Can you imagine how strange a speech would sound without an introduction? Or how jarring it would be if, after making a point, a speaker just walked away from the lectern and sat down? You would be confused, and the takeaway from that speech—even if the content were good—would likely be, “I couldn’t follow” or “That was a weird speech.”

This is just one of the reasons all speeches need introductions and conclusions. Introductions and conclusions serve to frame the speech and give it a clearly defined beginning and end. They help the audience to see what is to come in the speech, and then let them mentally prepare for the end. In doing this, introductions and conclusions provide a “preview/review” of your speech as a means to reiterate or re-emphasize to your audience what you are talking about.

Since speeches are auditory and live, you need to make sure the audience remembers what you are saying. One of the primary functions of an introduction is to preview what you will be covering in your speech, and one of the main roles of the conclusion is to review what you have covered. It may seem like you are repeating yourself and saying the same things over and over, but that repetition ensures that your audience understands and retains what you are saying.

The roles that introductions and conclusions fulfill are numerous, and, when done correctly, can make your speech stronger. The general rule is that the introduction and conclusion should each be about 10-15% of your total speech, leaving 80% for the body section. Let’s say that your informative speech has a time limit of 5-7 minutes: if we average that out to 6 minutes that gives you 360 seconds. Ten to 15 percent means that the introduction and conclusion should each be no more than 1-1/2 minutes.

In the following sections, we will discuss specifically what should be included in the introduction and conclusion and offer several options for accomplishing each.

The Five Elements of an Introduction

Intro Element 1: Attention-Getter

The first major purpose of an introduction is to gain your audience’s attention and make them interested in what you have to say. First impressions matter. When we meet someone for the first time, it can be only a matter of seconds before we find ourselves interested or disinterested in the person. The equivalent in speechwriting of “first impression” is what is called an attention-getter. This is a statement or question that piques the audience’s interest in what you have to say. There are several strategies you can choose from—verbal and non-verbal—to get the audience’s attention. Below are described the most popular types of attention-getters: quotations, questions, stories, humor, surprise, stories, and references. As well as non-verbal attention-getters involving images, sounds, or objects.

Quotation

Quotations are a great way to start a speech. That’s why they are used so often as a strategy. Here’s an example that might be used in the opening of a commencement address:

The late actor, fashion icon, and social activist Audrey Hepburn once noted that, “Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible’!”

If you use a quotation as your attention getter, be sure to give the source first (as in this example) so that it isn’t mistaken as your own wording.

Question

We often hear speakers begin a speech with a question for the audience. As easy as it sounds, beginning with a question is somewhat tricky. You must decide if you are asking a question because you want a response from the audience, or, on the other hand, if you are asking a question that you will answer, or that will create a dramatic effect. We call these rhetorical questions.

The dangers with a direct question are many. There may be an awkward pause after your question because the audience doesn’t know if you actually want an answer. Or they don’t know how you want the response—a verbal response or a gesture such as a raised hand. Another reason direct questions are delicate is this obvious point: what you are going to do with the response. For example, imagine you have written a speech about the importance of forgiving student debt, and you begin your speech with this question for the audience: “How many of you have more than $10,000 in student loan debt?” You would be creating a problem for yourself if just a few people in the audience raised their hand. If you want to use a direct question, follow these rules:

• make it clear to the audience the means of response. “By a show of hands, how many of you have more than $10,000 in student loan debt?”
• prepare in advance how you will acknowledge different responses.

Contrary to a direct question, you could use a rhetorical question—a question to which no actual reply is expected. For example, a speaker talking about the history of Mother’s Day could start by asking the audience, “Do you remember the last time you told your mom you loved her?” In this case, the speaker does not expect the audience to shout out an answer, but rather to think about the question as the speech goes on.

Finally, when asking a rhetorical question, don’t pause after it, or the audience will get distracted wondering if you’re waiting for a response. Jump right into your speech:

“How many of you have more than $10,000 in student loan debt? If you’re like 78% of college seniors, your answer is probably a yes.”

