure they are logical and easily followed.

Remember too, to explain or illustrate your point with examples from your research. 

( * Tip: If this is your first speech the safety net of having everything written down could be just what you need. It's easier to recover from a patch of jitters when you have a word by word manuscript than if you have either none, or a bare outline. Your call!)

Step 4: Checking tone and language

The focus of this step is re-working what you've done in Step 2 and 3.

You identified who you were talking to (Step 2) and in Step 3, wrote up your first main point.  Is it right? Have you made yourself clear?  Check it.

How well you complete this step depends on how well you understand the needs of the people who are going to listen to your speech.

Please do not assume because you know what you're talking about the person (Joe) you've chosen to represent your audience will too. Joe is not a mind-reader!

How to check what you've prepared

• Check the "tone" of your language . Is it right for the occasion, subject matter and your audience?
• Check the length of your sentences. You need short sentences. If they're too long or complicated you risk losing your listeners.

Check for jargon too. These are industry, activity or group exclusive words.

For instance take the phrase: authentic learning . This comes from teaching and refers to connecting lessons to the daily life of students. Authentic learning is learning that is relevant and meaningful for students. If you're not a teacher you may not understand the phrase.

The use of any vocabulary requiring insider knowledge needs to be thought through from the audience perspective. Jargon can close people out.

• Read what you've written out loud. If it flows naturally, in a logical manner, continue the process with your next main idea. If it doesn't, rework.

We use whole sentences and part ones, and we mix them up with asides or appeals e.g. "Did you get that? Of course you did. Right...Let's move it along. I was saying ..."

Click for more about the differences between spoken and written language .

And now repeat the process

Repeat this process for the remainder of your main ideas.

Because you've done the first one carefully, the rest should follow fairly easily.

Step 5: Use transitions

Providing links or transitions between main ideas.

Between each of your main ideas you need to provide a bridge or pathway for your audience. The clearer the pathway or bridge, the easier it is for them to make the transition from one idea to the next.

If your speech contains more than three main ideas and each is building on the last, then consider using a "catch-up" or summary as part of your transitions.

Is your speech being evaluated? Find out exactly what aspects you're being assessed on using this standard speech evaluation form

Link/transition examples

A link can be as simple as:

"We've explored one scenario for the ending of Block Buster 111, but let's consider another. This time..."

What follows this transition is the introduction of Main Idea Two.

Here's a summarizing link/transition example:

"We've ended Blockbuster 111 four ways so far. In the first, everybody died. In the second, everybody died BUT their ghosts remained to haunt the area. In the third, one villain died. His partner reformed and after a fight-out with the hero, they both strode off into the sunset, friends forever. In the fourth, the hero dies in a major battle but is reborn sometime in the future.

And now what about one more? What if nobody died? The fifth possibility..."

Go back through your main ideas checking the links. Remember Joe as you go. Try each transition or link out loud and really listen to yourself. Is it obvious? Easily followed?

Keep them if they are clear and concise.

For more about transitions (with examples) see Andrew Dlugan's excellent article, Speech Transitions: Magical words and Phrases .

Step 6: The end of your speech

The ideal ending is highly memorable . You want it to live on in the minds of your listeners long after your speech is finished. Often it combines a call to action with a summary of major points.

Example speech endings

Example 1: The desired outcome of a speech persuading people to vote for you in an upcoming election is that they get out there on voting day and do so. You can help that outcome along by calling them to register their support by signing a prepared pledge statement as they leave.

"We're agreed we want change. You can help us give it to you by signing this pledge statement as you leave. Be part of the change you want to see!

Example 2: The desired outcome is increased sales figures. The call to action is made urgent with the introduction of time specific incentives.

"You have three weeks from the time you leave this hall to make that dream family holiday in New Zealand yours. Can you do it? Will you do it? The kids will love it. Your wife will love it. Do it now!"

How to figure out the right call to action

A clue for working out what the most appropriate call to action might be, is to go back to your original purpose for giving the speech.

• Was it to motivate or inspire?
• Was it to persuade to a particular point of view?
• Was it to share specialist information?
• Was it to celebrate a person, a place, time or event?

Ask yourself what you want people to do as a result of having listened to your speech.

For more about ending speeches

Visit this page for more about how to end a speech effectively . You'll find two additional types of speech endings with examples.

Write and test

Write your ending and test it out loud. Try it out on a friend, or two. Is it good? Does it work?

Step 7: The introduction

Once you've got the filling (main ideas) the linking and the ending in place, it's time to focus on the introduction.

The introduction comes last as it's the most important part of your speech. This is the bit that either has people sitting up alert or slumped and waiting for you to end. It's the tone setter!

What makes a great speech opening?

Ideally you want an opening that makes listening to you the only thing the 'Joes' in the audience want to do.

You want them to forget they're hungry or that their chair is hard or that their bills need paying.

The way to do that is to capture their interest straight away. You do this with a "hook".

Hooks to catch your audience's attention

Hooks come in as many forms as there are speeches and audiences. Your task is work out what specific hook is needed to catch your audience.

Go back to the purpose. Why are you giving this speech?

Once you have your answer, consider your call to action. What do you want the audience to do, and, or take away, as a result of listening to you?

Next think about the imaginary or real person you wrote for when you were focusing on your main ideas.

Choosing the best hook

• Is it humor?
• Would shock tactics work?
• Is it a rhetorical question?
• Is it formality or informality?
• Is it an outline or overview of what you're going to cover, including the call to action?
• Or is it a mix of all these elements?

A hook example

Here's an example from a fictional political speech. The speaker is lobbying for votes. His audience are predominately workers whose future's are not secure.

"How's your imagination this morning? Good? (Pause for response from audience) Great, I'm glad. Because we're going to put it to work starting right now.

I want you to see your future. What does it look like? Are you happy? Is everything as you want it to be? No? Let's change that. We could do it. And we could do it today.

At the end of this speech you're going to be given the opportunity to change your world, for a better one ...

No, I'm not a magician. Or a simpleton with big ideas and precious little commonsense. I'm an ordinary man, just like you. And I have a plan to share!"

And then our speaker is off into his main points supported by examples. The end, which he has already foreshadowed in his opening, is the call to vote for him.

Prepare several hooks

Experiment with several openings until you've found the one that serves your audience, your subject matter and your purpose best.

For many more examples of speech openings go to: how to write a speech introduction . You'll find 12 of the very best ways to start a speech.

That completes the initial seven steps towards writing your speech. If you've followed them all the way through, congratulations, you now have the text of your speech!

Although you might have the words, you're still a couple of steps away from being ready to deliver them. Both of them are essential if you want the very best outcome possible. They are below. Please take them.

Step 8: Checking content and timing

This step pulls everything together.

Check once, check twice, check three times & then once more!

Go through your speech really carefully.

On the first read through check you've got your main points in their correct order with supporting material, plus an effective introduction and ending.

On the second read through check the linking passages or transitions making sure they are clear and easily followed.

On the third reading check your sentence structure, language use and tone.

Double, triple check the timing

Now go though once more.

This time read it aloud slowly and time yourself.

If it's too long for the time allowance you've been given make the necessary cuts.

Start by looking at your examples rather than the main ideas themselves. If you've used several examples to illustrate one principal idea, cut the least important out.

Also look to see if you've repeated yourself unnecessarily or, gone off track. If it's not relevant, cut it.

Repeat the process, condensing until your speech fits the required length, preferably coming in just under your time limit.

You can also find out how approximately long it will take you to say the words you have by using this very handy words to minutes converter . It's an excellent tool, one I frequently use. While it can't give you a precise time, it does provide a reasonable estimate.

Step 9: Rehearsing your speech

And NOW you are finished with writing the speech, and are ready for REHEARSAL .

Please don't be tempted to skip this step. It is not an extra thrown in for good measure. It's essential.

The "not-so-secret" secret of successful speeches combines good writing with practice, practice and then, practicing some more.

Go to how to practice public speaking and you'll find rehearsal techniques and suggestions to boost your speech delivery from ordinary to extraordinary.

The Quick How to Write a Speech Checklist

Before you begin writing you need:.

• Your speech OUTLINE with your main ideas ranked in the order you're going to present them. (If you haven't done one complete this 4 step sample speech outline . It will make the writing process much easier.)
• Your RESEARCH
• You also need to know WHO you're speaking to, the PURPOSE of the speech and HOW long you're speaking for

The basic format

• the body where you present your main ideas

Split your time allowance so that you spend approximately 70% on the body and 15% each on the introduction and ending.

How to write the speech

• Write your main ideas out incorporating your examples and research
• Link them together making sure each flows in a smooth, logical progression
• Write your ending, summarizing your main ideas briefly and end with a call for action
• Write your introduction considering the 'hook' you're going to use to get your audience listening
• An often quoted saying to explain the process is: Tell them what you're going to tell them (Introduction) Tell them (Body of your speech - the main ideas plus examples) Tell them what you told them (The ending)

TEST before presenting. Read aloud several times to check the flow of material, the suitability of language and the timing.

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• Speech Topics For Kids
• How To Write A Speech

How to Write a Speech: A Guide to Enhance Your Writing Skills

Speech is a medium to convey a message to the world. It is a way of expressing your views on a topic or a way to showcase your strong opposition to a particular idea. To deliver an effective speech, you need a strong and commanding voice, but more important than that is what you say. Spending time in preparing a speech is as vital as presenting it well to your audience.

Read the article to learn what all you need to include in a speech and how to structure it.

Table of Contents

• Self-Introduction

The Opening Statement

Structuring the speech, choice of words, authenticity, writing in 1st person, tips to write a speech, frequently asked questions on speech, how to write a speech.

Writing a speech on any particular topic requires a lot of research. It also has to be structured well in order to properly get the message across to the target audience. If you have ever listened to famous orators, you would have noticed the kind of details they include when speaking about a particular topic, how they present it and how their speeches motivate and instill courage in people to work towards an individual or shared goal. Learning how to write such effective speeches can be done with a little guidance. So, here are a few points you can keep in mind when writing a speech on your own. Go through each of them carefully and follow them meticulously.

Self Introduction

When you are writing or delivering a speech, the very first thing you need to do is introduce yourself. When you are delivering a speech for a particular occasion, there might be a master of ceremony who might introduce you and invite you to share your thoughts. Whatever be the case, always remember to say one or two sentences about who you are and what you intend to do.

Introductions can change according to the nature of your target audience. It can be either formal or informal based on the audience you are addressing. Here are a few examples.

Addressing Friends/Classmates/Peers

• Hello everyone! I am ________. I am here to share my views on _________.
• Good morning friends. I, _________, am here to talk to you about _________.

Addressing Teachers/Higher Authorities

• Good morning/afternoon/evening. Before I start, I would like to thank _______ for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts about ________ here today.
• A good day to all. I, __________, on behalf of _________, am standing here today to voice out my thoughts on _________.

It is said that the first seven seconds is all that a human brain requires to decide whether or not to focus on something. So, it is evident that a catchy opening statement is the factor that will impact your audience. Writing a speech does require a lot of research, and structuring it in an interesting, informative and coherent manner is something that should be done with utmost care.

When given a topic to speak on, the first thing you can do is brainstorm ideas and pen down all that comes to your mind. This will help you understand what aspect of the topic you want to focus on. With that in mind, you can start drafting your speech.

An opening statement can be anything that is relevant to the topic. Use words smartly to create an impression and grab the attention of your audience. A few ideas on framing opening statements are given below. Take a look.

• Asking an Engaging Question

Starting your speech by asking the audience a question can get their attention. It creates an interest and curiosity in the audience and makes them think about the question. This way, you would have already got their minds ready to listen and think.

• Fact or a Surprising Statement

Surprising the audience with an interesting fact or a statement can draw the attention of the audience. It can even be a joke; just make sure it is relevant. A good laugh would wake up their minds and they would want to listen to what you are going to say next.

• Adding a Quote

After you have found your topic to work on, look for a quote that best suits your topic. The quote can be one said by some famous personality or even from stories, movies or series. As long as it suits your topic and is appropriate to the target audience, use them confidently.  Again, finding a quote that is well-known or has scope for deep thought will be your success factor.

