Public Speaking

60 CHAPTER^5 Selecting Your Topic and Purpose

you. Major newspapers and news magazines, as well as trade and other specialized

periodicals, can be accessed online. Here are some topics from a single day’s news:

violent video games and youth children whose parents overdose

airport control tower safety immigration reform

professional athletes and marijuana Stradivarius violins

drought in the West low-fat yogurt and type 2 diabetes

Current event topics usually address a societal need. The fact that they show up

in the news means that many people find them significant. Furthermore, you should

be able to locate information easily. For example, a topic such as immigration reform

will have thousands of related articles in your library’s databases and on the Internet;

even a topic such as Stradivarius violins can yield hundreds of credible sources.

(See Figure 5.1.)

For additional ideas on how to find topics, check out Professor Ron St. John’s

website available in your Public Speaking Chapter 5 resources.

Narrow Your Topic

Once you have a topic in mind, your next step is to narrow your focus enough to discuss

it within a designated time frame. This principle applies across all speaking contexts,

from workplace project reports, sales presentations, and announcements to civic and

ceremonial contexts. One professional speaker narrowed his topic like this:

I’m going to talk about technology and an introduction of technology into developing

markets. I’m going to focus on agriculture... particularly in Africa and particularly in

Sub-Saharan Africa... in Malawi... with a woman named Sabina Xhosa.^9

Figure 5.1

You can find novel topics
that are significant or meet
an audience need in personal
and academic areas, in
current events, and in your
cultural background or
interests.

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