Research Your Topic – Crafting a Strong Informative Presentation
For our young communicators, being assigned a project to research and present may be one of the tougher tasks in school. From finding the correct evidence/research proof to arranging the content to engage the audience, it can be a tough ask for our younger public speakers who are still developing stage confidence. This is the difficult balance between maintaining strong content and confident delivery.
Learning how to research one’s topic can also help a communicator confidently engage their audience. This is not limited to adults – instead, your child can explore how best to find, arrange, and utilise their research. This can be a strong skill to nurture for a young communicator aiming to be a strong informative speaker. In creating a coherent structure, your child’s speech can appeal strongly to the audience with a persuasive edge.
Today, we will be sharing three tips on how your child can select, apply, and present their evidence or research for an informative speech.
Presentation Tip #1: Introduce the Research
Research for an informative speech can come as case studies, surveys, or articles. Using them in a speech or presentation, however, goes beyond quantity. A strong communicator will know how best to introduce their research or evidence while highlighting the rationale for the audience to pay attention (and be persuaded!). This looks into how one introduces a research or evidence point to the audience.
For our young communicators, they can start by highlighting key identifiers of the research – these are elements that immediately show the audience why the evidence is strong or relevant. For example, a news article by a famous individual can be identified through their name and occupation/designation. Beyond just name-dropping, your child can also explain the process in which they found or selected that research or evidence.
Presentation Tip #2: Guide the Audience to the Relevance
Once the introduction is done, the next aspect is to guide the audience through the research. Most young speakers make a brief reference to the evidence without helping the audience understand it thoroughly. For example, the statistic in a survey is often shared with little (or no) context about how the survey was conducted or the target audience. Learning to pick these aspects out can help your child present their research more persuasively.
There are three aspects that your child can consider. First, after introducing the evidence to the audience, explain the background – this helps set the context (e.g., author, writing process, methodology). Next, highlight the research’s key findings that apply to their speech. This should be done as a summary instead of a word-for-word read. Finally, show how the evidence aligns with the speech content – students can use transition phrases such as “This shows that …” to remind themselves to highlight the relevance to the audience!
Presentation Tip #3: Emphasise the Significance
The most challenging part of using research or evidence is to highlight a specific significance to the point that is being shared. This ensures that the research is relevant, precise, and constructive. In broad terms, our young communicators should be able to answer the question – why is it important? Research, evidence, or proof is not a trivial gimmick but can be a strong tool to build credibility with the audience.
One way of highlighting this significance to the audience is by showing how the research or evidence selected is applied to the message. For example, when choosing an example or case study, our young speakers should be able to elaborate on the finer details of the case study and how it supports the message (e.g., similar situation, challenges, process). While these links may be obvious to the speaker as the creator of the speech, they may not be as apparent to the audience!
*** Drawing the connection for your audience…not literally 😂 ***
A Well-Researched Speech!
A well-researched speech builds credibility, and for a young communicator, that is a pathway to a confident and comfortable speech or presentation. While one aspect of this involves research skills, we should also focus on how this supporting evidence is applied and presented in our speeches. We hope that your child can put forth a well-researched and engaging informative sharing with the tips above!
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