13.4 Choosing a Topic

School is, of course, an ideal place to learn and practice skills such as how to give a speech, but it’s an artificial environment, so it differs from “the real world” in several ways. For one thing, in many real-life contexts, speakers don’t get to choose their topic from scratch. If you’re a maid of honor and the bride asks you to give a speech, you don’t get to say “Oh great; I’ve always wanted to give a speech about fair trade coffee;” your speech needs to be about the wedding couple. Lawyers giving closing arguments don’t even get a choice about which side they are arguing for. Luckily, if you are a student, you probably do get to choose your topic out of an infinite number of possibilities. Where to begin?

If you are assigned to give an informative speech, the obvious starting point is to think about something you learned that you found fascinating. Here are some places to start:

• A new advancement (for example, what kinds of art can AI do well, and what does it do poorly?)
• Something scientific (when you get an itch, what exactly is going on?)
• Something historical (how did people trim their fingernails in the old days?)
• An interesting place you or someone you know has visited
• A fascinating person you read about, met, or know personally
• An experience you or someone you know lived through
• A skill you mastered…or failed at
• Something you learned on the job (how people behave in art museums)
• Something you learned in another class
• A form of art you like (favorite movie, TV show, podcast, music genre, unusual craft or hobby)

Knowing the time limits of your speech, consider what you can adequately explain in that time frame: Will you run out of things to say long before you hit the minimum length? Or do you have too much content, and a six-minute summary won’t make sense to anyone? This depends partly on the audience’s background knowledge of the topic, and whether you need to start on “square one.” If they are already familiar with how social media works, for instance, you might be able to explain Section 230 without having to review how an ISP is different from a content provider.

If your topic is too familiar to your audience, they might stop listening because they assume they won’t hear anything new. This isn’t to say that you can’t choose a familiar topic; you simply have to let the audience know early on that you won’t be saying the “same old same old.”

If you’re assigned a persuasive speech, your starting point may be a little different. Keeping in mind that persuasion is fundamentally about change, first consider what you would like to see changed in the world. More specific questions could include:

• What is an aspect of modern society that just doesn’t make sense to you?
• What will future generations think is wrong with the way things are now? (Imagine going forward 50 years, and hearing a historian say “I can’t believe that back in the 2020s, they still _________.”)
• What communities do you identify with (e.g., geographic region, demographic group, socioeconomic category, gender or ethnicity, hobby community, occupation), and what are the challenges those communities are facing now?
• What social policies have affected you, your family, or your friends?
• What is an ongoing argument you’ve gotten into with friends or family?
• What are you afraid of about the future?
• What’s a significant personal decision you’ve made, and do you think other people should make the same decision?

If you’re going to give a ceremonial speech in the classroom, do you get to make up any occasion?