Public Speaking

Types of Informative Speeches (^201)
Diversity
in praCtiCe
the Global importance of information
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek
and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers.^6
This Article recognizes the potential dangers of an information imbalance,
where some individuals and groups have overwhelming amounts of information
and others have very little and thus lack fundamental understandings of the world.
(The entire UN declaration can be accessed on your online resources.)
In the light of this value, the United Nations News Centre commends
areas around the world where information is making a difference. For example,
Afghanistan released voting information, which the UN hopes will enable fraud
complaints to be processed thoroughly.^7 In seven countries in West Africa, health
workers used culturally sensitive informative strategies to disseminate information
about the deadly Ebola virus. Some people had never heard of it before; others
had unfounded fears based on rumors; but all needed “information blasts” to know
how to protect themselves.^8
information imbalance
some people or groups
having very little access to
information while others
have it in abundance
© iStockphoto.com/art12321

Types of Informative Speeches

Informative speeches fall into several categories. Demonstrations and instructions,

descriptions, reports, and explanations are common in classrooms and careers. Two basic

methods are useful for organizing and explaining information: division and classification.

Division involves breaking the whole into parts and discussing each part individually.

For example, Kylie divided the topic of Asperger syndrome into causes, symptoms, and

division a method for

presenting information by

breaking the whole into parts

and explaining each one

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