Do You Make This Speech Writing Mistake?

Finding a speech topic to talk about is difficult enough. All that thinking and working and coming to find what you feel confident talking about can be stressful. But sometimes the stress becomes worse when we realize that our subject matter is too general. I hate it when that happens.

Last week I wrote an article about personal branding. As soon as I started to write, I realized I needed to tighten my focus. Personal branding was too general to write about in 800 words.

To focus my essay, I needed a trick to help me. Once I did, the words flew from my pencil. Whenever you have a limited & focused speech topic, your speech can practically write itself. If you keep your topic general, you’ll keep having the same old troubles.

So, to narrow your topic, practice these tips:

Narrow your subject to one example or one individual that represents that subject.

For example, if your general subject is money, you narrow it to the example of The Thai Bhat. Or you might narrow it to the person Warren Buffet.

You can also narrow your subject to a specific experience.

For example, if your subject is money, you could narrow your subject to The trip you took to the bank last week.

You can narrow your subject to a specific time or place.

For example, if your general subject is Water Shortages, you could narrow your topic to The water shortage in Seoul. Or you could narrow it to the Korean water shortage of August 2008.

Lastly, you can narrow your subject to a specific type or kind. A condition. Or you can limit it to a specific procedure or process.

For example, if your general subject is Water Shortages, you could narrow your topic to Water shortages caused by drought. Or, you might narrow it to How a water shortage happens.

It’s important to narrow, because it keeps your speech interesting. And, it keeps it easy for an audience to understand, as well as for you to write. If you try and make a speech that has both a specific place and a specific process in it, your speech will be too difficult to manage in a short amount of time. So don’t do it. Keep it simple! Do that and you’ll have great speeches.

So stop making the messy mistake of making things too general. Do better and you’ll soon be better.

Cheers!