Introduction & Conclusion

According to the book, as part of the introduction, grabbing the audience attention is the first and foremost important key. You want the audience to be engaged by the first few seconds of speech, because that is the way to determine if they will pay attention or not. To keep them captivated, the second factor you should have in your speech is to give the audience the purpose o your speech. The purpose is what the audience is keeping track of, because they would like to know what you're going to be talking about. Integrated with the purpose of your speech, is your thesis. The thesis is mainly the points that you are going to be talking about. It gives the audience an idea of what they are going to be paying attention to. Giving credibility, which I lacked during my last speech, is another component in your introduction. This alerts the audience that you are the authority of your topic and that you have done good research. At the end of the introduction, simply go over your main points again so that the audience can refresh their memories.

As for the conclusion, there are 3 components to cover. The first component is to again review your main points. This was left off at the introduction before you begin to go further in depth with the main points. Reinforcing the purpose of the speech is to highlight what was important from your speech. The audience obviously didn't sit through your speech not expecting to learn anything. To reassure them with the reinforcement would give them a sense that they did learn something, hopefully, from your speech. As for the last factor, asserting a well put together closure is needed to end the speech. You want to end the speech with a smooth ending. You don't want to leave the audience confused and full of questions.

As for my speech, I'm going to make sure that I introduce my main points precisely. I also want to make sure that I have a well put together conclusion to finish my speech off at the end. As of right now, I am working on my outline and coming up a good conclusion. You guys can be the judge when we meet next!