Chapter 16: Introduction
This chapter is adapted from Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
What is the appropriate length of an introduction?
Generally, a speaker spends only 10 to 15 percent of their entire speech giving the introduction. This means that if your speech is five minutes long, your introduction is forty-five seconds long. So, your introduction is enormously important—it can either instantly grab your audience’s attention or cause them to tune you out before you’ve really gotten started.
What are the functions of an introduction?
Gain Audience Attention and Interest
An introduction’s first major function is to gain your audience’s attention and make them interested in what you have to say. One of the biggest mistakes that novice speakers make is to assume that people will naturally listen to them merely because they are speaking. While many audience members politely do not talk while you’re speaking, many are not really processing what you’re saying. Getting them to listen is a completely different challenge! If you do not get the audience’s attention at the outset, it will only become more difficult to do so as you continue to speak.
Attention-getters are devices speakers use in an introduction to capture an audience’s attention and interest in the speech topic. Further in this chapter we discuss eleven attention-getting devices.
State the Purpose of Your Speech: The Thesis
An introduction’s second major function is to reveal your speech’s purpose or thesis to your audience. Have you ever come away after a speech and had no idea what the speaker was talking about? An introduction is important because it forces the speaker to be mindfully aware of explaining the speech topic to the audience. If the speaker doesn’t know what her or his topic is and cannot convey that topic to the audience, that’s a big problem. The thesis is the one idea that you want to be clear in your introduction and that you want your audience to remember when you conclude.
Establish Credibility
An introduction’s third major function is to establish your credibility with your audience. One of the most researched areas within the communication field is Aristotle’s concept of ethos, or credibility. First and foremost, the credibility concept must be understood as a perception of receivers. You may be the most competent, caring, and trustworthy speaker in the world on a given topic, but if your audience does not perceive you as credible, then your expertise and passion will not matter. As a public speaker, make sure that you explain to your audience why you are a topic-credible speaker. How are you—the speaker—related to the topic? Explain this to your audience.
For an example, if someone is speaking about different volleyball types and their function, they might say: “I have been playing volleyball for twenty years, both indoor and outdoor, on courts, on sand, and grass.”
Provide Reasons to Listen
An introduction’s fourth major function is to establish a connection between the speaker and the audience. One of the most effective means of establishing a connection with your audience is to provide them with reasons why they should listen to your speech. The idea of establishing a connection is an extension of the notion of caring and goodwill. Instead of assuming the audience will make their own connections to your material, explicitly state how your information is useful to them. Tell them directly how to use your information themselves. Build a bridge to the audience by explicitly connecting your topic to their possible needs. One example:
“Today, I’m going to talk about why I believe we should enforce stricter immigration laws in the United States. I realize that many of you will disagree with me on this topic. I used to believe that open immigration was a necessity for the United States to survive and thrive, but after researching this topic, I’ve changed my mind. While I may not change all of your minds today, I do ask that you listen with an open mind, set your personal feelings on this topic aside, and judge my arguments on their merits.”
While clearly not all audience members will be open or receptive to opening their minds and listening to your arguments, by establishing that there is known disagreement, you are telling the audience that you understand their possible views and are not trying to attack their intellect or their opinions.
Preview Main Ideas
An introduction’s fifth major function is to preview your speech’s main ideas. A preview establishes the direction your speech will take. We sometimes call this process signposting because you’re establishing signs for audience members to look for while you’re speaking. In the most basic speech format, speakers generally have three to four major points they make. During the preview, a speaker outlines what these points are, which demonstrates to the audience that the speaker is organized. A study by Baker found that individuals who are unorganized while speaking are perceived as less credible than those individuals who are organized (Baker, 1965). Solidly previewing your speech’s information and then following that preview, definitely helps a speaker’s credibility. It also helps your audience keep track of where you are if they momentarily daydream or get distracted.
What are the attention-getting devices?
Now, let’s look at attention-getters. Miller (1946) discovered that speakers tend to use one of eleven attention-getting devices in an introduction. In this section we examine these eleven attention-getters and give examples of how to employ them within a speech. But first, consider these four elements before choosing one:
- The appropriateness or relevance to your specific audience
- Your speech’s basic purpose
- Your speech topic
- Your speech occasion
First, consider the appropriateness and relevance to your specific audience. When selecting an attention-getting device, remember that different audiences will have different backgrounds and knowledge, so use your audience analysis to determine whether specific information you plan to use is audience appropriate. For example, if you’re giving a speech on family units to individuals over age sixty-five, referencing the television show Gossip Girl is not be the best idea because the television show is not relevant to that audience.
Second, consider your speech’s basic purpose. As discussed earlier in this text, there are three basic purposes for giving a speech: to inform, to persuade, and to entertain. When selecting an attention-getter, select one that corresponds with your basic purpose. If your goal is to entertain an audience, starting a speech with a quotation about how many people are dying in Africa each day from malnutrition is not the best way to get your audience’s attention. Remember, one basic introduction goal is to prepare your audience for your speech. If your attention-getter differs drastically in tone from your speech—such as discussing dying in Africa when you want your audience to laugh—the disjointedness may cause your audience to become confused or tune you out completely.