To structure your speech easily, it is advisable to break it into three parts or three sections – an introduction, body and conclusion.

• Introduction: Introduce the topic and your views on the topic briefly.
• Body: Give a detailed explanation of your topic. Your focus should be to inform and educate your audience on the said topic.
• Conclusion:  Voice out your thoughts/suggestions. Your intention here should be to make them think/act.

While delivering or writing a speech, it is essential to keep an eye on the language you are using. Choose the right kind of words. The person has the liberty to express their views in support or against the topic; just be sure to provide enough evidence to prove the discussed points. See to it that you use short and precise sentences. Your choice of words and what you emphasise on will decide the effect of the speech on the audience.

When writing a speech, make sure to,

• Avoid long, confusing sentences.
• Check the spelling, sentence structure and grammar.
• Not use contradictory words or statements that might cause any sort of issues.

Anything authentic will appeal to the audience, so including anecdotes, personal experiences and thoughts will help you build a good rapport with your audience. The only thing you need to take care is to not let yourself be carried away in the moment. Speak only what is necessary.

Using the 1st person point of view in a speech is believed to be more effective than a third person point of view. Just be careful not to make it too subjective and sway away from the topic.

• Understand the purpose of your speech: Before writing the speech, you must understand the topic and the purpose behind it. Reason out and evaluate if the speech has to be inspiring, entertaining or purely informative.
• Identify your audience: When writing or delivering a speech, your audience play the major role. Unless you know who your target audience is, you will not be able to draft a good and appropriate speech.
• Decide the length of the speech: Whatever be the topic, make sure you keep it short and to the point. Making a speech longer than it needs to be will only make it monotonous and boring.
• Revising and practicing the speech: After writing, it is essential to revise and recheck as there might be minor errors which you might have missed. Edit and revise until you are sure you have it right. Practise as much as required so you do not stammer in front of your audience.
• Mention your takeaways at the end of the speech: Takeaways are the points which have been majorly emphasised on and can bring a change. Be sure to always have a thought or idea that your audience can reflect upon at the end of your speech.

How to write a speech?

Writing a speech is basically about collecting, summarising and structuring your points on a given topic. Do a proper research, prepare multiple drafts, edit and revise until you are sure of the content.

Why is it important to introduce ourselves?

It is essential to introduce yourself while writing a speech, so that your audience or the readers know who the speaker is and understand where you come from. This will, in turn, help them connect with you and your thoughts.

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What this handout is about

This handout will help you create an effective speech by establishing the purpose of your speech and making it easily understandable. It will also help you to analyze your audience and keep the audience interested.

What’s different about a speech?

Writing for public speaking isn’t so different from other types of writing. You want to engage your audience’s attention, convey your ideas in a logical manner and use reliable evidence to support your point. But the conditions for public speaking favor some writing qualities over others. When you write a speech, your audience is made up of listeners. They have only one chance to comprehend the information as you read it, so your speech must be well-organized and easily understood. In addition, the content of the speech and your delivery must fit the audience.

What’s your purpose?

People have gathered to hear you speak on a specific issue, and they expect to get something out of it immediately. And you, the speaker, hope to have an immediate effect on your audience. The purpose of your speech is to get the response you want. Most speeches invite audiences to react in one of three ways: feeling, thinking, or acting. For example, eulogies encourage emotional response from the audience; college lectures stimulate listeners to think about a topic from a different perspective; protest speeches in the Pit recommend actions the audience can take.

As you establish your purpose, ask yourself these questions:

• What do you want the audience to learn or do?
• If you are making an argument, why do you want them to agree with you?
• If they already agree with you, why are you giving the speech?
• How can your audience benefit from what you have to say?

Audience analysis

If your purpose is to get a certain response from your audience, you must consider who they are (or who you’re pretending they are). If you can identify ways to connect with your listeners, you can make your speech interesting and useful.

As you think of ways to appeal to your audience, ask yourself:

• What do they have in common? Age? Interests? Ethnicity? Gender?
• Do they know as much about your topic as you, or will you be introducing them to new ideas?
• Why are these people listening to you? What are they looking for?
• What level of detail will be effective for them?
• What tone will be most effective in conveying your message?
• What might offend or alienate them?

For more help, see our handout on audience .

Creating an effective introduction

Get their attention, otherwise known as “the hook”.

Think about how you can relate to these listeners and get them to relate to you or your topic. Appealing to your audience on a personal level captures their attention and concern, increasing the chances of a successful speech. Speakers often begin with anecdotes to hook their audience’s attention. Other methods include presenting shocking statistics, asking direct questions of the audience, or enlisting audience participation.

Establish context and/or motive

Explain why your topic is important. Consider your purpose and how you came to speak to this audience. You may also want to connect the material to related or larger issues as well, especially those that may be important to your audience.

Get to the point

Tell your listeners your thesis right away and explain how you will support it. Don’t spend as much time developing your introductory paragraph and leading up to the thesis statement as you would in a research paper for a course. Moving from the intro into the body of the speech quickly will help keep your audience interested. You may be tempted to create suspense by keeping the audience guessing about your thesis until the end, then springing the implications of your discussion on them. But if you do so, they will most likely become bored or confused.

For more help, see our handout on introductions .

Making your speech easy to understand

Repeat crucial points and buzzwords.

Especially in longer speeches, it’s a good idea to keep reminding your audience of the main points you’ve made. For example, you could link an earlier main point or key term as you transition into or wrap up a new point. You could also address the relationship between earlier points and new points through discussion within a body paragraph. Using buzzwords or key terms throughout your paper is also a good idea. If your thesis says you’re going to expose unethical behavior of medical insurance companies, make sure the use of “ethics” recurs instead of switching to “immoral” or simply “wrong.” Repetition of key terms makes it easier for your audience to take in and connect information.

Incorporate previews and summaries into the speech

For example:

“I’m here today to talk to you about three issues that threaten our educational system: First, … Second, … Third,”

“I’ve talked to you today about such and such.”

These kinds of verbal cues permit the people in the audience to put together the pieces of your speech without thinking too hard, so they can spend more time paying attention to its content.

Use especially strong transitions

This will help your listeners see how new information relates to what they’ve heard so far. If you set up a counterargument in one paragraph so you can demolish it in the next, begin the demolition by saying something like,

“But this argument makes no sense when you consider that . . . .”

If you’re providing additional information to support your main point, you could say,

“Another fact that supports my main point is . . . .”

Helping your audience listen

Rely on shorter, simpler sentence structures.

Don’t get too complicated when you’re asking an audience to remember everything you say. Avoid using too many subordinate clauses, and place subjects and verbs close together.

Too complicated:

The product, which was invented in 1908 by Orville Z. McGillicuddy in Des Moines, Iowa, and which was on store shelves approximately one year later, still sells well.

Easier to understand:

Orville Z. McGillicuddy invented the product in 1908 and introduced it into stores shortly afterward. Almost a century later, the product still sells well.

Limit pronoun use

Listeners may have a hard time remembering or figuring out what “it,” “they,” or “this” refers to. Be specific by using a key noun instead of unclear pronouns.

Pronoun problem:

The U.S. government has failed to protect us from the scourge of so-called reality television, which exploits sex, violence, and petty conflict, and calls it human nature. This cannot continue.

Why the last sentence is unclear: “This” what? The government’s failure? Reality TV? Human nature?

More specific:

The U.S. government has failed to protect us from the scourge of so-called reality television, which exploits sex, violence, and petty conflict, and calls it human nature. This failure cannot continue.

Keeping audience interest

Incorporate the rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, and logos.

When arguing a point, using ethos, pathos, and logos can help convince your audience to believe you and make your argument stronger. Ethos refers to an appeal to your audience by establishing your authenticity and trustworthiness as a speaker. If you employ pathos, you appeal to your audience’s emotions. Using logos includes the support of hard facts, statistics, and logical argumentation. The most effective speeches usually present a combination these rhetorical strategies.

Use statistics and quotations sparingly

Include only the most striking factual material to support your perspective, things that would likely stick in the listeners’ minds long after you’ve finished speaking. Otherwise, you run the risk of overwhelming your listeners with too much information.

Watch your tone

Be careful not to talk over the heads of your audience. On the other hand, don’t be condescending either. And as for grabbing their attention, yelling, cursing, using inappropriate humor, or brandishing a potentially offensive prop (say, autopsy photos) will only make the audience tune you out.

Creating an effective conclusion

Restate your main points, but don’t repeat them.

“I asked earlier why we should care about the rain forest. Now I hope it’s clear that . . .” “Remember how Mrs. Smith couldn’t afford her prescriptions? Under our plan, . . .”

Call to action

Speeches often close with an appeal to the audience to take action based on their new knowledge or understanding. If you do this, be sure the action you recommend is specific and realistic. For example, although your audience may not be able to affect foreign policy directly, they can vote or work for candidates whose foreign policy views they support. Relating the purpose of your speech to their lives not only creates a connection with your audience, but also reiterates the importance of your topic to them in particular or “the bigger picture.”

Practicing for effective presentation

Once you’ve completed a draft, read your speech to a friend or in front of a mirror. When you’ve finished reading, ask the following questions:

• Which pieces of information are clearest?
• Where did I connect with the audience?
• Where might listeners lose the thread of my argument or description?
• Where might listeners become bored?
• Where did I have trouble speaking clearly and/or emphatically?
• Did I stay within my time limit?

Other resources

• Toastmasters International is a nonprofit group that provides communication and leadership training.
• Allyn & Bacon Publishing’s Essence of Public Speaking Series is an extensive treatment of speech writing and delivery, including books on using humor, motivating your audience, word choice and presentation.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Boone, Louis E., David L. Kurtz, and Judy R. Block. 1997. Contemporary Business Communication . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Ehrlich, Henry. 1994. Writing Effective Speeches . New York: Marlowe.

Lamb, Sandra E. 1998. How to Write It: A Complete Guide to Everything You’ll Ever Write . Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Speech And Debate

Speech Writing

Last updated on: Feb 9, 2023

How to Write a Speech - Outline With Example

By: Cordon J.

Reviewed By: Rylee W.

Published on: Sep 8, 2020

Giving a speech for a class, event or work can be nerve-wracking. However, writing an effective speech can boost your confidence level.

A speech is an effective medium to communicate your message and speech writing is a skill that has its advantages even if you are a student or a professional.

With careful planning and paying attention to small details, you can write a speech that will inform, persuade, entertain or motivate the people you are writing for.

If this is your first speech. Take all the time you need.

Like other skills, you can learn speech writing too.

Give yourself enough time to write and practice it several times for the best possible results.

On this Page

You have a message that you want people to hear or you are preparing a speech for a particular situation such as a commemorative speech.

No matter what the case, it is important to ensure that the speech is well structured or else you will fail to deliver your effective message. And you don’t want that, do you?

You can also explore our complete guide to  write a commemorative speech . Make sure to give the article a thorough read.

How to Create a Speech Outline?

Want to write a speech your audience will remember? A speech outline is a thing you should start with.

‘How to write a speech outline?’

A speech outline is very important in helping you sound more authoritative and in control. As you write your speech outline you will have to focus on how you will introduce yourself, your topic, and the points that you will be going to cover.

A speech outline will save a lot of your time and will help you organize your thoughts. It will make sure the speech is following a proper structure and format.

Before you start writing your own speech you need to know:

• WHO you are writing the speech for
• WHAT the speech will be going to cover
• HOW long it needs to be e.g if it is a 5-minute speech (then how many words in a 5-minute speech)

These speech tips will help you get on the right track from the start. Here is an example of how you can craft a speech outline.

Preparation

• Choose your topic and the main points that your speech will cover. Know your audience and get to know what they are looking for. Pay attention to their needs
• Define the purpose of the speech and properly organize it

Introduction

• A strong statement to grab the reader’s attention
• Refine the thesis statement
• State something that establishes credibility
• Provide your main idea and include some supporting statements.
• Examples and further details (if needed)
• Summarize the main points of the speech
• Closing statement
• Call to action

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job!

