350 Part 4 Public Speaking
Determining the Specific Purpose of Your Speech
Once you’ve narrowed your topic, you’ll need to zero in on a specific purpose for
your speech. Ask yourself: “What is it about my topic that I want my audience
to learn, do, consider, or agree with?” A specific purpose statement expresses
both the topic and the general speech purpose in action form and in terms of the
specific objectives you hope to achieve with your presentation.
Let’s consider an example. Imagine again that you are giving a persuasive
speech on volunteering. Your general purpose and specific purpose might look
like this:
Topic: Volunteer reading programs
General purpose: To persuade
Specific purpose: To have audience members realize the importance of
reading with local elementary school children so that they sign up for a vol-
unteer reading program such as Read to a Child
There is an additional level of specificity to consider when preparing your
speech. It is called the thesis statement—you’re probably familiar with this term
from high school or your college composition course. We help you understand
and develop your own thesis in the next section.
Developing a Thesis Statement
Once you have homed in on your topic, general purpose, and specific speech
purpose, you can start to encapsulate your speech in the form of a thesis
statement, a statement that conveys the central idea about your topic. The thesis
statement must clearly summarize what you want the audience to get out of your
speech, but is not the same thing as your specific purpose statement; as noted, it
is more specific. Revisiting the example about volunteer reading programs, note
how your thesis statement works with your general purpose and specific speech
purpose and how it expresses the core idea that you want your listeners to walk
away with:
General topic: Volunteering
Narrow slightly: Volunteering with kids
Narrow further: Volunteering with grade school
children
Narrow further: Volunteer literacy programs
for grade school children
Narrow further:
Read
to a
Child
FIGURE 12.2
NARROWING YOUR
TOPICStart with a general
idea and become increasingly
specific until you have a
manageable topic for your
speech.
CONNECT
Your thesis statement
helps you stay focused on
your goals for communi-
cating with others in
a public speaking situation.
But staying focused on
goals also matters in com-
munication contexts such
as running a meeting. As
we discussed in Chapter
10, clearly stating the pur-
pose of your meeting and
organizing your agenda
around it helps everyone
stay focused and makes
you more likely to achieve
your goals.