Third, consider your speech topic. When picking an attention-getting device, it must be relevant to your speech topic. For example, imagine in an economics-topic introduction, the speaker pulls condoms out of his pocket, yells “Free sex!” and throws the condoms at the audience. While this may clearly get the audience’s attention, this isn’t a good way to prepare them for a speech about bull and bear markets. Not every attention-getter is appropriate for a given topic. Instead, start this speech by explaining that “According to a 2004, 60 Minutes episode, adults in the United States spend approximately $10 billion annually on adult entertainment, which is roughly equivalent to amounts they spend attending professional sporting events, buying music, or going out to the movies” (Leung, 2004). Notice how effective the shocking statistic is in clearly introducing the adult entertainment industry’s economic monetary value.
Fourth, consider your speech occasion. Different occasions will necessitate different tones or particular styles or speaking manners. For example, a persuasive speech about death and dying shouldn’t be happy and hilarious. An informative speech on the benefits of laughing shouldn’t be dull, dreary, and depressing. When selecting an attention-getter, make sure that it sets the speech’s tone.
Eleven Attention-Getting Devices
Reference to Subject
The first attention-getting device to consider is to directly reference your speech’s subject. Here’s an example:
We are surrounded by statistical information in today’s world, so understanding statistics is becoming paramount to citizenship in the twenty-first century.
This sentence explicitly tells an audience that the speech is about the importance of understanding statistics. While this isn’t the most entertaining or interesting attention-getter, it is very clear and direct.
Reference to Audience
The second attention-getting device to consider is to directly reference the audience. In this case, the speaker clearly understands the audience and points out that there is something unique about the audience that should make them interested in the speech’s content. Here’s an example:
As human resource professionals, you and I know the importance of talent management. In today’s competitive world, we need to invest in getting and keeping the best talent for our organizations to succeed.
In this example, the speaker reminds the audience of their shared status as human resource professionals and uses this common ground to acknowledge the importance of talent management in human resources.
Quotations
The third attention-getting device to consider is to use the words of another person that relate directly to your topic. Probably the most famous quotation book of all time is Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, now in its seventeenth edition. Here are some other websites that contain useful quotation databases for almost any topic:
Quotations are a great way to start a speech, so let’s look at an example that could be used for a speech on deception:
Oliver Goldsmith, a sixteenth-century writer, poet, and physician, once noted that “The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.”
Reference to Current Events
The fourth attention-getting device to consider is to reference a current event that relates to your topic. This reference immediately makes the audience aware of how relevant the topic is in today’s world. For example, consider this attention-getter for a persuasive speech on frivolous lawsuits:
On January 10, 2007, Scott Anthony Gomez Jr. and a fellow inmate escaped from a Pueblo, Colorado, jail. During their escape the duo attempted to rappel from the jail’s roof using a makeshift bed-sheet ladder. During Gomez’s attempt to scale the building, he slipped, fell forty feet, and injured his back. After being quickly apprehended, Gomez filed a lawsuit against the jail for making it too easy for him to escape.
In this introduction, the speaker highlights a news event that illustrates what a frivolous lawsuit is and sets up the speech topic: a need for change in how such lawsuits are handled.
Historical Reference
The fifth attention-getting device to consider is to refer to an historical event related to your topic. For example, if you are giving a speech on the Iraq War that began in 2003, refer back to the Vietnam War to make a comparison:
During the 1960s and ’70s, the United States intervened in the civil strife between North and South Vietnam. The result was a long-running war of attrition in which many American lives were lost, and Vietnam suffered tremendous damage and destruction. Today, we see a similar war being waged in Iraq. American lives are being lost, and stability has not yet returned to the region.
In this example, the speaker evokes Vietnam War memories in the audience to raise awareness of similarities to the Iraq war.
Anecdote
The sixth attention-getting device to consider is to tell an anecdote related to the speech’s topic. An anecdote is a brief account or story of an interesting or humorous event. We emphasize the word “brief.” One anecdote type is a real story that emphasizes a speech’s basic message. For example, here is an anecdote about how disconnected people are from the real world because of technology:
In July 2009, a high school girl named Alexa Longueira was walking along a main boulevard near her home on Staten Island, New York, typing a message on her cell phone. Not paying attention to the world around her, Longueira took a step and fell right into an open manhole (Whitney, 2009).
A second anecdote type is a parable or fable. A parable or fable is an allegorical anecdote designed to teach general life lessons. The most widely known parables are from the Bible, and the best-known fables are from Aesop’s Fables. For the same speech on how disconnected people are with the real world because of technology, the speaker can also use The Boy and the Filberts fable, for example:
The ancient Greek writer Aesop told a fable about a boy who put his hand into a pitcher of filberts. The boy grabbed as many of the delicious nuts as he possibly could. But when he tried to pull them out, his hand wouldn’t fit through the neck of the pitcher because he was grasping so many filberts. Instead of dropping some of them so that his hand would fit, he burst into tears and cried about his predicament. The moral of the story? “Don’t try to do too much at once” (Aesop, 1881).