How to Write an Effective Speech?

‘How to write a graduation speech?’

‘How to write a speech for school?’

‘How to write a speech about yourself?’

Get your answers in the below sections.

Just like essays, the speech also follows three sections: Introduction, the main body, and conclusion.

However, unlike essays, a speech must be written to be heard as opposed to just being read. It is important to write a speech in a way that can grab the reader’s attention and helps in painting a mental image.

It is the opening statement of a speech. It is important to know how to start a speech that can grab the attention of the audience.

‘How to write a speech introduction?’

It should include a hook-grabber statement about your topic. It should end with a strong transition from a big idea of the introduction to the main body of the essay. Some great ways to begin your speech are, to begin with, a rhetorical question, a quote, or another strong statement.

Make sure the introduction is not more than one paragraph. This will ensure you do not spend much time on the background before getting to the main idea of the topic.

The introduction is a great chance to make sure your opening is memorable as this is the point when your audience will make up their mind about you.

The Main body

The majority of the speech should be spent presenting your thesis statement and supporting ideas in an organized way.

Avoid rambling as it will immediately lose your audience’s attention. No need to share everything, instead pick some points and stick to them throughout your speech.

Organize your points in a logical manner so they support and build on each other. Add as many points as needed to support the overall message of your speech.

State each point clearly and provide all the required information, facts, statistics, and evidence, to clarify each of your points.

It is a good idea to include your personal experiences to make your speech more interesting and memorable.

Another important thing to be kept in mind is the use of transition. The purpose of adding transition words is to improve the overall flow of the information and help the reader to understand the speech structure. Words like next, then, after, before, at that moment, etc. are the most commonly used transition words to make the whole writing less choppy and more interesting.

The conclusion should restate and summarize all the main points of the speech. Because the audience will most likely remember what they have heard last. Beautifully wrap up the whole speech and give something for the audience to think about.

For an extra element, close your speech by restating the introduction statement so it feels like a complete package.

A good approach to conclude your speech is to introduce a call to action. Encourage your audience to participate in the solution to the problem that you are discussing. Give your audience some direction on how they can participate.

Practice and more practice is key to a great speech so it is important that you read your speech and listen to yourself. When writing, take care of the required length also.

Speech Topics - Engaging Topics to Choose From

You feel relief when your teacher says you are free to choose your speech topic. Feel free to write about anything you want. The problem is students still feel stuck in choosing an effective speech topic. If you are one of them, here is a list of the best speech ideas to help you get through the process.

• What role do cats play in human’s lives
• How to improve communication disorders
• World’s fastest-growing country
• Today’s world pollution rate
• How to improve interpersonal skills
• Are paper books better than e-books
• Should the death penalty be abolished
• Should prisoners be allowed to vote
• Should voting be made compulsory
• Is it better to live together before marriage

These are some of the interesting topics that you can consider. However, if you are still not sure about the topic of your speech, you can explore our article on  informative speech topics  and pick any of your choices.

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Speech Example

Stressing over on how to write a good speech? Speech examples are sure to be your best friend for effective speech writing and its effortless delivery.

Here is a sample speech example to help you get through your own speech writing process. Explore this example and get the answer on how to give a good speech.

Get Professional Help for Your Speech

If you are good at public speaking but lack writing skills or you do not have enough time to follow the mentioned points and write a speech, don't worry.

You can always contact us at 5StarEssays.com.

We have a highly qualified and amazing team of expert writers who can help you if you want to buy speeches online with high-quality content.

Contact our " write my essay " service with your requirements. Our essay writer will provide you with quality material that your audience will remember for a long time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best introduction for a speech.

The best way to open a speech’s introduction is, to begin with, a story. Tell an inspiring story to your audience and connect it with your personal narrative.

What is the first step of speech writing?

The first step of writing a speech is to choose a topic. Choosing a good topic is important to have an engaging and great speech.

What are the five steps in speech writing?

Here are the five steps involved in writing a speech.

• Choose a topic.
• Investigate your audience.
• Built an outline.
• Rehearse the speech.
• Revise and finalize.

What are the types of speech delivery?

Here are the types of speech delivery.

• Extemporaneous

What are the two P’s required for good speech delivery?

The two P’s required for proper speech delivery are Preparation and Practice.

Cordon. is a published author and writing specialist. He has worked in the publishing industry for many years, providing writing services and digital content. His own writing career began with a focus on literature and linguistics, which he continues to pursue. Cordon is an engaging and professional individual, always looking to help others achieve their goals.

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The Ultimate Guide to Speech Writing | Format and Samples

If you want to know, how to write a perfect speech , you will love this amazing step-by-step guide.

But, let’s start with a simple introduction.

In simple words, speech writing is an art (technique) of conveying your message to an audience through your words.

Think of it this way.

Whether for a ceremony, an election or a school assembly, you give a speech to interact with your audience.

Plus, a speech has logically connected ideas that are supported by evidence.

But, how do you write a speech? Let me tell you.

We'll take a look at:

Format of Speech Writing:

• Address your audience :

This is the first thing that you are going to do.

Addressing the audience simply means to start with a phrase such as: “Good morning everyone”, or “Good morning ladies and gentlemen”.

This will go on the top left of your page.

Note : If (in an exam) the question restricts you with the starting, you should follow the instructions. For example, if you are asked to start with “Good evening friends”, then you will start like that.

When you have addressed your audience (people listening to you), move on to the second step.

• Write an Introduction:

This is going to be the first paragraph of your speech. And trust me, it should be “epic”.

Let me tell you how to write a perfect introductory paragraph. An introduction should:

• Grab the attention of the audience
• Explain the topic (and the points that would be discussed)

If you want to hook your reader from the start, you can start with a question . This is because a question forces your reader to visualize and think about the topic.

For example, let’s suppose that you are writing about climate change. You can start your speech like this: “In your opinion, why is climate change a bigger problem today than it was 20 years ago?”.

The second thing you can do to grab your readers attention is to start with a fact .

I have a question for you. Would you be interested in hearing a speech that starts with a thrilling fact? At least, I would be!

A simple example of starting with a fact is:

“Do you know that one of the biggest global killers is pollution? Around 5000 people die every day due to the consumption of unclean water.” That is a HUGE number if you ask me…”

When you have grabbed your readers attention, move on and explain the purpose of your speech.

It is important to tell the purpose of your speech. It gives your reader an idea of what your speech will cover. It should also provide some background information on the issue or problem (if applicable).

When you are done with the introduction, move on to the body.

In the body paragraphs, you are going to cover the main topic (idea) in detail.

Each body paragraph should contain:

• A topic sentence that tells what the paragraph will cover
• The supporting sentences that discuss the idea of the topic sentence

But the real question is, how many body paragraphs should you make?

Well, it depends. Let me explain this to you.

You are going to make a paragraph in the body section for every main idea. In simple words, you will make a separate paragraph for a separate point (idea).

But ideally, it is recommended to make 3 body paragraphs (to cover three prominent ideas).

You will understand this after reading the sample speeches later in this article.

• Conclusion :

This is going to be the last part of your speech. But, a concluding paragraph is a little bit different.

Here’s how.

In the conclusion, you are first going to thank your audience for their patience and time. Then (just like other conclusions), you are going to summarise your discussion.

But remember, DO NOT introduce new points. The purpose of the conclusion is to wrap up your ideas and thank your audience.

So keep that in mind.

With this, it is time to move on and take a look at some samples for speech writing.

Recently, your class organized and helped to run an after-school activity for younger pupils in your school. The Principal asked you, as one of the organizers, to give a speech about it at the school assembly.

Write your speech. You must include the following:

• When and where the activity was held
• Description of the activity
• Benefits to younger pupils and classmates

“My respected schoolmates and the honourable administration, Good morning. I have a question for you. Would you actively participate in an event conducted by the school or by your friends?

I will come back to you with this question later, but first of all, let me introduce myself. I am Adam Sanders, a student of grade eleven, and I am here to talk about the recent sports activity our class organized after school.

( Introduction ↑ )

My honourable audience, my class conducted the planned sports activities immediately after the recent winter break. This means that the activity lasted for two weeks, from 1st January to 14th January 2021. Umm… And we conducted all our activities in this assembly area, where you all are currently standing.

( First Body Paragraph ↑ )

Any guesses how did we manage all this?

Firstly, the younger pupils opted for their favourite sports through a survey. Secondly, my class finalized the teams based upon the skills of players and sports categories such as cricket and football.

This was a hectic task, wasn’t it? After that, as you all know, the teams competed against each other up till the final, where one team secured a victory.

( Second Body Paragraph ↑ )

My honourable audience, this activity proved to be a source of learning competitive skills for the participants. Likewise, these sports activities also allowed students to improve their physical, mental and emotional health.

Isn’t it? And if I talk about my class, we learned a lot about leadership and how to plan and conduct events.

( Third Body Paragraph ↑ )

My respected guests, I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your valuable time. I hope that we conduct similar events in the future as well. This is Adam, and I hope to see you all in the future.”

( Conclusion ↑ )

Comments on the Sample:

(The strong aspects of this response)

• The format of this sample is appropriate.

This is because it starts and ends with inverted commas and contains paragraphs.

Further reading:

Argumentative Essay Made Simple

Narrative Writing | With Examples

Report Writing | Format and Sample

• There are rhetorical questions that engage the audience.

These questions are the ones for which the questioner does not expect a direct answer. Here are some examples of rhetorical questions:

“There is no point in this, is there?”

“This joke was funny, wasn’t it?”

“Why don’t you leave me alone?”

• The writer covers all three aspects (mentioned as bullet points in the question).

If you look at the question, there were some topics such as “when and where the activity was held”. The candidate addresses all these points using a separate paragraph for each.

• The tone and register (writing style) are appropriate.

With this, it is time to discuss some areas of improvement for this sample.

(The areas of improvement )

• Variety in sentence structure.

In the response, there are mostly simple and compound sentences. The speech can be improved by using complex and compound-complex sentences as well.

• Engaging the audience.

In speech writing, keeping your audience engaged is the MOST important task.

This is simple. If you do not engage your audience, they will not listen to you.

In this response, the student has tried well to retain the audience attention. But there are some places where the speech turns to more like storytelling .

For example, when the details about the event were discussed.

• The Conclusion:

In the concluding paragraph, the student thanks to the audience (which is good). But, the summary of the main points (brief recap) was missing.

You should remember that in the conclusion, you have to summarise your speech and then thank your audience.

Note : You can also add extra details, such as your contact details (if applicable).

Now, let me share another speech writing sample with you.

Write a speech about an event from your school life you will always remember. You should include details such as when the event happened and how the event affected you.

“My respected Principal, the honourable school staff and my friends, Good morning! I have a quick question for you. Is there any event from your school life about which you says: ‘I am going to remember this FOREVER’?

Well, there is one for me. But first of all, let me introduce myself to you. My name is John Ryan and I am a student of grade eleven. I think this is enough for an introduction, isn’t it?

Now, let me share my experience of an inter-region football competition in which I participated last year.

Umm… First of all, raise your hands if you have ever been to a football competition. Good, the majority of you have the experience. Let me tell you all that our preparation for the event started two months before the event.

And for your reference, let me tell you that the event was conducted on 22nd March 2021. A quick question, any guesses on where the event was conducted?

No idea? Well, this programme was held in the Peninsula Stadium (UK) where teams from all over the globe participated.

I know that you might be wondering, ‘How did this stadium accommodate so many people?’. The answer is that after the teams were shortlisted, this stadium was enough to carry out an event like this.

My respected audience, our coach Sir Jimmy ensured that all the preparations were complete. And as you are aware that we defeated all our opponents one by one and made our way to the final.

Can you imagine how hectic and tiresome this day was for all of us? But to be honest, the victory at the end made this effort completely worth it. Now you all know why I was excited to share this experience?

My friends, this experience of training and victory is what makes this event unforgettable.

My honourable guests, I claim that this event made a HUGE impact on my personality. Any guesses?

