How to Pick Informative Speech Topics

Informative speech topics can be difficult to choose if you have never done one before. As a common assignment in speech courses, most college students have to go through the experience at least once. You need to find speech topics your audience will be interested in, yet that you can still inform them about. If they already know everything you have to say, it will be a pretty boring informative speech. If you choose something you know nothing about you are either setting yourself up for a lot of extra work, or for the chance of giving incorrect information.

Follow this process to find your informative speech topic that will work well.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Brainstorm a list of things you know something about.
   
   It is very difficult to make an informative speech interesting if you are not first interested yourself. Take out a piece of paper, or open a text file, and start brainstorming topics that interest you. Try to make your list of informative speech topics specific. In other words, write down 'Buddhist meditation practices' instead of 'Buddhism.'

2. Circle three or four you want to learn something more about.
   
   Even though you already know something about it, you do not want to simply give a speech on stuff you already know. The most interesting informative speeches are ones in which at least some of the information is new enough to the speaker to be interesting or engaging for the speaker. Draw lines out from your circled topics and start listing subtopics that you want to learn more about. If your interests were running, rock climbing, music, and art then you might list subtopics such as marathon training, lead climbing, 60's rock, or fresco painting for informative speech topics.

3. Narrow that list down to the most widely interesting.
   
   Now that you have narrowed your list to things you want to learn about, narrow it farther. A speech is not just about the speaker's interests (or it will be a very boring speech). What might your audience enjoy learning about the most from your brainstormed list? What would fascinate them? Try to pick one that you think will most interest the audience you will be speaking to. Though you can make nearly any topic interesting, 60's rock might be more interesting to your peers than lead climbing or vice versa. In short, for an informative speech topic to work well you have to know your audience.

4. Pick the one you are most excited about.
   
   You now have a list of topics that you know something about already, are specific, are interesting to you, and interesting to others. The final step is to just decide on one. Any topic that matches those criteria will do. But you may want to consider which ones you will be the most naturally excited about. Is there one which more naturally lends itself to visual aids in a speech? Choose the informative speech topic that you will enjoy most and will also give you the best chance of success.
   
   * See tips below for more tips on informative speech topics.

Tips & Warnings

• Informative speech topics should drive you to research new information. Do the work to make the speech worth giving.
• You will know you have enough research when you are excited about the topic and find yourself wanting to tell your friends about you have found.
• See related articles on this page for more on speech courses and speech in general.