Public Speaking Topics

Never be afraid of public speaking just because you can't come up with a decent speech topic.

That's ridiculous when you really think about it.

Topics for a speech or as presentation are everywhere, if you know where to look.

Where do you look? At your life.

And please don't imagine there's nothing of interest to other people in your life. On lots of levels, your audience's lives are exactly the same as yours.

They're humans. Therefore they suffer! In a million ways. Big or small it doesn't matter.

Have you ever suffered? Speak about that.

If you need graphic evidence of human suffering pick up a newspaper or, even better, surf a news website.

Use this technique and you'll have tons of public speaking topics in less than 5 minutes.

1. Think About Your Audience. There's no getting away from this one. Make sure you at least give a few seconds to thinking about what they want to hear.

2. Pick up today's copy of the main metropolitan daily newspaper.Or go to its website. Whatever.

3. Read each of the headlines on the front page. This will give you plenty of speech ideas.

4. Pick at least two angles from which to approach each story. You may need to skim the articles or you may already know enough about the issue to nail your topic. Write down each angle as it comes to you.

5. Have fun with it. This public speaking stuff is meant to be enjoyable. You get to express yourself. And for a few minutes anyway people have to listen!

Here's my list from today:

• "About-face lets 23 MPs keep travel perks." Politicians with their snouts in the trough. Hmmm. I can work with that.
• "Bashing victim forgives her attackers." I could lament the violence in society today or marvel at the inspirational example of forgiveness shown here.
• "Rugby brawl verdict - nine boys barred." Violence in a high profile school sport. I might debate the verdict, deplore the violence or deplore the mamby-pamby attitude of the judiciary. The tack depends on the audience and whether I want to be persuasive or provocative.
• "Judge: Time to let gay couples adopt." Good human rights stuff here. Are we really still even questioning this? Good grief!
• "Review urges cold medicine ban for kids." A health story. They're always good for most audiences. Especially where kids are involved.
• "Hide stakes job on Maori seats ban." A right wing politician threatening to resign over an issue. Brilliant!

Return from Public Speaking Topics to the Home Page