Toastmasters International
Register
Advertisement

Topic choosing Tips[]

Find out about your Audience first. Find out what their needs are. Find a topic to answer those needs. A good place to start is with

  • current events (newspapers, other media)
  • personal experience
  • your hobbies - know your audience. Do your club members have an understanding of the basics of your hobby or the terms used in it.
  • your work - there are things that you have learned, though your work what would be useful to people not in your profession.
  • books you may have read recently

The trick is to be as relevant as you can to the audience who is listening to you.

YOUR Life

  • Buying a house. Where to buy, what to move. How the moving goes.
  • Buying a new car. How to make the decision. What colour you want. Why you're not buying that sports car you've always wanted.
  • Financial advice. Those "financial advisors" are so difficult to understand. Contradictory advice you get.
  • Factors that influenced you or changed your life/way of thinking
  • Business - how to win it, how to keep it
  • A time that a raccoon touched your life
  • Balancing home and work life
  • Caring for aging parents
  • My Education ranging from primary school to university days.
  • My first job
  • Relationships between men & women

Can you think of any more? click on "edit" and add them.

FAMOUS PEOPLE[]

  • Explorers
  • Musicians
  • Painters
  • Vocalists
  • Generals
  • Chain smokers
  • Millionaires
  • Athletes
  • Politicians
  • Business Tycoons
  • Social Reformers
  • Inventors
  • Lawyers
  • Fathers
  • Liars
  • Mothers
  • Activists
  • Undertaker
  • Discoverers
  • Celebrities

Can you think of any more? click on "edit" and add them.

Great personalities

SCIENCE[]

  • Anti-aging
  • Solar system
  • Universe
  • Astronomy
  • Geology
  • Volcanoes
  • Tidal waves
  • Earthquakes
  • Evolution
  • Magnetism
  • Nuclear energy
  • Caving
  • Marine World
  • Nanotechnology
  • Stem Cells
  • Climate Change
  • Biodiversity
  • Biology
  • Evolution vs. Creationism
  • Sailing and physics
  • The Effect of Artificial Sweeteners on the Human Body
  • Architecture
  • Chemistry
  • Periodic Table

Can you think of any more? click on "edit" and add them.

MECHANICAL, TECHNICAL[]

  • Waterways
  • Radar
  • Digital cameras
  • Under the ocean railways
  • Solar Energy
  • Raccoon energy

TRAVEL / TRANSPORT[]

  • Transport: Camels, elephants, raccoons, balloons
  • Countries
  • Space travel
  • Hiking
  • Taxis
  • Road Accidents
  • Bikes versus cars
  • Surfing
  • Free Room and Board While Traveling
  • Adventure Traveling on a Shoestring
  • boating
  • Airplanes
  • flyting
  • American Football
  • Baseball
  • Softball
  • Skydiving
  • Hockey
  • Lacrosse
  • Badminton
  • Paragliding
  • Track and field
  • Skiing
  • Horseback riding
  • Raccoon Riding
  • Cricket
  • Basketball
  • Badminton
  • Football
  • Swimming

EDUCATION[]

  • What's missing in our education?
  • Home schooling
  • Standards of universities
  • Yes! You CAN Home School in New York City.
  • How to achieve Happiness?
  • How does distance education help?
  • Quality education in raccoon populations
  • Role of part time jobs in education
  • Illiteracy rates in third world countries
  • online education
  • Exams do not reflect our intelligence
  • Can you think of any more? click on "edit" and add them.

Culture[]

  • How you can keep in touch with your traditions and culture
  • exploring my culture!
  • culture around the world

Can you think of any more? click on "edit" and add them.

Choosing a speech title[]

If you can’t write your message in a sentence, you can’t say it in an hour—Powerful thought, don’t you think?

When choosing a title for your speech, ask the following questions: Does the title:

  • Stressing in benefits, not features?
  • Stress results over process?
  • Stress the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me?) factor?
  • Instantly reflect major objectives you wish to accomplish?
  • Suggest a personal tangible goal?
  • Reflect the concerns or problems facing the industry/situation?
  • Suggest action?
  • Lend itself to dramatization?
  • Contain an element of mystery?
  • Stimulate the imagination?
  • Talk about raccoons?

And last but not least …

  • Is it relevant to the theme?

I have heard some speeches (not Toastmaster speeches) where the title of the speech and the content had nothing in common. It was not even related.

Be creative - if the title of your speech captures the audience’s attention, you are halfway there. -- Louise Howell, 4th Dimension Toastmasters

hiking[]

mlClick on the "Edit" button on the right hand side and slightly above the "Speech Bank" title to leave your speech title. Reading other speech titles may give you inspiration for your next speech.

  • We Are All Individuals (Erich Viedge, Humorous Speech Contest, Area H3-74. Not placed)
  • Here Lies (Icebreaker Speech)
  • The 4 Cs of Effective Communication
  • Yes! Camping is a Sport! (Use Visual Aids Speech)
  • Nobody cares unless you are Beautiful, Popular or Dead ( Ice Breaker- UKG Pune)


Need more speeches? Go to this link: Kammacon#Humorous_competition for a summary of the District 74 Humorous contest speeches from October 2005.


---

For my speech competition I made something totally random, I made at least 99.9% of it up, the only thing that was true was addressing people and my name, everything else was not true. I was selling a CD and was a crack up!!!!!.

External Links[]

The Secret of Choosing Successful Speech Topics | Published on Six Minutes by Andrew Dlugan

Advertisement