Participation in this competition massively increased my confidence. Moreover, I learned some great lessons about teamwork, leadership and success.

But there is something I am even more proud of. Raise your hands if you know the answer. The hint is, ‘school’. Yes, you are correct. This victory enhanced the reputation of our school as well.

Well, this brings us to the end of this speech. Thank you for your valuable time and energy. If you have any questions for me, you can raise your hands…

No? Well then, I hope that this speech was a source of motivation and learning for you. I hope to see you all soon. Bye”

Tips for Speech Writing:

• Use a conversational tone.

You should remember that speech writing is not like account writing or letter writing. The tone matters!

Having a conversational tone simply means that your speech should sound like you are talking to someone. For that, you can use the phrases such as: “My respected guests…” “My honourable audience…” etc

Important Note : You should use the “You” tone in your writing. This keeps your audience engaged.

• Use rhetorical questions .

This is very important if you want to keep your audience engaged . As I mentioned earlier, these are the questions for which you do not expect a direct answer.

But, why do you ask them? To keep your audience attentive.

Therefore, try to ask questions so that your speech does not turn into a story.

• Know your audience :

Who is your audience? Why do they want and why are they there?

These questions are very important to answer before you write a speech. Whether your speech is to entertain, motivate, inform or challenge your audience, knowing them is the first part.

This is because your tone should vary according to your audience.

Wrapping Up:

With this, our topic about speech writing has come to an end.

Now, I turn it over to you.

Which part of this topic did you find challenging? Or you enjoyed reading the samples? Either way, do let me know.

Thank You very much for reading and staying with me till the end. Stay tuned for more. And if you have any questions, feel free to leave them below.

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15 Powerful Speech Opening Lines (And How to Create Your Own)

Hrideep barot.

• Public Speaking , Speech Writing

Powerful speech opening lines set the tone and mood of your speech. It’s what grips the audience to want to know more about the rest of your talk.

The first few seconds are critical. It’s when you have maximum attention of the audience. And you must capitalize on that!

Instead of starting off with something plain and obvious such as a ‘Thank you’ or ‘Good Morning’, there’s so much more you can do for a powerful speech opening (here’s a great article we wrote a while ago on how you should NOT start your speech ).

To help you with this, I’ve compiled some of my favourite openings from various speakers. These speakers have gone on to deliver TED talks , win international Toastmaster competitions or are just noteworthy people who have mastered the art of communication.

After each speaker’s opening line, I have added how you can include their style of opening into your own speech. Understanding how these great speakers do it will certainly give you an idea to create your own speech opening line which will grip the audience from the outset!

Alright! Let’s dive into the 15 powerful speech openings…

Note: Want to take your communications skills to the next level? Book a complimentary consultation with one of our expert communication coaches. We’ll look under the hood of your hurdles and pick two to three growth opportunities so you can speak with impact!

1. Ric Elias

Opening: “Imagine a big explosion as you climb through 3,000 ft. Imagine a plane full of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack. It sounds scary. Well I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting in 1D.”

How to use the power of imagination to open your speech?

Putting your audience in a state of imagination can work extremely well to captivate them for the remainder of your talk.

It really helps to bring your audience in a certain mood that preps them for what’s about to come next. Speakers have used this with high effectiveness by transporting their audience into an imaginary land to help prove their point.

When Ric Elias opened his speech, the detail he used (3000 ft, sound of the engine going clack-clack-clack) made me feel that I too was in the plane. He was trying to make the audience experience what he was feeling – and, at least in my opinion, he did.

When using the imagination opening for speeches, the key is – detail. While we want the audience to wander into imagination, we want them to wander off to the image that we want to create for them. So, detail out your scenario if you’re going to use this technique.

Make your audience feel like they too are in the same circumstance as you were when you were in that particular situation.

2. Barack Obama

Opening: “You can’t say it, but you know it’s true.”

3. Seth MacFarlane

Opening: “There’s nowhere I would rather be on a day like this than around all this electoral equipment.” (It was raining)

How to use humour to open your speech?

When you use humour in a manner that suits your personality, it can set you up for a great speech. Why? Because getting a laugh in the first 30 seconds or so is a great way to quickly get the audience to like you.

And when they like you, they are much more likely to listen to and believe in your ideas.

Obama effortlessly uses his opening line to entice laughter among the audience. He brilliantly used the setting (the context of Trump becoming President) and said a line that completely matched his style of speaking.

Saying a joke without really saying a joke and getting people to laugh requires you to be completely comfortable in your own skin. And that’s not easy for many people (me being one of them).

If the joke doesn’t land as expected, it could lead to a rocky start.

Keep in mind the following when attempting to deliver a funny introduction:

• Know your audience: Make sure your audience gets the context of the joke (if it’s an inside joke among the members you’re speaking to, that’s even better!). You can read this article we wrote where we give you tips on how you can actually get to know your audience better to ensure maximum impact with your speech openings
• The joke should suit your natural personality. Don’t make it look forced or it won’t elicit the desired response
• Test the opening out on a few people who match your real audience. Analyze their response and tweak the joke accordingly if necessary
• Starting your speech with humour means your setting the tone of your speech. It would make sense to have a few more jokes sprinkled around the rest of the speech as well as the audience might be expecting the same from you

4. Mohammed Qahtani

Opening: Puts a cigarette on his lips, lights a lighter, stops just before lighting the cigarette. Looks at audience, “What?”

5. Darren Tay

Opening: Puts a white pair of briefs over his pants.

How to use props to begin your speech?

The reason props work so well in a talk is because in most cases the audience is not expecting anything more than just talking. So when a speaker pulls out an object that is unusual, everyone’s attention goes right to it.

It makes you wonder why that prop is being used in this particular speech.

The key word here is unusual . To grip the audience’s attention at the beginning of the speech, the prop being used should be something that the audience would never expect. Otherwise, it just becomes something that is common. And common = boring!

What Mohammed Qahtani and Darren Tay did superbly well in their talks was that they used props that nobody expected them to.

By pulling out a cigarette and lighter or a white pair of underwear, the audience can’t help but be gripped by what the speaker is about to do next. And that makes for a powerful speech opening.

6. Simon Sinek

Opening: “How do you explain when things don’t go as we assume? Or better, how do you explain when others are able to achieve things that seem to defy all of the assumptions?”

7. Julian Treasure

Opening: “The human voice. It’s the instrument we all play. It’s the most powerful sound in the world. Probably the only one that can start a war or say “I love you.” And yet many people have the experience that when they speak people don’t listen to them. Why is that? How can we speak powerfully to make change in the world?”

How to use questions to open a speech?

I use this method often. Starting off with a question is the simplest way to start your speech in a manner that immediately engages the audience.

But we should keep our questions compelling as opposed to something that is fairly obvious.

I’ve heard many speakers start their speeches with questions like “How many of us want to be successful?”

No one is going to say ‘no’ to that and frankly, I just feel silly raising my hand at such questions.

Simon Sinek and Jullian Treasure used questions in a manner that really made the audience think and make them curious to find out what the answer to that question is.

What Jullian Treasure did even better was the use of a few statements which built up to his question. This made the question even more compelling and set the theme for what the rest of his talk would be about.

So think of what question you can ask in your speech that will:

• Set the theme for the remainder of your speech
• Not be something that is fairly obvious
• Be compelling enough so that the audience will actually want to know what the answer to that question will be

8. Aaron Beverley

Opening: Long pause (after an absurdly long introduction of a 57-word speech title). “Be honest. You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

How to use silence for speech openings?

The reason this speech opening stands out is because of the fact that the title itself is 57 words long. The audience was already hilariously intrigued by what was going to come next.

But what’s so gripping here is the way Aaron holds the crowd’s suspense by…doing nothing. For about 10 to 12 seconds he did nothing but stand and look at the audience. Everyone quietened down. He then broke this silence by a humorous remark that brought the audience laughing down again.

When going on to open your speech, besides focusing on building a killer opening sentence, how about just being silent?

It’s important to keep in mind that the point of having a strong opening is so that the audience’s attention is all on you and are intrigued enough to want to listen to the rest of your speech.

Silence is a great way to do that. When you get on the stage, just pause for a few seconds (about 3 to 5 seconds) and just look at the crowd. Let the audience and yourself settle in to the fact that the spotlight is now on you.

I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something about starting the speech off with a pure pause that just makes the beginning so much more powerful. It adds credibility to you as a speaker as well, making you look more comfortable and confident on stage. 

If you want to know more about the power of pausing in public speaking , check out this post we wrote. It will give you a deeper insight into the importance of pausing and how you can harness it for your own speeches. You can also check out this video to know more about Pausing for Public Speaking:

9. Dan Pink

Opening: “I need to make a confession at the outset here. Little over 20 years ago, I did something that I regret. Something that I’m not particularly proud of. Something that in many ways I wish no one would ever know but that here I feel kind of obliged to reveal.”

10. Kelly McGonigal

Opening: “I have a confession to make. But first I want you to make a little confession to me.”

How to use a build-up to open your speech?

When there are so many amazing ways to start a speech and grip an audience from the outset, why would you ever choose to begin your speech with a ‘Good morning?’.

That’s what I love about build-ups. They set the mood for something awesome that’s about to come in that the audience will feel like they just have to know about.

Instead of starting a speech as it is, see if you can add some build-up to your beginning itself. For instance, in Kelly McGonigal’s speech, she could have started off with the question of stress itself (which she eventually moves on to in her speech). It’s not a bad way to start the speech.

But by adding the statement of “I have a confession to make” and then not revealing the confession for a little bit, the audience is gripped to know what she’s about to do next and find out what indeed is her confession.

11. Tim Urban

Opening: “So in college, I was a government major. Which means that I had to write a lot of papers. Now when a normal student writes a paper, they might spread the work out a little like this.”

12. Scott Dinsmore

Opening: “8 years ago, I got the worst career advice of my life.”

How to use storytelling as a speech opening?

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” Steve Jobs

Storytelling is the foundation of good speeches. Starting your speech with a story is a great way to grip the audience’s attention. It makes them yearn to want to know how the rest of the story is going to pan out.

Tim Urban starts off his speech with a story dating back to his college days. His use of slides is masterful and something we all can learn from. But while his story sounds simple, it does the job of intriguing the audience to want to know more.

As soon as I heard the opening lines, I thought to myself “If normal students write their paper in a certain manner, how does Tim write his papers?”

Combine such a simple yet intriguing opening with comedic slides, and you’ve got yourself a pretty gripping speech.

Scott Dismore’s statement has a similar impact. However, just a side note, Scott Dismore actually started his speech with “Wow, what an honour.”

I would advise to not start your talk with something such as that. It’s way too common and does not do the job an opening must, which is to grip your audience and set the tone for what’s coming.

13. Larry Smith

Opening: “I want to discuss with you this afternoon why you’re going to fail to have a great career.”

14. Jane McGonigal

Opening: “You will live 7.5 minutes longer than you would have otherwise, just because you watched this talk.”

How to use provocative statements to start your speech?

Making a provocative statement creates a keen desire among the audience to want to know more about what you have to say. It immediately brings everyone into attention.

Larry Smith did just that by making his opening statement surprising, lightly humorous, and above all – fearful. These elements lead to an opening statement which creates so much curiosity among the audience that they need to know how your speech pans out.

This one time, I remember seeing a speaker start a speech with, “Last week, my best friend committed suicide.” The entire crowd was gripped. Everyone could feel the tension in the room.

They were just waiting for the speaker to continue to know where this speech will go.

That’s what a hard-hitting statement does, it intrigues your audience so much that they can’t wait to hear more! Just a tip, if you do start off with a provocative, hard-hitting statement, make sure you pause for a moment after saying it.

Silence after an impactful statement will allow your message to really sink in with the audience.

Related article: 5 Ways to Grab Your Audience’s Attention When You’re Losing it!

15. Ramona J Smith

Opening: In a boxing stance, “Life would sometimes feel like a fight. The punches, jabs and hooks will come in the form of challenges, obstacles and failures. Yet if you stay in the ring and learn from those past fights, at the end of each round, you’ll be still standing.”