Humor

Humor is an amazing tool when used properly but it’s a double-edged sword. If you don’t wield the sword carefully, you can turn your audience against you very quickly.

When using humor, you really need to 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, worse, finds offensive. We always recommend that you test out humor of any kind on a sample of potential audience members prior to actually using it during a speech. If you do use a typical narrative “joke,” don’t say it happened to you. Anyone who heard the joke before will think you are less than truthful!

As with other attention-getting devices, you need to make sure your humor is relevant to your topic, as one of the biggest mistakes some novices make when using humor is to add humor that really doesn’t support the overall goal of the speech. Therefore, when looking for humorous attention getters, you want to make sure that the humor isn’t going to be offensive to your audience and relevant to your speech.

Surprise

Another way to start your speech is to surprise your audience with information that will be surprising or startling to your audience. Often, startling statements come in the form of statistics and strange facts. For example, if you’re giving a speech about oil conservation, you could start by saying,

“A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel.”

That’s a surprising or startling fact. Another version of the surprise form of an attention-getter is to offer a strange fact. For example, you could start a speech on the gambling industry by saying, “There are no clocks in any casinos in Las Vegas.”  You could start a speech on the Harlem Globetrotters by saying, “In 2000, Pope John Paul II became the most famous honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters.” (These examples come from a great website for strange facts (http://www. strangefacts.com).

Although such statements are fun, it’s important to use them ethically. First, make sure that your startling statement is 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 and to provide a reliable citation. Second, make sure that your startling statement is 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 purposes of shock or fear mongering, such as “Do you know what common household appliance could kill you? Film at 11:00.” As speakers, we have an ethical obligation to avoid playing on people’s emotions in this way.

Stories

Another common type of attention-getter is an account or story of an interesting or humorous event. Notice the emphasis here is on the word “brief.” A common mistake speakers make when telling an anecdote is to make the anecdote too long. An example of an anecdote used in a speech about the pervasiveness of technology might look something like this:

“In July 2009, a high school student named Miranda Becker was walking along a main boulevard near her home on Staten Island, New York, typing in a message on her cell phone. Not paying attention to the world around her, she took a step and fell right into an open maintenance hole.”

Notice that the anecdote is short and has a clear point. From here the speaker can begin to make their point about how technology is controlling our lives.

A personal story is another option here. This is a story about yourself or someone you know that is relevant to your topic. For example, if you had a gastric bypass surgery and you wanted to give an informative speech about the procedure, you could introduce your speech in this way:

“In the fall of 2015, I decided that it was time that I took my life into my own hands. After suffering for years with the disease of obesity, I decided to take a leap of faith and get a gastric bypass in an attempt to finally beat the disease.”

Two primary issues that you should be aware of often arise with using stories as attention getters. First, you shouldn’t let your story go on for too long. If you are going to use a story to begin your speech, you need to think of it more in terms of summarizing the story rather than recounting it in its entirety. The second issue with using stories as attention getters is that the story must in some way relate to your speech. If you begin your speech by recounting the events in “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” your speech will in some way need to address such topics as finding balance or coming to a compromise. If your story doesn’t relate to your topic, you will confuse your audience and they may spend the remainder of your speech trying to figure out the connection rather than listening to what you have to say.

References

You can catch the attention of the audience by referencing information of special interest. This includes references to the audience itself, and their interests. It can also mean references to current events or events in the past.

Your audience is a factor of utmost importance when crafting your speech, so it makes sense that one approach to opening your speech is to make a direct reference to the audience. In this case, the speaker has a clear understanding of 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 students at State College, you and I know the importance of selecting a major that will benefit us in the future. In today’s competitive world, we need to study a topic that will help us be desirable to employers and provide us with lucrative and fulfilling careers. That’s why I want you all to consider majoring in communication.”

