The purpose of your informative speech is either to increase your audience’s knowledge of a
topic or to teach your audience something new. In this speech, you are not trying to change your
audience’s attitudes, actions, or beliefs—you will do that in your persuasive speech later in the
quarter. Instead, you should focus on helping your audience learn more about your topic.
When selecting a topic for your informative speech, you should begin by asking yourself a series
of questions about each topic that you consider:
- Is this an appropriate topic for an informative speech?
- Is this a topic in which I am interested? Is this topic important to me?
- Do I have expertise in this area or want to learn more about this subject?
- Will my audience be interested in this topic?
- How much does my audience already know about this topic?
- Will learning more about this topic help or improve my audience in some way?