How to use your full body to grip the audience at the beginning of your speech?

In a talk, the audience is expecting you to do just that – talk. But when you enter the stage and start putting your full body into use in a way that the audience does not expect, it grabs their attention.

Body language is critical when it comes to public speaking. Hand gestures, stage movement, facial expressions are all things that need to be paid attention to while you’re speaking on stage. But that’s not I’m talking about here.

Here, I’m referring to a unique use of the body that grips the audience, like how Ramona did. By using her body to get into a boxing stance, imitating punches, jabs and hooks with her arms while talking – that’s what got the audience’s attention.

The reason I say this is so powerful is because if you take Ramona’s speech and remove the body usage from her opening, the entire magic of the opening falls flat.

While the content is definitely strong, without those movements, she would not have captured the audience’s attention as beautifully as she did with the use of her body.

So if you have a speech opening that seems slightly dull, see if you can add some body movement to it.

If your speech starts with a story of someone running, actually act out the running. If your speech starts with a story of someone reading, actually act out the reading.

It will make your speech opening that much more impactful.

Related article: 5 Body Language Tips to Command the Stage

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Final Words

So there it is! 15 speech openings from some of my favourite speeches. Hopefully, these will act as a guide for you to create your own opening which is super impactful and sets you off on the path to becoming a powerful public speaker!

But remember, while a speech opening is super important, it’s just part of an overall structure.

If you’re serious about not just creating a great speech opening but to improve your public speaking at an overall level, I would highly recommend you to check out this course: Acumen Presents: Chris Anderson on Public Speaking on Udemy. Not only does it have specific lectures on starting and ending a speech, but it also offers an in-depth guide into all the nuances of public speaking. 

Being the founder of TED Talks, Chris Anderson provides numerous examples of the best TED speakers to give us a very practical way of overcoming stage fear and delivering a speech that people will remember. His course has helped me personally and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to learn public speaking. 

No one is ever “done” learning public speaking. It’s a continuous process and you can always get better. Keep learning, keep conquering and keep being awesome!

Lastly, if you want to know how you should NOT open your speech, we’ve got a video for you:

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English that goes straight to the heart

How to Write a Speech?

A speech is a spoken discourse or an expression of ideas delivered in front of an audience by the speaker. 

A speech can perform one or more of the following functions:

Daily Test - Attempt Now

• To convince the audience:  ‘Reasons why I Believe Indians don‟t have Civic Sense’
• To provoke the audience to take an action:  ‘Report Corruption to Kill Corruption’
• To inspire the audience:  ‘Do One Good Deed A Day’
• To inform the audience:  ‘Beauty Magazines Promote Low Self-esteem’

1. Before one starts writing, ask three questions:

• What is the purpose of the speech?
• Who is the audience?
• How long will the speech last?

Example: Topic: The Curse of Global Warming Purpose: To enlighten the audience about the harms of global warming Audience: Classmates and teachers

2. Engage in brainstorming and uncover all the points that could be made in the speech.

• Ignorance related to global warming
• Its slow manifestation
• Who are the culprits?
• What are the steps to be taken?
• What could happen if it is ignored?

3. Structure your writing. Divide your speech into three paragraphs that have an introduction , a body , and a conclusion . The introductory paragraph should also contain an address or a greeting to the audience.

• Types of address:
• A very good morning /afternoon /evening to everyone present here.
• Respected Principal, teachers and friends…
• Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to…

4. Always state the purpose behind the speech.

• The purpose of my speech is to highlight the problem of global warming.
• Today, I intend to bring to your notice, the problem of global warming.
• I stand in front of you today to talk about a heinous problem called global warming.

5. Create a rough outline of the speech before writing.

6. write from the perspective of the listener, not the speaker. good speeches are written keeping the audience in mind., 7. use pronouns such as ‘you’ and ‘we’ to address the audience. this adds a personal touch to the speech..

• I stand in front of you…
• I want you to ponder…
• Is this the nation you have dreamed of?

8. Refer to yourself in the first person by using pronouns such as ‘I’ and ‘Me’.

9. use repetitions of words and phrases to create an impact..

• I dream, I hope and I envision a day when…
• We can and we will…
• From the peaks of the Himalayas to the depths of the Indian Ocean…

10. Make use of transition words and phrases to connect points in a smooth and logical manner.

• The next point I would like to make is…
• That brings us to the main purpose…
• Not only … but also
• Let me begin with…
• Contrary to popular belief…
• In conclusion…
• I would like to end my speech by…

11. Make the speech memorable by using metaphors, similes, and other analogies.

• We have before us a mountain of a problem…
• It is a beautiful symphony of brotherhood…
• Like a ray of sunlight that brightens our mornings, this has brightened our lives with renewed hope…

12. As a speaker, exhibit moral conviction in your speech. Employ a sombre tone to address a serious topic. Do not use humour or sound flippant when talking about a sensitive issue. This will affect your credibility as a speaker.

13. ask rhetorical questions for maximised effect. rhetorical questions are those that are asked to make a point rather than to elicit an answer in order to get the kind of response you expect from the audience..

• Is there a solution to this problem?
• Are we truly that helpless?
• Does the government think the citizens are idiots?
• What have they done for us?

14. In the concluding paragraph, state your vision for the future or your hopes.

• I hope that one day the world will wake up to this injustice…
• I see a future where the next generation will breathe clean air…
• Let us all cooperate and bring about a revolution…

15. Conclude the speech by thanking the audience or by stating a powerful quote.

• Thank you for your patience.
• I would like to conclude this speech by expressing my heartfelt gratitude towards you.
• In the words borrowed from Star Wars, “May the force be with you!”
• As Benjamin Parker once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Terrorism can only be countered by War

Respected Principal, teachers, and dear friends,

Today I am going to speak for the motion terrorism can only be countered by war. The prime goal of the defence system of a country is the safety of the region and the people. Terrorism has always been jeopardizing lives. Therefore, if a country needs to fight against such groups, war is justified. The attack is the best form of defence.

Terrorist groups have a strong and sophisticated network, which can be counteracted only with an equally strong defence system. Therefore, military operation is crucial in breaking the network completely.

Terrorist groups have no regard for rules of international harmony and concord. Therefore, the use of force in the form of war is justified. The number of terrorists and terrorist groups present in the world today is mind-boggling. The world can be freed from its grips only if they are attacked and wiped out completely.

With this, I conclude my speech. I would like to thank you all for being a patient audience.

Terror Cannot be Curbed by War

Today I am going to speak against the motion terrorism can only be countered by war. Terrorist groups are neither confined nor limited to a single country. Therefore, engaging a country’s military to wage war against such groups is inappropriate.

When countries are engaged in wars, there is a tremendous loss of life and property. War forces civilians to give up their social rights in exchange for their safety. However, once the war has stopped, terrorists will once again wreak havoc in the lives of people.

The additional power given in the hands of the ruling bodies during wartime is often misused and resources are wasted. A great deal of time and money is wasted in the name of war. It takes years for a country to regain normal function after a war. Therefore, war is not an option to fight terrorism. Terrorist groups entice poor and helpless youngsters by convincing them that becoming a terrorist is a way of getting all their freedom back.

I wish to wind up my speech by stating that violence indeed begets more violence. If terrorists are attacked, they are likely to displace their wrath on innocent people. Therefore, a war against terrorism is not justified. With this, I conclude my speech. Thank you all for your patience and cooperation.

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10 Best Ways to Write a Speech - IGCSE English

What is a speech.

Speech is the delivery of a message to an audience via the spoken word. It is often used to persuade the audience to support an idea, or to explain/describe an interesting topic or event.

This question mostly appears in Paper 1 of your English Language and Literature question paper .

Features of Speech Writing

You will be given a reading booklet insert containing the passage for the speech writing. Read through the passage carefully. The adjacent question will be provided in the question paper booklet.

You would have to choose relevant points from the passage after having a thorough understanding of the question.

Now, convert the passage's selected points into your own words. After that, you can start putting the points together in a cohesive manner in the form of an effective speech.

Let’s take a look at how to convert the selected points from the passage into your own words.

“We could only see barren mountains despite walking for four hours. There were no other travellers on the mountain except a few lonely dwellings.”

"Four hours had passed, and all we could see were barren mountains. The route was devoid of other travellers; the only sign of human habitation was a couple of tiny, isolated dwellings."

Can you see how I modified the sentence structure and words from the highlighted section without altering the paragraph's meaning? This is how it's done; it's not easy at first, but with practise, it will become easier.

• A speech shouldn't be a stream of consciousness, it should rather be well planned out. It should seem effortless and smooth. Make sure that you bring out a strong sense of voice and use words that are simple yet impactful.

Let’s look at an example of an impactful and powerful speech from history and analyse it to understand better.

“we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

Winston Churchill, 4 June, 1940

This speech was delivered by Winston Churchill in 1940 during adverse situations to inspire people to come together and fight on. If we take a closer look at the highlighted text we see repetitions of phrases and a rhyme scheme cleverly embedded into the speech. This evokes feelings of awe in us. We are automatically drawn to the articulation and our hearts pound in patriotism.

This is precisely the effect a speech should have on people. Your speech need not necessarily evoke awe but it should convey the message in an effective and efficient manner.

Always write your speech in the first person point of view . Since you are the person who is delivering the speech in front of an audience.

You may need to refer to the audience at times during your speech; in those situations, it is better to use the term we . Why, you may wonder, because it evokes a sense of unity rather than division. When giving a speech, this is a vital consideration. As seen in the example above, Churchill uses we repetitively thus inspiring the listeners. It unites the crowd and creates a sense of oneness in them.

Have clear topic sentences with separate ideas for each paragraph. It need not be mentioned but should have an idea what each paragraph should be about. This helps your speech be coherent and not mixed up.

Use informal language to connect with the audience, using high diction will create no effect in the minds of the audience. The message may be unclear, misconstrued or confusing.

Usage of emotive language, rhetorical questions, comparison are advisable. As seen in the example above Churchill has used emotive language via rhythm and repetition.

Keep the sentences short so you don’t deviate from the topic. This makes sure that the listener is following you and you don’t lose track of your sentence. It also ensures your sentence structure is perfect.

Here’s an Example:

Read Passage A in the insert and answer this question

You are the Head Guide, Chris (Peter’s boss). You are responsible for training the safari guides. When a group of new trainee guides arrives at the camp, you give a talk to prepare them for what lies ahead.

Write the words of your talk.

In your talk, you should:

• describe the range of attractions Idube Camp and the area around it have to offer and how these might appeal to guests
• explain what being a trainee guide is like – the kind of activities they will be asked to do and what they should and should not do as trainees
• suggest what makes a good safari guide, the challenges of the job and the personal qualities they will need to develop.

Welcome to Idube Camp! I hope you are excited for the new experience of the camp. There are many exciting things ready for you to explore, one of them is the safari drives where you can see dangerous animals in their habitat and how they interact with each other. Secondly, there will be guided walks where the safari guides will explain the surroundings and tell what you missed during the walk. Lastly, there are dinner nights with delicious food and service with socializing under the starlight. The place is decorated with lanterns.

Being a trainee guide one should remain calm at all times. You should always be the ones to lead the group. Trainees are also required to carry liquid drinks to Bush Camp. My advice to you is to never run whatever you do. Try to never forget this point as it is essential and crucial.

What makes a good safari guide are the little things which are often overlooked. The in-depth knowledge of trees, birds and insects will help you. You should also be aware of taking shortcuts and changing paths when required. There are also some challenges guides should overcome first of all, carrying cans when they happen to let go of the wheelbarrow. It is also important to know the different bird calls to know whether they are alarm calls against predators or you. This will help you in navigation and protection.

So, I hope you are excited to begin this journey with us. We welcome you to Camp Idube with all our hearts! Thank you!

