Speech Writing: Techniques and Audience Analysis by Saudat Abdulbaqi
Speech writing can be great fun but can as well be scary, if not well organized and structured. It requires extensive research through books, journals, newspapers, conducting interviews as well reviewing past speeches. As a systematic process, speeches are written through the following steps:
Choosing the topic
The first step to writing a speech is choosing the topic. The topic, to a large extent, serves as the window that will attract the audience. The topic must be relevant to the needs of the audience and it must be innovative to sustain their interest. Choice of a topic can be made by the body organizing the programme, which you can modify to suit your interest and ability. But if you are given the free hand to decide what to speak on, here are some tips to guide you:
- Consider the topic that you know very much about. The advantage of selecting a topic you know much about will be your ability to make your presentation more interesting with personal experiences.
- You may choose a topic that you want to know more about; making your presentation a learning platform to boost your experience. Brainstorm to generate ideas for the topic. This can be done by searching into your personal inventory of experience, interest, hobbies, skills, beliefs etc. Jot down anything that comes to your mind, no matter how silly or interesting it may seem, then you sort them out later.
It is advisable that the choice of a topic be concluded early enough in order to have ample time to research into it and relate with it appropriately. Choose a topic that interests you or if you are given a topic to speak on by the group, you can modify it to suit your interest. Think about activities that can brighten up, and make your presentation memorable.
Defining the purpose
- Articulate the goal of the speech. Formulate a clear, specific, measurable, achievable and realistic purpose statement. For example, assume you are to deliver a speech on gender and development, your general purpose statement would be: ‘to inform my audience about the role of gender in development’ while the specific purpose statement will be: ‘to inform my audience about the prospects of ensuring gender equity in the design of developmental tasks in Nigeria’. Your specific purpose statement must describe exactly what you want your speech to accomplish. It should neither be vague nor too general e.g., to inform my audience about journalists.
While formulating the specific purpose statement, try to answer the following questions: Is it relevant to the topic? Can I accomplish it within the allotted time? Is the purpose relevant to my audience? (too trivial, technical? etc.)
Determine the thesis statement
The thesis statement is the central idea in the write-up. It is a ‘simple, precise and declarative sentence that refines and sharpens the specific purpose statement. It is a single, declarative “sentence that sums up or encapsulate the major ideas of a speech” (Lucas, 2007, p. 101). It is the ‘take home’ statement that you want to keep alive in the minds of your audience long after they might have forgotten every other thing about the event.
Analyzing the speaking situation
It is very important to consider the speaking situation while putting your speech together. This comprises of three basic components: The audience, the occasion and you; the speaker. All the efforts and materials that you put together in writing the speech must be adaptable to the three components if you must achieve the desired goal.
The Audience
The audience is the receiver of message. They are the main component of the tripod because their reactions determine the success or failure of the speech. So, the more you know about your audience, the more successful your speech will be. You must analyse and understand their demographic and psychographic properties. Lenny Laskowski (Year, Page) suggest that audience analysis should be based on the following acronym:
- analyze whom they are.
U – understand their knowledge of the subject.
D – demography; what is their age group, gender, educational, and socio-economic
background? etc
I – interest: why are they there? Are they forced to be there (captives) or are they happy to be there?
E– environment: where will I stand as the speaker? Will every one of them be able to see and hear me? How do I manage the distance between me and my audience?
N – needs: what are their needs? What are my needs as the speaker?
C – customized: what specific need would I, the speaker, want to address?
E – expectations: what are they expecting to learn or hear from me?
This conceptualization of your audience guides you to develop specific questions that will fit into each of these eight categories of the acronym and enable you tailor your speech to suit them. Your speech must be equally rewarding and gratifying for you too. In other words, ask to know what they want and give it to them.
(Adapted from A U D I E N C E analysis: it’s your key to success, 1996).
Audience Analysis
The audience type:
The audience of a speech presentation can be segmented into three: The volunteers, the passers-by and the captives. The volunteers are the members who are gathered for mutual interest to listen to and learn from the speaker. The passer-by refers to the people who are not too interested in what you have to say but are just there by chance. Have the right mechanism to win their attention built into your speech so you can convert them to convicts. Convicts are audience members who have gathered for some reasons other than the joy of hearing you speak. Use materials, devices and gimmicks the various groups interested and keep them interested in what you have to say.
Audience purpose:
Your audience can have diverse motives for attending. An awareness of this will help you in predicting what will interest them.
