The introduction

• The introduction is the most important part of your speech
• You must keep your audience interested

There are five parts.

1. The attention-grabber
2. The topic you plan to discuss
3. Your credibility as the speaker
4. The relevance statement
5. The thesis with the supporting points that will be discussed

Besides points 1 and 5, the parts can be in any order.

The attention-grabber

• Must be at least 20-30 seconds
• Must be directly relevant to your speech
• Use to set the mood

Types

The best attention-grabbers take one of three forms:

1. a story
2. a question
3. surprising or shocking information

A story is the most capturing type of attention-grabber.

Other types of attention-grabbers can be:

• realia (real objects)
• a joke, if it’s relevant
• a quotation
• a visual
• a shared interest or concern
  • this establishes common ground with the audience

Before you use a joke in your introduction:

• be willing to discard the joke if it (or you) are not that funny
• test it on friends first

The topic statement

Introduce the topic by “sliding it in”.

Do say:

• “…and what I have in my hands is salt.”

Do not say:

• “My topic is…”

The relevance statement

Do say:

• “Some of you listening to me may have been immigrants before, or you have a friend or co-worker who is an immigrant.”

Do not say:

• “This is relevant because…”
• “Why is this relevant? Well…”

The thesis statement

Do say:

• “Today I’m going to talk to you about…”

Checklist

Does the introduction:

• Capture the audience’s attention?
• Stimulate their interest in what’s to come?
• Establish a positive bond with listeners?
• Alert listeners to the speech topic, purpose, and main points?
• Establish your credibility?
• Motivate listeners to accept your speech goals?