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English Speech Topics for Students

• Updated on  
• Mar 7, 2024

Writing an exciting and thoughtful speech requires one to select a good topic, research it thoroughly, and formation of individual opinions to express the same. School students are usually asked to speak on a contemporary topic to help them become good public speakers as well as learn the art of expressing oneself in front of an audience. While many speech competitions often allot topics beforehand, you might also have heard of extempore where topics are given on the spot for speech. This blog brings you a list of common English speech topics as well as some helpful tips and tricks that can assist you in effectively expressing your thoughts and opinions in front of an audience. Let’s begin!

Checkout our 200+ Essay Topics for Students in English

This Blog Includes:

List of best english speech topics for students, 1-minute speech topics, 2-minute speech topics, 3-minute speech topics, easy topics for speech in english, english speech topics on environment, english speech topics on technology, english speech topics on independence day, english speech topics on diwali, english speech topics on corruption, english speech topics on feminism, english speech topics on mother’s day, english speaking topics on capitalism, engish speech topics on gandhi jayanti, english speech topics on reading, english speech topics on communism, english speech topics on deforestation, english speech topics on social issues, english speech topics on important days & events, english speech topics on greatest leaders in india & around the world, english speech topics on indian culture, english speech topics on proverbs, english speech topics on human rights, english speech topics on education, english speech topics on the importance of water, miscellaneous speech topics, types of persuasive speech topics, tips for writing and speaking a speech.

Speeches are all about one’s thoughts. It should not be copied from somewhere. It is all about what the speaker thinks of any given topic. However, take a look at the following list of English Speech Topics on different contemporary issues as well as concepts.

• The Best Day of My Life
• Social Media: Bane or Boon?
• Pros and Cons of Online Learning
• Benefits of Yoga
• If I had a Superpower
• I wish I were ______
• Human Rights
• Environment Conservation
• Women Should Rule the World!
• The Best Lesson I Have Learned
• Paperbacks vs E-books
• How to Tackle a Bad Habit
• My Favorite Pastime/Hobby
• Why should every citizen vote?
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): Is it real or not?
• Importance of Reading
• Importance of Books in Our Life
• My Favorite Fictional Character
• Introverts vs Extroverts
• Lessons to Learn from Sports
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Quick Read: English Speaking Books

Quick Read: Essay on Peer Pressure

Quick Read: Essay on Health and Fitness for Students

• I mportance of Kindness
• Is there Value in Homework?
• Things I learned in Lockdown
• How can food be recycled?
• Should Art be a part of the school curriculum?
• Should schools teach sign language?
• Women make better presidents/prime ministers
• Why books are better than movies?
• Life was better when technology was simple
• Impact of technology on our health
• Should children’s reality shows be banned?
• Learning in the Wake of COVID-19
• Hard Work vs Smart Work
• What Makes Learning Fun?
• The Coolest Inventions You’ve Seen
• Nuclear Energy
• Importance of AI in Education
• Importance of Extracurricular Activities
• Should exams be banned?
• How to Tackle Bullying in Schools?

• Speech about dreams
• Speech about life
• Speech on time
• Speech on discipline
• Speech on Happiness
• Speech on Kindness
• Speech on value of time
• Speech on health and fitness
• Speech on Doctor
• Speech on Nurse
• Importance of Education
• Is it beneficial to learn a Second Language?
• Music has healing power
• Success in life
• Self Confidence
• 18th birthday
• Love is more powerful than hate
• Social Impact of Covid-19
• How can Online Learning be Fun?
• Make Public Transport Free
• Should violent video games be banned?
• Speech on Learning

Exploring English Speech Topics? You must also take a look at Extempore Topics !

• Climate Change
• Ozone Layer Depletion
• Reducing Water Levels
• Deforestation
• Global Warming
• Waste Management
• Water-Saving Techniques
• Reducing the Green Cover of Earth
• Endangered species need protection
• Importance of fishing regulations
• Importance of investing in alternative fuels
• Impact of ocean acidification on marine organisms
• The misuse of the term “sustainable development” by environmentalists
• Microbial benefits
• E-Waste Management
• Natural Disasters and their impact on economic growth
• Energy alternatives – Only solution to the environmental damage
• Extinction of rare species
• World Environment Day
• Disaster Management
• Over and Improper Use of Natural Resources
• Air, Water and Soil Pollution
• Efficiency of Recycling

Also Read: How to Write Dialogue: Format, Tips and Examples

• Technology and Mental Health
• Privacy in the Digital Age: Navigating the Challenges of Data Collection and Surveillance
• The Impact of Technology on Society
• Artificial Intelligence: The New Normal
• The Role of Social Media in Communication and Social Interactions
• Sustainable Technology: Innovations for a Greener Future
• The Rise of E-commerce
• Gaming Technology: Entertainment, ESports and Interactive Experiences
• The Digital Divide: Bridging the Gap for Equal Access to Technology
• The Ethical Dilemmas of Emerging Technologies

Also Read: English Vocabulary: Meaning, Types, Tips to Improve

• The Journey of Independence Day
• The Significance of Independence Day
• Indian Independence Day
• Remembering the Founding Fathers
• The Spirit of Independence
• Independence Day and Volunteering
• Independence Day Speeches
• India’s Road to Freedom
• Independence Day and National Identity
• Independence Day in the Digital Age
• Independence Day and Women’s Empowerment
• Diwali: The Festival of Lights and Its Significance in Hindu Culture
• Diwali and the Victory of Good Over Evil
• Diwali and the Art of Giving
• Diwali and the Spirit of Forgiveness
• Diwali and Cultural Exchanges
• Diwali and the Essence of Joy
• Diwali and Social Responsibility
• Diwali and Artistic Expressions
• The Rituals and Traditions of Diwali
• Diwali and the Symbolism of Light
• The Economic Consequence of Corruption
• Corruption and International Aid
• Media and Corruption
• Fighting Corruption
• Corruption in Politics
• The Role of Transparency and Accountability in Curbing Corruption
• The Role of Technology in Combating Corruption
• Whistleblowing and Protecting Mechanism
• Corruption in Business and Corporate Practices
• Understanding Feminism
• The Future of Feminism
• Feminism and Parenting
• Feminism and Online Activism
• Feminism and Environmental Activism
• Feminism and Reproductive Rights
• The Gender Pay Gap: Examining Inequalities in the Workplace
• Feminism and its Evolution
• Feminism and Body Positivity
• Feminism and Media Representation: Encouraging Authentic and Diverse Portrayals of Women
• Expressing Gratitude and Love to Mothers
• The Influence of Mothers in Shaping Our Values and Beliefs
• Motherhood and Education
• Mother’s Day and Volunteerism
• Mother-Daughter Relationship
• The Role of Mothers in Shaping Society
• Mother’s Day Crafts and DIY Gifts
• Learned Lessons from Mothers
• Mother’s Day Around the World: Cultural Traditions and Celebrations
• Capitalism: An Introduction to the Economic System and its Principles
• The Future of Capitalism
• Pros and Cons of Capitalism
• Capitalism and Globalisation
• Capitalism and Consumerism
• Capitalism and Financial Crisis: Undertaking the Risk and Mitigation Measures
• Capitalism and Environmental Sustainability
• Capitalism and the Role of Government
• Corporate Social Responsibility in Capitalism
• Capitalism and the Digital Economy
• Mahatma Gandhi: The Father of the Nation and His Ideals
• Remembering Gandhi: Reflecting On His Life and Legacy
• Gandhi’s Influence on the Indian Independence Movement
• Satyagraha: The Power of Truth and Nonviolent Resistance
• Gandhi’s Philosophy of Swaraj
• The Role of Women in Gandhi’s Freedom Struggle
• Gandhi’s Teaching on Education and Moral Values
• Gandhi’s Lasting Legacy
• Gandhi’s Vision for a Just and Inclusive Society
• The Relevance of Gandhi’s Principles in Today’s World
• The Influence of Reading on Emotional Intelligence and Empathy
• Reading and Mental Health
• Benefits of Reading
• Reading and Empowerment
• The Role of Reading in Academic Success and Lifelong Learning
• Promoting a Reading Culture: Encouraging Reading Habits in Society
• Reading Biographies and Memoirs
• Reading and Social Connections
• The Joy of Reading: Escaping Into the Different Worlds and Characters
• Reading and Personal Identity
• The Current State of Communism
• Communism: An Introduction to the Ideology and Its Historical Context
• The Evolution of Communist Movements
• The Role of the State in a Communist Society
• The Fall of Communist Regimes
• Communism and Religious Freedom
• Communism and Gender Equality
• Communism and Workers’ Rights
• The Criticisms of Communism
• Deforestation: Causes, Consequences and Global Impact
• Deforestation and Climate Change
• Deforestation and Carbon Sequestration
• Deforestation and Individual Actions
• Deforestation and Wildlife Trafficking
• Deforestation and Sustainable Development
• Deforestation and Indigenous Communities
• Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss
• Deforestation and Forest Fires
• The Importance of Forests

Quick Read: TOEFL Speaking Topics

• Women Empowerment
• Education of Girl Child
• Unemployment
• Casteism 
• Reservation
• Importance of Maintaining Hygiene
• Child Labour
• Social Distancing
• Organ Donation
• Importance of the Right to Education
• Child Trafficking
• Cultural Diversity
• Struggles of Immigrants
• Impact of Globalisation
• Adult education
• Independence Day
• Mother’s Day
• World Cancer Day
• World Population Day
• World Health Day
• Ambedkar Jayanti
• Gandhi Jayanti
• Human Rights Day
• Zero Discrimination Day
• Women’s Day
• Thanksgiving
• Anti-Terrorism Day
• Hindi Diwas 

Check out this list of all the important national and international days in 202 4 !

• Mahatma Gandhi
• Jawaharlal Nehru
• Raja Rammohan Roy
• George Washington
• Albert Einstein
• APJ Abdul Kalam
• Nelson Mandela
• Kailash Satyarthi
• Diversity in India
• Speech on Holi
• The Role of Yoga and Meditation in Indian Culture and Its Global Impact
• The Importance of Traditional Indian Clothing
• Indian Folklore
• Indian Festivals
• The Art of Indian Dance
• Traditional Indian Medicine (Ayurveda)
• Indian Epics and Mythology
• Social Customs and Etiquettes in Indian Society
• Indian Sports and Games

Also Read: Speech on Indian Culture

• Honesty is the best policy
• When there’s a will, there is a way
• Actions speak louder than words
• Knowledge is Power
• Ignorance is Bliss
• Don’t judge a book by its cover
• Hard work is the key to success

Explore these proverbs & their meanings through this blog on Difficult Phrases !

• The Role of International Organisations in Promoting and Protecting Human Rights
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Milestone in Human History
• Gender Equality: Breaking Barriers and Empowering Women
• Ensuring a Safe and Sustainable Environment for the Next Generation
• The Right to Education: Empowering Minds
• Bridging the Gap Between the Rich and Poor
• Human Rights and Armed Conflicts
• Global Fight to Combat Human Trafficking
• Human Rights and Climate Change
• Religious Freedom: Tolerance and Coexistence in a Diverse Society

To know what to mention in such speech topics, explore the Great Personalities in the World !

• Importance of teacher in your life
• SAT scores for college application
• Student bullies should be expelled
• Consequences of cheating in exams
• Homeschooling is better than normal schooling
• Importance of value education
• Importance of sports and physical exercises
• Schools vs colleges
• What is the difference between a school, college and university in the USA?

Check Out: Synonyms List

• The Water-Energy Nexus
• The Essence of Water: Exploring the Live-giving Properties of H2O
• Water as a Driver of Economic Growth and Prosperity
• Water Security: Ensuring Equal Access and Quality for All
• Water and Agriculture
• The Role of Water in Ecosystems
• Water and Blue Economy
• Water Diplomacy: Promoting Collaboration for Transboundary Water Management
• Water and Cultural Significance: Exploring Symbolisms and Rituals
• Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH): Foundational for Human Health and Dignity
• Article 370
• Women rights
• The Constitution of India
• Youth of India
• Culture of India
• Importance of Unity
• Generation Gap
• Importance of Value Education
• Old Age Homes
• Family Values
• Leadership skills
• Rise of Smart Classes
• Grading System
• Importance of Practical Education
• Benefits of Co-Education
• Importance of Co-Curricular Activities
• The uselessness of Power-Point Presentations
• Rise of Technology
• Excessive usage of the Internet
• Speech on Fear
• Speech on Dependence on Technology
• Importance of Social Media
• Speech on India of My Dreams
• Indian Education System
• Speech on My India

While exploring persuasive English speech topics, you must make sure that they are stimulating, engaging, concise and clear. There are three main types of Persuasive Speech topics which are:

1. Factual Persuasive Speech : These topics include facts, figures and statistics to thoroughly analyse the given topic and assess whether it’s true or false.

