C'est La Vie

1.Objective
Before you start to prepare a speech, you should ask yourself:"Why am I making this speech?" Do you need to inform, to persuade, to train or to sell? Your objective should be clear in your mind. If it is not clear in your mind, it cannot possibly be clear to your audience.

2.Audience
"Who am I making this speech to?" Sometimes this will be obvious, but not always. You should try to inform yourself. How many people? Who are they? Business people? Professional people? Political people? Experts or non-experts? Will it be a small, intimate group of 4 colleagues or a large gathring of 400 competitors? How much do they know already and what will they expect from you?

3.Venue
"Where am I making this speech?" In a small hotel meeting-room or a large conference hall? What facilities and equipment are available? What are the seating arangements?

4.Time and Length
"When am I making this speech and how long will it be?" Will it be 5 minutes or one hour? Just before lunch, when your audience will be hungry, or just after lunch, when your audience will be sleepy?

5.Method
"How should I make this speech?" What approach should you use? Formal or informal? Lots of visual aids or only a few? Will you include some anecdotes and humour for variety?

6.Content
"What should I say?" Now you must decide exactly what you want to say. First, you should brainstorm your ideas. You will no doubt discover many ideas that you want to include in your speech. But you must be selective. You should include only information that is relevant to your audience and your objective. You should exclude all other ideas. You also need to create a title for your speech (if you have not already been given a title). The title will help you to focus on the subject. You can always give additional information during the questions after the speech.

7.Notes
When you give your speech, you should be-or appear to be as spontaneous as possible. You should not read your speech! You should be so familiar with your subject and with the information that you want to deliver that you do not need to read a text. Reading a text is boring! Reading a text will make your audience go to sleep! So if you don’t have a text to read, how can you remember to say everything you need to say? With notes. You can create your own system of notes. Some people make notes on small, A6 cards. Some people write down just the title of each section of their talk. Some people write down keywords to remind them. The notes will give you confidence, but because you will have prepared your speech fully, you may not even need them.

8.Rehearsal
You will become more familiar with what you want to say;
You will identify weaknesses in your speech;
You will be able to practise difficult pronunciation;
You will be able to check the time that your speech takes and make any necessary modifications.

无无聊聊…玩玩很久没有玩的PS, 茶余饭后，看看明星与平民的区别！