Referring to a current news event that relates to your topic is often an effective way to capture attention, as it 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 of this year, two prisoners escaped from a Pueblo, Colorado, jail. During their escape, the duo attempted to rappel from the roof of the jail using a makeshift ladder of bed sheets. During one prisoner’s attempt to scale the building, he slipped, fell forty feet, and injured his back. After being quickly apprehended, he filed a lawsuit against the jail for making it too easy for him to escape.”

In this case, the speaker is highlighting a news event that illustrates what a frivolous lawsuit is, setting up the speech topic of a need for change in how such lawsuits are handled.

A variation of this kind of reference is to open your speech with a reference about something that happened in the past. For example, if you are giving a speech on the perception of modern music as crass or having no redeeming values, you could refer to Elvis Presley and his musical breakout in the 1950s as a way of making a comparison:

“During the mid-1950s, Elvis Presley introduced the United States to a new genre of music: rock and roll. It was initially viewed as distasteful, and Presley was himself chastised for his gyrating dance moves and flashy style. Today he is revered as “The King of Rock ‘n Roll.” So, when we criticize modern artists for being flamboyant or over the top, we may be ridiculing some of the most important musical innovators we will know in our lifetimes.”

In this example, the speaker is evoking the audience’s knowledge of Elvis to raise awareness of similarities to current artists that may be viewed today as he was in the 1950s.

Non-Verbal Attention-Getters

The last variation of attention-getter discussed here is the non-verbal sort. You can get the audience interested in your speech by beginning with an image on a slide, music, sound, and even objects. As with all attention-getters, a non-verbal choice should be relevant to the topic of your speech and appropriate for your audience. The use of visual images and sounds shouldn’t be used if they require a trigger warning or content advisory.

This list of attention-getting devices represents a thorough, but not necessarily exhaustive, range of ways that you can begin your speech. Again, as mentioned earlier, your selection of attention getter isn’t only dependent on your audience, your topic, and the occasion, but also on your preferences and skills as a speaker. If you know that you are a bad storyteller, you might elect not to start your speech with a story. If you tend to tell jokes that no one laughs at, avoid starting your speech off with humor.

Intro Element 2: Establish Your Credibility

Whether you are informing, persuading, or entertaining an audience, one of the things they’ll be expecting is that you know what you’re talking about or that you have some special interest in the speech topic. To do this, you will need to convey to your audience, not only what you know, but how you know what you know about your topic.

Sometimes, this will be simple. If you’re informing your audience how a baseball is thrown and you have played baseball since you were eight years old, that makes you a very credible source. In your speech, you can say something like this:

“Having played baseball for over ten years, including two years as the starting pitcher on my high school’s varsity team, I can tell you about the ways that pitchers throw different kind of balls in a baseball game.”

In another example, if you were trying to convince your audience to join Big Brothers Big Sisters and you have been volunteering for years, you could say:

“I’ve been serving with Big Brothers Big Sisters for the last two years, and I can tell you that the experience is very rewarding.”

However, sometimes you will be speaking on a topic with which you have no experience. In these cases, use your interest in the subject as your credibility. For example, imagine you are planning a speech on the history of how red, yellow, and green traffic signals came to be used in the United States. You chose that topic because you plan to major in Urban Planning. In this case you might say something like:

“As someone who has always been interested in the history of transportation, and as a future Urban Studies major, I will share with you what I’ve been learning about the invention of traffic signals in America.”

It is around the credibility statement that you can usually find the moment to introduce yourself:

“Hi, I’m Josh Cohen, a sophomore studying Psychology here at North State University. I’ve been serving with Big Brothers Big Sisters for the last two years, and I can tell you that the experience is very rewarding.”

Establishing credibility as a speaker has a broader meaning, explained in depth in the chapter “Ethics in Public Speaking.”

Intro Element 3: Establish Rapport

Credibility is about establishing the basis of your knowledge, so that the audience can trust in the reliability of what you say. Rapport is about establishing a connection with the audience, so that the audience can trust who you are. 