2. Policy Persuasive Speech : Discussing policies, laws and reforms, these speech topics critically examine the advantages and disadvantages of the given policy or law and suggest the improvements that can be made.

3. Value Persuasive Speech : Mainly focusing on social or political issues, these speech topics present the critique and argument of whether certain actions are morally right or not.

While speaking on a particular topic, there are certain things that you must keep in mind to make your speech expressive and effective. Let’s take a look at some useful topics that help you in acing any topic you are speaking on.

• Always research the topic. If you are participating in an extempore, then make sure to go through the common and popular topics as well as the unconventional ones that you might get. Preparation is the key to delivering an impressive speech.
• Whether you are given a topic on the spot or you are prepared for the speech, it is always pivotal that you seem interested in speaking about it. Relate the given issues to your own life and this will help you in giving it your twist.
• Pay extra attention to your body language and enunciation. While a gesticulative approach will make you seem outward, having timid body language can cause a wrong impression.
• Ponder upon the different viewpoints on a topic . Try to present a holistic view of the given topic but don’t forget to present your opinion on it as well. Along with this, don’t try to take sides unless the topic demands you to.
• Involve your audience, if possible. This way, you will be able to interact with the people and it will also be useful in fighting the fear of public speaking.
• Don’t mug up a speech. It becomes evident when someone just speaks on a topic continuously and the audience might realise that you have memorized it or you might forget a certain part which will let the whole speech fade away from your brain.
• Instead, make notes about the topic in your mind, remember certain keywords and try to maintain a particular flow in your speech.
• Incorporate humour in your speech in a way that you do not offend anyone or overdo it but get a positive reaction from the audience. Humour is a great way of lightening the mood as well as ensuring the whole speech is interactive and engaging.
• When you need more specialized assistance, a  US essay writing service  can be a valuable resource for crafting your speech.

While preparing for English Speech topics, you must also check out IELTS Speaking Topics !

Juvenile delinquency is acceptable. Prostitution should be legal. Underage driving should be punishable by law. Beauty pageants for children should be banned. Prisoner’s right to vote. Voting rights should not be universal. Guns should be banned from college campuses.

A three-minute speech is undoubtedly a wonderful starting point for public speaking. This is because you need to communicate with your audience more effectively when you just have a short amount of time. In addition, the speech ought to be concise, pertinent, and clear.

Life is the gift of God in the form of trust that we will make it meaningful in whatever we can. We are all unique individuals. No one is born like you and no one will ever be, so cherish your individuality. Many times, I come across people accusing God of things that they don’t have. They always cursing their lives.

 2-minute speeches are  short and crisp speeches of about 260-350 words .

Related Reads

Thus, we hope that this list helps you in preparing for different English speech topics. Gearing up for IELTS ? Sign up for an online demo session with our experts at Leverage Edu and we will assist you in preparing for its different sections as well as improving your reading, listening, speaking and writing skills to ensure that you ace the exam with flying colours!

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14 comments

I take english speaking classes, please provide me sone more material to help student’s.

Here are some articles on books and study material that will help your students- https://leverageedu.com/blog/english-speaking-books/ https://leverageedu.com/blog/books-by-charles-dickens/ https://leverageedu.com/blog/best-books-by-george-orwell/

I want topic on students and online classes

It is helpful for my school homework thanks 😸

Glad we could help!

Nice advise 👍

Thank you, Pragya!

Not good topics 🤔🤔

Thanks for the suggestion. We will update the blog!

Helpful for students . So I like it

Thanks for reading! Also, read: Daily Used English Words Speech on Importance of English Reach us at 1800 57 2000 for study-abroad related matters!

You people are giving great contribution in internet learning and it is for all….

Hi, thank you for your valuable feedback.

Awesome! Its really awesome article, I have got much clear idea concerning from this post.

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How Trump’s Allies Are Winning the War Over Disinformation

Their claims of censorship have successfully stymied the effort to filter election lies online.

Three years after Mr. Trump spread falsehoods about his defeat online, social media platforms have fewer checks on the intentional spread of lies about elections. Credit... Emily Elconin for The New York Times

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By Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers

• March 17, 2024

In the wake of the riot on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, a groundswell built in Washington to rein in the onslaught of lies that had fueled the assault on the peaceful transfer of power.

Social media companies suspended Donald J. Trump, then the president, and many of his allies from the platforms they had used to spread misinformation about his defeat and whip up the attempt to overturn it. The Biden administration, Democrats in Congress and even some Republicans sought to do more to hold the companies accountable. Academic researchers wrestled with how to strengthen efforts to monitor false posts.

Mr. Trump and his allies embarked instead on a counteroffensive, a coordinated effort to block what they viewed as a dangerous effort to censor conservatives.

They have unquestionably prevailed.

Waged in the courts, in Congress and in the seething precincts of the internet, that effort has eviscerated attempts to shield elections from disinformation in the social media era. It tapped into — and then, critics say, twisted — the fierce debate over free speech and the government’s role in policing content.

Projects that were once bipartisan, including one started by the Trump administration, have been recast as deep-state conspiracies to rig elections. Facing legal and political blowback, the Biden administration has largely abandoned moves that might be construed as stifling political speech.

While little noticed by most Americans, the effort has helped cut a path for Mr. Trump’s attempt to recapture the presidency. Disinformation about elections is once again coursing through news feeds, aiding Mr. Trump as he fuels his comeback with falsehoods about the 2020 election.

“The censorship cartel must be dismantled and destroyed, and it must happen immediately,” he thundered at the start of his 2024 campaign.

The counteroffensive was led by former Trump aides and allies who had also pushed to overturn the 2020 election. They include Stephen Miller, the White House policy adviser; the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, both Republicans; and lawmakers in Congress like Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, who since last year has led a House subcommittee to investigate what it calls “the weaponization of government.”

Those involved draw financial support from conservative donors who have backed groups that promoted lies about voting in 2020. They have worked alongside an eclectic cast of characters, including Elon Musk, the billionaire who bought Twitter and vowed to make it a bastion of free speech, and Mike Benz, a former Trump administration official who previously produced content for a social media account that trafficked in posts about “white ethnic displacement.” (More recently, Mr. Benz originated the false assertion that Taylor Swift was a “psychological operation” asset for the Pentagon.)

Three years after Mr. Trump’s posts about rigged voting machines and stuffed ballot boxes went viral, he and his allies have achieved a stunning reversal of online fortune. Social media platforms now provide fewer checks against the intentional spread of lies about elections.

“The people that benefit from the spread of disinformation have effectively silenced many of the people that would try to call them out,” said Kate Starbird, a professor at the University of Washington whose research on disinformation made her a target of the effort.

It took aim at a patchwork of systems, started in Mr. Trump’s administration, that were intended to protect U.S. democracy from foreign interference. As those systems evolved to address domestic sources of misinformation, federal officials and private researchers began urging social media companies to do more to enforce their policies against harmful content.

That work has led to some of the most important First Amendment cases of the internet age, including one to be argued on Monday at the Supreme Court. That lawsuit, filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, accuses federal officials of colluding with or coercing the platforms to censor content critical of the government. The court’s decision, expected by June, could curtail the government’s latitude in monitoring content online.

The arguments strike at the heart of an unsettled question in modern American political life: In a world of unlimited online communications, in which anyone can reach huge numbers of people with unverified and false information, where is the line between protecting democracy and trampling on the right to free speech?

Even before the court rules, Mr. Trump’s allies have succeeded in paralyzing the Biden administration and the network of researchers who monitor disinformation.

Officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department continue to monitor foreign disinformation, but the government has suspended virtually all cooperation with the social media platforms to address posts that originate in the United States.

“There’s just a chilling effect on all of this,” said Nina Jankowicz, a researcher who in 2022 briefly served as the executive director of a short-lived D.H.S. advisory board on disinformation. “Nobody wants to be caught up in it.”

Fighting the ‘interpretive battle’

For Mr. Trump, banishment from social media was debilitating. His posts had been central to his political success, as was the army of adherents who cheered his messages and rallied behind his effort to hold onto office after he lost.

“WE have to use TIKTOK!!” read a memo prepared for Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, referring to a strategy to use social media to promote false messages about dead voters and vote-stealing software. “Content goes VIRAL here like no other platform!!!!! And there are MILLIONS of Trump supporters!”

After the violence on Jan. 6, Trump aides started working on how to “win the interpretive battle of the Trump history,” as one of them, Vincent Haley, had said in a previously unreported message found in the archives of the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack. That would be crucial “for success in 2022 and 2024,” he added.

Once out of office, Mr. Trump built his own social platform, Truth Social, and his aides created a network of new organizations to advance the Trump agenda — and to prepare for his return.

Mr. Miller, Mr. Trump’s top policy adviser , created America First Legal, a nonprofit, to take on, as its mission statement put it, “an unholy alliance of corrupt special interests, big tech titans, fake news media and liberal Washington politicians.”

He solicited funding from conservative donors, drawing on a $27 million contribution from the Bradley Impact Fund , which had financed a web of groups that pushed “voter fraud” conspiracies in 2020. Another $1.3 million came from the Conservative Partnership Institute, considered the nonprofit nerve center of the Trump movement.

A key focus would be what he perceived as bias against conservatives on social media. “When you see people being banned off of Twitter and Facebook and other platforms,” he said in January 2021, “what you are seeing is the fundamental erosion of the concept of liberty and freedom in America.”

Mr. Biden’s administration was moving in the other direction. He came into office determined to take a tougher line against misinformation online — in large part because it was seen as an obstacle to bringing the coronavirus pandemic under control. D.H.S. officials were focused on bolstering defenses against election lies, which clearly had failed ahead of Jan. 6.

In one respect, that was clearer cut than matters of public health. There have long been special legal protections against providing false information about where, when and how to vote or intentionally sowing public confusion , or fear, to suppress voting.

Social media, with its pipeline to tens of millions of voters, presented powerful new pathways for antidemocratic tactics, but with far fewer of the regulatory and legal limits that exist for television, radio and newspapers.

The pitfalls were also clear: During the 2020 campaign, platforms had rushed to bury a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop out of concern that it might be tied to Russian interference. Conservatives saw it as an attempt to tilt the scales to Mr. Biden.

Administration officials said they were seeking a delicate balance between the First Amendment and social media’s rising power over public opinion.

“We’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure,” said Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, whose responsibilities include protecting the national voting system. “Building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important.”

In early 2022, D.H.S. announced its first major answer to the conundrum: the Disinformation Governance Board. The board would serve as an advisory body and help coordinate anti-disinformation efforts across the department’s bureaucracy, officials said. Its director was Ms. Jankowicz, an expert in Russian disinformation.

The announcement ignited a political firestorm that killed the board only weeks after it began operating. Both liberals and conservatives raised questions about its reach and the potential for abuse.

The fury was most intense on the right. Mr. Miller, speaking on Fox News, slammed it as “something out of a dystopian sci-fi novel.”

Ms. Jankowicz said that such attacks were distorting but acknowledged that the announcement had struck a nerve.

“I think any American, when you hear, ‘Oh, the administration, the White House, is setting up something to censor Americans,’ even if that has no shred of evidence behind it, your ears are really going to prick up,” she said.

A legal assault

Among those who took note was Eric Schmitt, then the attorney general of Missouri.

He and other attorneys general had been a forceful part of Mr. Trump’s legal campaign to overturn his defeat. Now, they would lend legal firepower to block the fight against disinformation.