After recounting this anecdote, the speaker could easily relate the fable to the notion that technology in our society leads us to try to do too many things at once.
Startling Statement
The seventh attention-getting device to consider is to surprise your audience with startling topic information. Often, startling statements are formed as statistics and strange facts. A good startling statistic surprises the audience and gets them engaged in your topic.
For example, start a speech on dream psychology by noting, “The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.”
A strange fact is a statement that does not involve numbers but is equally surprising to most audiences.
For example, start a speech on the gambling industry by saying, “There are no clocks in any casinos in Las Vegas.” These examples come from a great website – StrangeFacts.com for strange facts.
Although startling statements are fun, it is important to use them ethically. First, your startling statement must be factual. The Internet is full of startling statements and claims that are simply not factual, so when you find a statement that you’d like to use, you have an ethical duty to ascertain its truth before you use it. Second, your startling statement must be relevant to your speech and not just thrown in for shock value. We’ve all heard startling claims made in the media that are clearly made for shock or fear mongering. As speakers, we have an ethical obligation to avoid playing on people’s emotions in this way.
Question
The eighth attention-getting device to consider is to ask audience members a question. There are two types of questions commonly used as attention-getters: response questions and rhetorical questions. A response question requires the audience to answer in some manner.
For example, ask your audience, “Please raise your hand if you have ever thought about backpacking in Europe.” Or, “Have you ever voted for the Electoral College? If so, stand up.”
In both cases, the speaker wants the audience to respond.
A rhetorical question, on the other hand, does not require an actual reply.
For example, a speaker talking about the importance of HIV testing starts by asking the audience, “I have two questions that I’d like you to think about: How many students on this campus have had sexual intercourse? Of those who have had sex, how many have been tested for HIV?”
In this case, the speaker does not expect the audience to answer, but rather to think about the questions as the speech progresses.
Humor
The ninth attention-getting device to consider is humor. Humor is an amazing tool—when used properly, it is a double-edged sword. If you do not wield the sword carefully, your audience will turn against you very quickly. When using humor, know your audience and understand what they will find humorous. One of the biggest mistakes a speaker can make is to use some form of humor that the audience either doesn’t find funny or finds offensive.
For example, think about how incompetent the Michael Scott character seems on The Office television program, due in large part because he ineffectively uses humor.
Always test out any humor on a potential audience sample prior to actually using it during a speech. Humor can be incorporated into several of the attention-getting devices mentioned, such as a humorous anecdote, quotation, or current event. When looking for humorous attention-getters make sure that the humor is not offensive to your audience and relevant to your speech.
Personal Reference
The tenth attention-getting device to consider is to refer to a story about yourself that is relevant for your topic. Some of the best speeches are ones that come from personal knowledge and experience. If you are an expert or have firsthand experience related to your topic, sharing this information with your audience is also a great way to show that you are credible.
For example, if you had a gastric bypass surgery and wanted to give an informative speech about the procedure, introduce your speech in this way:
In the fall of 2008, I decided that it was time that I took my life into my own hands. After suffering for years with obesity, I decided to take a leap of faith and get a gastric bypass in an attempt to finally beat the disease.
If you use a personal example, don’t get carried away with the focus on yourself and your own life. Your speech topic is the purpose of the attention-getter, not the other way around. Another pitfall in using a personal example is that it may be too personal for you to maintain your composure.
For example, a student once started a speech about her grandmother by stating, “My grandmother died of cancer at 3:30 this morning.” The student then proceeded to cry nonstop for ten minutes.
While this is an extreme example, avoid any material that gets you overly choked up while speaking. When speakers have an emotional breakdown while speaking, audience members become very uncomfortable and stop listening to the message.
Reference to Occasion
The eleventh attention-getting device to consider is to refer directly to the speaking occasion. This attention-getter is only useful if the speech is for a specific occasion. Many toasts, for example, start with the following statement:
“Today we are here to honor X.” In this case, the “X” could be a retirement, a marriage, a graduation, or many other special occasions.
Speech Examples
The following YouTube videos show numerous different speeches. While watching these videos, ask yourself the following questions: How have they used various attention-getting devices? Have they clearly used all aspects of an introduction? Do they have a strong thesis and preview? How could you have made the introduction stronger?
- Animal Experimentation
- Life after Having a Child
- Pros and Cons of Cholesterol
- On Being a Hero
- LASIK Eye Surgery
References
University of Minnesota. (2011). Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. https://open.lib.umn.edu/publicspeaking/. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Media References
Dugdale, D. (2012, May 23). Attentive Audience [Image]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/davedugdale/7261785644/