Rapport means the relationship or connection you make with your audience. To make a good connection, you’ll need to convey to your audience that you understand their interests, share them, and have a speech that will benefit them. Here is an example from an informative speech on the poet Lord Byron:

“You may be asking yourselves why you need to know about Lord Byron. If you take Humanities 120 as I did last semester, you’ll be discussing his life and works. After listening to my speech today, you’ll have a good basis for better learning in that course.”

In this example, the speaker connects to the audience with a shared interest and conveyed in these sentences the idea that the speaker has the best interests of the audience in mind by giving them information that would benefit them in a future course they might take.

The way that a speaker establishes connection with the audience is often by leaning in on the demographic of group affiliation.

“As college students, we all know the challenge of finding time to get our homework done.”

Intro Element 4: Preview Purpose & Central Idea

The fourth essential element of an introduction is to reveal the purpose and thesis of your speech to your audience. Have you ever come away after a speech and had no idea what the speech was about (purpose)? Have you ever sat through a speech wondering what the point was (central idea)? An introduction should provide this information from the beginning, so that the audience doesn’t have to figure it out. (If you’re still not certain what purpose and thesis are, now is good time to review this chapter).

Whether you’re writing a speech or drafting an essay, previewing is essential. Like a sign on a highway that tells. you what’s ahead, a preview is a succinct statement that reveals the content to come. The operative word here is “succinct.”  A preview statement for a short speech should be no more than two or three sentences. Consider the following example:

“In my speech today, I’m going to paint a profile of Abraham Lincoln, a man who overcame great adversity to become the President of the United States. During his time in office, he faced increasing opposition from conservative voices in government, as well as some dissension among his own party, all while being thrust into a war he didn’t want.”

Notice that this preview provides the purpose of this informative speech and its central idea of struggle. While it’s constructed from the specific purpose statement and central thesis, it presents them more smoothly, less awkwardly. Here is how purpose and thesis statements are smoothly combined in a preview:

Intro Element 5: Preview Your Main Points

Just like previewing your topic, previewing your main points helps your audience know what to expect throughout the course of your speech and prepares them to listen.

Your preview of the main points should be clear and easy to follow so that there is no question in your audience’s minds about what they are. Be succinct and simple: “Today, in my discussion of Abraham Lincoln’s life, I will look at his birth, his role a president, and his assassination.” If you want to be extra sure the audiences hears these, you can always enumerate your main points by using signposts (first, second, third, and so on): “In discussing how to make chocolate chip cookies, first we will cover what ingredients you need, second we will talk about how to mix them, and third we will look at baking them.”

Tips for Introductions

Together, these five elements of introduction prepare your audience by getting them interested in your speech (#1 attention-getter); conveying your knowledge (#2 credibility); conveying your good will (#3 rapport); letting them what you’ll be talking about and why (#4 preview topic and thesis); and finally, that to expect in the body of the speech (#5 preview of main points).  Including all five elements starts your speech off on solid ground. Here are some additional tips:

• Writers often find it best to write an introduction after the other parts of the speech are drafted.
• When selecting an attention-getting device, you want to make sure that the option you choose is appropriate to your audience and relevant to your topic.
• Avoid starting a speech by saying your name. Instead choose a good attention-getter and put your self-introduction after it.
• You cannot “wing it” on an introduction. It needs to be carefully planned. Even if you are speaking extemporaneously, consider writing out the entire introduction.
• Avoid saying the specific purpose statement, especially as first words. Instead, shape your specific purpose and thesis statement into a smooth whole.
• When speaking your introduction, avoid these common problems:
  • don’t begin to talk as you approach the platform or lectern; instead, it’s preferable to reach your destination, pause, smile, and then begin;
  • don’t just read your introduction from your notes; instead, it’s vital to establish eye contact in the introduction, so knowing it very well is important;
  • don’t talk too fast; instead, go a little slower at the beginning of your speech and speak clearly.  This will let your audience get used to your voice.