In May 2022, Mr. Schmitt and Jeff Landry, then the attorney general of Louisiana and now the governor, sued dozens of federal officials, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, who had become a villain to many conservatives.

The lawsuit picked up where others had failed. Mr. Trump and others had sued Facebook and Twitter, but those challenges stalled as courts effectively ruled that the companies had a right to ban content on their sites. The new case, known as Missouri v. Biden, argued that companies were not just barring users — they were being coerced into doing so by government officials.

The attorneys general filed the lawsuit in the Western District of Louisiana, where it fell to Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee who had built a reputation for blocking Biden administration policies.

“A lot of these lawsuits against social media companies themselves were just dying in the graveyard in the Northern District of California,” Mr. Schmitt, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, said, referring to the liberal-leaning federal court in San Francisco. “And so our approach was a little bit different. We went directly at the government.”

The lawsuit was considered a long shot by experts, who noted that government officials were not issuing orders but urging the platforms to enforce their own policies. The decision to act was left to the companies, and more often than not, they did nothing.

Documents subpoenaed for the case showed extensive interactions between government officials and the platforms. In emails and text messages, people on both sides were alternately cooperative and confrontational. The platforms took seriously the administration’s complaints about content they said was misleading or false, but at the same time, they did not blindly carry out its bidding.

On Mr. Biden’s third day in office, a White House aide, Clarke Humphrey, wrote to Twitter flagging a post by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. falsely suggesting that the death of Hank Aaron, the baseball legend, had been caused by the Covid-19 vaccines. She asked an executive at the platform to begin the process of removing the post “as soon as possible.”

The post is still up.

Reframing the debate

In August 2022, a new organization, the Foundation for Freedom Online, posted a report on its website called “Department of Homeland Censorship: How D.H.S. Seized Power Over Online Speech.”

The group’s founder, a little-known former White House official named Mike Benz, claimed to have firsthand knowledge of how federal officials were “coordinating mass censorship of the internet.”

At the heart of Mr. Benz’s theory was the Election Integrity Partnership, a group created in the summer of 2020 to supplement government efforts to combat misinformation about the election that year.

The idea came from a group of college interns at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA. The students suggested that research institutions could help track and flag posts that might violate the platforms’ standards, feeding the information into a portal open to the agency, state and local governments and the platforms.

The project ultimately involved Stanford University, the University of Washington, the National Conference on Citizenship, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and Graphika, a social media analytics firm. At its peak, it had 120 analysts, some of whom were college students.

It had what it considered successes, including spotting — and helping to stop — the spread of a false claim that a poll worker was burning Trump ballots in Erie, Pa. The approach could misfire, though. A separate, but related, CISA system flagged a tweet from a New York Times reporter accurately describing a printer problem at a voter center in Wisconsin, leading Twitter to affix an accuracy warning.

Decisions about whether to act remained with the platforms, which, in nearly two out of every three cases, did nothing.

In Mr. Benz’s telling, however, the government was using the partnership to get around the First Amendment, like outsourcing warfare to the private military contractor Blackwater.

Mr. Benz’s foundation for a time advertised itself as “a project of” Empower Oversight , a Republican group created by former Senate aides to support “whistle-blower” investigations.

Mr. Benz had previously lived a dual life. By day, he was a corporate lawyer in New York. In his off-hours, he toiled online under a social media avatar, Frame Game Radio, which railed against “the complete war on free speech” as it produced racist and antisemitic posts.

In videos and posts, Frame Game identified himself as a onetime member of the “Western chauvinist” group the Proud Boys, and as a Jew. Yet he blamed Jewish groups when he and others were suspended by social media companies. Warning about a looming demographic “white genocide,” Frame Game vented, “Anything pro white is called racist; anything white positive is racist.”

Mr. Benz did not respond to requests for comment. After NBC News first reported on Frame Game last fall, Mr. Benz called the account “a deradicalization project” to which he contributed in a “limited manner.” It was intended, he wrote on X, “by Jews to get people who hated Jews to stop hating Jews.”

Toward the end of 2018, Mr. Benz joined the Trump administration as a speechwriter for the housing and urban development secretary, Ben Carson. Mr. Benz’s posts were discovered by a colleague and brought to department management, according to a former official who insisted on anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.

As the election between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden heated up, he joined Mr. Miller’s speech-writing team at the White House. He was there through the early days of the effort to keep Mr. Trump in power, and was involved in the search for statistical anomalies that could purport to show election fraud, according to testimony and records collected by House investigators, some of which were first uncovered by Kristen Ruby, a social media and public relations strategist.

In late November 2020, Mr. Benz was abruptly moved to the State Department as a deputy assistant secretary for international communications and information policy. It is unclear precisely what he did in the role. Mr. Benz has since claimed that the job, which he held for less than two months, gave him his expertise in cyberpolicy.

Mr. Benz’s report gained national attention when a conservative website, Just the News, wrote about it in September 2022. Four days later, Mr. Schmitt’s office sent requests for records to the University of Washington and others demanding information about their contacts with the government.

Mr. Schmitt soon amended his lawsuit to include nearly five pages detailing Mr. Benz’s work and asserting a new, broader claim: Not only was the government exerting pressure on the platforms, but it was also effectively deputizing the private researchers “to evade First Amendment and other legal restrictions.”

The scheme, Mr. Benz said, had “ambitious sights for 2022 and 2024.”

‘An aha moment’

In October 2022, Mr. Musk completed his purchase of Twitter and vowed to make the platform a forum for unfettered debate.

He quickly reversed the barring of Mr. Trump — calling it “morally wrong” — and loosened rules that had caused the suspensions of many of his followers.

He also set out to prove that Twitter’s previous management had too willingly cooperated with government officials. He released internal company communications to a select group of writers, among them Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger.

The resulting project, which became known as the Twitter Files, began with an installment investigating Twitter’s decision to limit the reach of the Post article about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The author of that dispatch, Mr. Taibbi, concluded that Twitter had limited the coverage amid general warnings from the F.B.I. that Russia could leak hacked materials to try to influence the 2020 election. Though he was critical of previous leadership at Twitter, he reported that he saw no evidence of direct government involvement.

In March 2023, Mr. Benz joined the fray. Both Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Benz participated in a live discussion on Twitter, which was co-hosted by Jennifer Lynn Lawrence, an organizer of the Trump rally that preceded the riot on Jan. 6.

As Mr. Taibbi described his work, Mr. Benz jumped in: “I believe I have all of the missing pieces of the puzzle.”

There was a far broader “scale of censorship the world has never experienced before,” he told Mr. Taibbi, who made plans to follow up.

Later, Mr. Shellenberger said that connecting with Mr. Benz had led to “a big aha moment.”

“The clouds parted, and the sunlight burst through the sky,” he said on a podcast. “It’s like, oh, my gosh, this guy is way, way farther down the rabbit hole than we even knew the rabbit hole went.”

A platform in Congress

A week after that online meeting, Mr. Taibbi and Mr. Shellenberger appeared on Capitol Hill as star witnesses for the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Mr. Benz sat behind them, listening as they detailed parts of his central thesis: This was not an imperfect attempt to balance free speech with democratic rights but a state-sponsored thought-policing system.

Mr. Shellenberger titled his written testimony, “The Censorship Industrial Complex.”

The committee had been created immediately after Republicans took control of the House in 2023 with a mandate to investigate, among other things, the actions taken by social media companies against conservatives.

It was led by Mr. Jordan, a lawmaker who helped spearhead the attempt to block certification of Mr. Biden’s victory and who has since worked closely with Mr. Miller and America First Legal.

“There are subpoenas that are going out on a daily, weekly basis,” Mr. Miller told Fox News in the first days of Republican control of the House, showing familiarity with the committee’s strategy.

Mr. Jordan’s committee soon sought documents from all those involved in the Election Integrity Partnership, as well as scores of government agencies and private researchers.

Mr. Miller followed with his own federal lawsuit on behalf of private plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden, filing with D. John Sauer, the former solicitor general of Missouri who had led that case. (More recently, Mr. Sauer has represented Mr. Trump at the Supreme Court.)

Democrats in the House and legal experts questioned the collaboration as potentially unethical. Lawyers involved in the case have claimed that the subcommittee leaked selective parts of interviews conducted behind closed doors to America First Legal for use in its private lawsuits.

An amicus brief filed by the committee misrepresented facts and omitted evidence in ways that may have violated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York wrote in a 46-page letter to Mr. Jordan.

A committee spokeswoman said the letter “deliberately misrepresents the evidence available to the committee to defend the Biden administration’s attacks on the First Amendment.”

The amicus brief, filed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, was drafted by a lawyer at Mr. Miller’s legal foundation.

Mr. Miller did not respond to requests for comment.

A chilling effect

By the summer of 2023, the legal and political effort was having an impact.

The organizations involved in the Election Integrity Partnership faced an avalanche of requests and, if they balked, subpoenas for any emails, text messages or other information involving the government or social media companies dating to 2015.

Complying consumed time and money. The threat of legal action dried up funding from donors — which had included philanthropies, corporations and the government — and struck fear in researchers worried about facing legal action and political threats online for the work.

“You had a lot of organizations doing this research,” a senior analyst at one of them said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of fear of legal retribution. “Now, there are none.”

The Biden administration also found its hands tied. On July 4, 2023, Judge Doughty issued a sweeping injunction, saying that the government could not reach out to the platforms, or work with outside groups monitoring social media content, to address misinformation, except in a narrow set of circumstances.

The ruling went further than some of the plaintiffs in the Missouri case had expected. Judge Doughty even repeated an incorrect statistic first promoted by Mr. Benz: The partnership had flagged 22 million messages on Twitter alone, he wrote. In fact, it had flagged fewer than 5,000.

The Biden administration appealed.

While the judge said the administration could still take steps to stop foreign election interference or posts that mislead about voting requirements, it was unclear how it could without communicating “with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes,” the government asserted in its appeal.

In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit scaled the order back significantly, but still found the government had most likely overstepped the limits of the First Amendment. That sent the case to the Supreme Court, where justices recently expressed deep reservations about government intrusions in social media.

Ahead of the court’s decision, agencies across the government have virtually stopped communicating with social media companies, fearing the legal and political fallout as the presidential election approaches, according to several government officials who described the retreat on the condition of anonymity.

In a statement, Cait Conley, a senior adviser at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the department was still strengthening partnerships to fight “risks posed by foreign actors.” She did not address online threats at home.

The platforms have also backed off. Facebook and YouTube announced that they would reverse their restrictions on content claiming that the 2020 election was stolen. The torrent of disinformation that the previous efforts had slowed, though not stopped, has resumed with even greater force.

Hailing the end of “that halcyon period of the censorship industry,” Mr. Benz has found new celebrity, sitting for interviews with Tucker Carlson and Russell Brand. His conspiracy theories, like the one about the Pentagon’s use of Taylor Swift, have aired on Fox News and become talking points for many Republicans.

The biggest winner, arguably, has been Mr. Trump, who casts himself as victim and avenger of a vast plot to muzzle his movement.

Mr. Biden is “building the most sophisticated censorship and information control apparatus in the world,” Mr. Trump said in a campaign email last week, “to crush free speech in America.”

Glenn Thrush and Luke Broadwater contributed reporting.

Jim Rutenberg is a writer at large for The Times and The New York Times Magazine and writes most often about media and politics. More about Jim Rutenberg

Steven Lee Myers covers misinformation for The Times. He has worked in Washington, Moscow, Baghdad and Beijing, where he contributed to the articles that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2021. He is also the author of “The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin.” More about Steven Lee Myers

Our Coverage of the 2024 Elections

Presidential Race

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Republicans who get their news from nonconservative mainstream media outlets are less likely to support former President Donald Trump  than those who follow conservative outlets, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.

No Labels, a group that for months has pledged to run a centrist presidential ticket in the event of a rematch between President Biden and Trump, is running out of time to recruit a presidential candidate  after a string of rejections.

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March 19 was the biggest primary night since Super Tuesday, and there were few surprises in the results. Here are the key takeaways .

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