How to Pick the Right Topic - Narrowing Down Your Topic

Once you have a complete set of restrictions to guide your speech, it is time to begin narrowing down your topic. Below, we’ll consider some of the possible topics you could select for several different types of common speeches:

i. The Best Man’s Speech. Now, this may seem obvious to you. You’re the best man, and it is your job to talk about the groom and to give some advice. Contrary to what you might believe, however, there are many different varieties of the best man’s speech that you might consider.

For instance, if you’re already married, you may focus on bestowing advice on the groom that comes from your own marriage. You might theme it around something like “10 Things to Look Out for in Marriage.” You can then detail each of the things you have found to be important, and you can relate it to the personalities of the groom and the bride.

Another possible take on this speech is to use the history of the groom as the topic. This will work especially well if you knew the groom longer than he knew the bride. You can talk about who the groom was before he met her, how he changed as a result of meeting her, and where they are today.

Yet another option is to focus on the theme of marriage itself. Talk about what it means to you, what it means to those you know, what it means to people the groom knows, and what it should mean to the bride and groom. Make sure that you make flattering comments about the bride and also bestow a couple of gems of wisdom.

ii. Academic Speech. Depending on the class in which you are delivering the speech, you might have many or few restrictions. However, no matter how many restrictions you face, this shouldn’t extinguish your ability to be creative with topic selection.

For instance, if you are forced to pick a topic about a particular country, you might consider focusing on something very specific about that country, rather than doing a broad overview. This will give you some freedom to be creative and to create an interesting speech, when you otherwise might have simply presented a summary of relevant facts.

Furthermore, this remains true even for more difficult academic speeches. As an example, consider a situation where you must present a published journal article. One way in which you can do this is to present a summary of each of the sections of the article. However, if you wanted to give a more lively and informative presentation, you might start by framing it in the context of related literature. Once you have done that, you could move forward to explain what is novel about it and why its findings are important.

In short, there are may ways in which you can select a topic, even for an academic speech—and even after your “topic” has seemingly been pinned down for you. All you have to do is frame that topic in a different light and you can end up with a dramatically better presentation as a result.

iii. Eulogy. When it comes to a eulogy, it may seem clear that the topic of the speech is predetermined. What else could you possibly talk about other than the person who has passed away? But, in fact, when considering how best to celebrate the person’s life and to leave him or her with a meaningful final goodbye, you have many options.

For instance, one possibility is to take the biographical approach. Here, you’d attempt to give a broad overview of the person’s life. You’d talk about her parents, her youth, her career, and her loved ones. You’d put emphasis on the things that mattered most to her, but you’d attempt to give a full picture.

Another approach is to focus primarily on the relationship that you had with that person. In doing this, you acknowledge that your understanding of the person will be primarily dictated by your own personal experiences with her. In admitting this, you can move forward by talking about what made her unique to you, and the special experiences you shared.

A final approach is to try to highlight interesting moments in the person’s life. You can draw not only from the moments you shared with each other, but the moments other people shared with that person. You can look to family and friends to accumulate these moments, so that you can share them with the audience.

Of course, there are many more options. But this highlights an important reality: even when it comes to something like a eulogy, the exact framing of the topic you cover doesn’t have to be so rigid. You have many options, so use them to provide a wonderful goodbye to your loved one.

Source of Information : Public Speaking Exposed