Here are two examples of a complete introduction, containing all five elements:

Example #1: “My parents knew that something was really wrong when my mom received a call from my home economics teacher saying that she needed to get to the school immediately and pick me up. This was all because of an allergy, something that everyone in this room is either vaguely or extremely familiar with. Hi, I’m Alison. I’m a physician assistant from our Student Health Center and an allergy sufferer. Allergies affect a large number of people, and three very common allergies include pet and animal allergies, seasonal allergies, and food allergies. All three of these allergies take control over certain areas of my life, as all three types affect me, starting when I was just a kid and continuing today. Because of this, I have done extensive research on the subject, and would like to share some of what I’ve learned with all of you today. Whether you just finished your first year of college, you are a new parent, or you have kids that are grown and out of the house, allergies will most likely affect everyone in this room at some point. So, it will benefit you all to know more about them, specifically the three most common sources of allergies and the most recent approaches to treating them.”

Example #2 “When winter is approaching and the days are getting darker and shorter, do you feel a dramatic reduction in energy, or do you sleep longer than usual during the fall or winter months? If you answered “yes” to either of these questions, you may be one of the millions of people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. For most people, these problems don’t cause great suffering in their life, but for an estimated six percent of the United States population these problems can result in major suffering. Hi, I’m Derrick and as a student in the registered nursing program here at State College, I became interested in SAD after learning more about it. I want to share this information with all of you in case you recognize some of these symptoms in yourself or someone you love. In order to fully understand SAD, it’s important to look at the medical definition of SAD, the symptoms of this disorder, and the measures that are commonly used to ease symptoms.”

The Three Elements of a Conclusion

Like an introduction, the conclusion has specific elements that you must incorporate in order to make it as strong as possible. Given the nature of these elements and what they do, these should be incorporated into your conclusion in the order they are presented below.

Conclusion Element 1: Signal the End

The first thing a good conclusion should do is to signal the end of a speech. You may be thinking that telling an audience that you’re about to stop speaking is a “no brainer,” but many speakers really don’t prepare their audience for the end. When a speaker just suddenly stops speaking, the audience is left confused and disappointed. Instead, you want to make sure that audiences are left knowledgeable and satisfied with your speech. In a way, it gives them time to begin mentally organizing and cataloging all the points you have made for further consideration later.

The easiest way to signal that it’s the end of your speech is to begin your conclusion with the words, “In conclusion.” Similarly, “In summary” or “To conclude” work just as well.

Conclusion Element 2: Restate Main Points

In the introduction of a speech, you delivered a preview of your main points; now in the conclusion you will deliver a review. One of the biggest differences between written and oral communication is the necessity of repetition in oral communication (the technique of “planned redundancy” again). When you preview your main points in the introduction, effectively make transitions to your main points during the body of the speech, and finally, review the main points in the conclusion, you increase the likelihood that the audience will understand and retain your main points after the speech is over.

Because you are trying to remind the audience of your main points, you want to be sure not to bring up any new material or ideas. For example, if you said, “There are several other issues related to this topic, such as…but I don’t have time for them,” that would just make the audience confused. Or, if you were giving a persuasive speech on wind energy, and you ended with “Wind energy is the energy of the future, but there are still a few problems with it, such as noise and killing lots of birds,” then you are bringing up an argument that should have been dealt with in the body of the speech.

As you progress as a public speaker, you will want to learn to rephrase your summary statement so that it doesn’t sound like an exact repeat of the preview. For example, if your preview was:

“The three arguments in favor of medical marijuana that I will present are that it would make necessary treatments available to all, it would cut down on the costs to law enforcement, and it would bring revenue to state budgets.”

Your summary might be:

“In the minutes we’ve had together, I have shown you that approving medical marijuana in our state will greatly help persons with a variety of chronic and severe conditions. Also, funds spent on law enforcement to find and convict legitimate marijuana users would go down as revenues from medical marijuana to the state budget would go up.”