Demographics:
These refers to the characteristic of your audience that can be labelled. Here, you consider the number of people; the larger the audience, the broader the range of the interest and knowledge. You also consider their gender; do not exclude or offend any portion of your audience on the basis of sex. You should analyse and not stereotype your audience. Age of the audience is another demographic factor to consider. The expectations of people of various ages vary. Aristotle says: young people have strong passions; their lives are spent not in memory but in expectations; they have high ideals because they have not been humbled by life nor learnt it’s necessary limitations. Older people tend to have a more practical interest.
Group membership:
This is important in audience analysis because you can stimulate the interest of your audience by knowing the group they belong to. This calls for a background on your audience. Young people will be elated when you speak their ‘language’ such as slangs, sing their song, mimic their ways and habits, and so on. The same way Hausas, Igbos or Yorubas will become keener in you and what you say if you make attempt at saying some words in their language. Although your pronunciation of the words may not be right, the effort will bring some comic relief and further energise audience interest.
The Occasion
The occasion of speech refers to the circumstances surrounding it. It sets the tone for the programme in which the speech is to be delivered and moderates your own conducts. You must always remember that every occasion is unique and must be well utilised. Such circumstances include: time, place and audience expectations.
Time: you must be conscious of the fact that your speech occupies an allocation in time that is surrounded by other events. Yours may not be the only speech for the event, so you must prepare your speech elaborately. Your presentation should flexibly be within the available real time. Also, other unforeseen circumstances may happen that will shrink the time allotted to you. This should not upset you if you had envisaged the possibility of such from the unset; all that would be required of you, at such instance, would be to speak to your write-up. For instance, I was invited to present a speech to female politicians in Kwara State, Nigeria. I was informed that I would speak for 30 minutes. Although I wrote a speech that could be presented in one hour, I had my mind set on 10 minutes, considering the various types of entertainment and party affiliation displays that will characterise such events. My hunch was confirmed. I was granted the privilege to speak for 15 minutes; following the intervention of the Honourable Minister of Information that chaired the event. I relied heavily on my thesis statement that was handy with copious illustrations from the archives. When you have a limited time for your presentation, minimise the time you spend on courtesies and protocols; delve into the core of your presentation.
Place: consider your speech in relation to a physical space that it occupies. Visualise the surroundings of the venue where the speech is to be delivered, is it beautiful or pathetic? Will it be cosy or stuffy? An answer to the setting of the physical surrounding as well as the weather condition of the environment will inform the type of cloth you would wear. It also refers to the location and size of the venue. Is the venue large enough to enable you move around to reduce the distance between you and your audience? The rule of proxemics states a correlation between physical distance and psychological distance; “the further we are from someone physically, the further we are psychologically” (Litfin, 1992, p. xx). This analysis could be based on the following parameters: are you visualizing your audience as individuals or as mass of people; are you conscious of their faces and hands, their clothes and homes? Would your voice and facial expressions portray those of an intimate friend as you speak? Etc.
Audience expectations:
your audience analysis would have given you an idea of their expectations from your speech. If your audience is populated by elites, who will be able to intelligently dissect your speech, their expectations would be higher than those of less sophisticated audience members. Knowing the values, belief system and demographics of your audience helps you tailor your speech to meet their expectations. However, NEVER underrate your audience; whom you assume may be of low expectations may swing a surprise. You can have a chat with some members of the audience you would be addressing to have a feel of their expectations.
You; the speaker
You, the speaker, are the third component in the speaking situation analysis. You need to carry out a self-analysis to be able to situate yourself appropriately within the context of your speech. Your analysis will be based on your purpose, feelings, and your unique knowledge and interest.
Your Purpose: be sure you know what you want to achieve. Afterward, make sure every decision that follows leads towards the attainment of your set goal(s).
Your Feeling: your feelings towards the event and the topic you are to speak on true matters. Do not force yourself to speak on a topic that you don’t have passion. If you try to come up with some interest and it does not seem to be rewarding, go for another topic or you politely tell the organisers of the event to try somebody else. Your perception of yourself as the speaker will permeate the entire speech preparation process. Go for purpose, topic and materials that excite you and make you feel confident rather than those that will instill negative feelings and an inferiority complex in you. The spirit and gaiety with which you prepare and present your speech will speak volumes about you.
Your Unique Knowledge and Interest: you should identify and build your uniqueness as a person. Let this uniqueness reflect in the quality of your presentation by sharing your knowledge, experiences and your opinions about issues with your audience. Your self -analysis will lead you to recognising how you differ from your audience. This will assist you in relating with them closely and keeping their attention with some human-interest accounts that they are well familiar with.
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A Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Dr. Saudat Salah AbdulBaqi is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Ilorin and an Adjunct Lecturer at Kwara State University and Summit University. A Chairperson of NIPR Kwara State Chapter, she attended Bayero University Kano (BUK), University of Lagos and Universiti Utara Malaysia for her qualifications.