Conclusion Element 3: Clinchers

The third element of your conclusion is the clincher. This is something memorable with which to conclude your speech. The clincher is sometimes referred to as a concluding device. These are the very last words you will say in your speech, so you need to make them count. It will make your speech more memorable.

In many ways the clincher is like the inverse of the attention getter. You want to start the speech off with something strong, and you want to end the speech with something strong.

To that end, like what we discussed above with attention getters, there are several common strategies you can use to make your clincher strong and memorable: quotation, question, call to action, visualizing the future, refer back to the introduction, or appeal to audience self-interest.

Quotation

As in starting a speech with a quotation, ending the speech with one allows you to summarize your main point or provoke thought.

I’ll leave you with these inspirational words by Eleanor Roosevelt: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

Some quotations will inspire your audience to action:

I urge you to sponsor a child in a developing country. Remember the words by Forest Witcraft, who said, “A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove. But the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

In this case, the quotation leaves the audience with the message that monetary sacrifices are worth making.

Question

Another way you can end a speech is to ask a rhetorical question that forces the audience to ponder an idea. Maybe you are giving a speech on the importance of the environment, so you end the speech by saying, “Think about your children’s future. What kind of world do you want them raised in? A world that is clean, vibrant, and beautiful—or one that is filled with smog, pollution, filth, and disease?” Notice that you aren’t asking the audience to answer the question verbally or nonverbally, so it’s a rhetorical question.

Call to Action

Calls to action are used specifically in persuasive speeches. It is something you want the audience to do, either immediately or in the future. If a speaker wants to see a new traffic light placed at a dangerous intersection, the clincher would be to ask all the audience members to sign a petition right then and there. For a speech about buying an electric vehicle, the clincher would ask the audience to keep in mind an electric vehicle the “next time they buy a car.”

Another kind of call to action takes the form of a challenge. In a speech on the necessity of fundraising, a speaker could conclude by challenging the audience to raise 10 percent more than their original projections. In a speech on eating more vegetables, you could challenge your audience to increase their current intake of vegetables by two portions daily. In both these challenges, audience members are being asked to go out of their way to do something different that involves effort on their part.

Visualizing the Future

The purpose of a conclusion that refers to the future is to help your audience imagine the future you believe can occur. If you are giving a speech on the development of video games for learning, you could conclude by depicting the classroom of the future where video games are perceived as true learning tools. More often, speakers use visualization of the future to depict how society or how individual listeners’ lives would be different if the audience accepts and acts on the speaker’s main idea. For example, if a speaker proposes that a solution to illiteracy is hiring more reading specialists in public schools, the speaker could ask their audience to imagine a world without illiteracy.

Refer Back to Introduction

This method provides a good sense of closure to the speech. If you started the speech with a startling statistic or fact, such as “Last year, according to the official website of the American Humane Society, four million pets were euthanized in shelters in the United States,” in the end you could say, “Remember that shocking number of four million euthanized pets? With your donation of time or money to the Northwest Georgia Rescue Shelter, you can help lower that number in our region.”

Appeal to Audience Self-Interest

The last concluding device involves a direct reference to your audience. This concluding device is used when a speaker attempts to answer the basic audience question, “What’s in it for me?” (WIIFM). The goal of this concluding device is to spell out the direct benefits a behavior or thought change has for audience members. For example, a speaker talking about stress reduction techniques could have a clincher like this: “If you want to better a better immune system, better heart health, and more happiness, all it takes are following the techniques I talked about today.”

Tips for Conclusions

In terms of the conclusions, be careful NOT to:

• signal the end multiple times. In other words, no “multiple conclusions.”
• ramble: if you signal the end, then end your speech;
• talking as you leave the platform or lectern.
• indicating with facial expression or body language that you were not happy with the speech.

Some examples of conclusions:

Conclusion Example #1: “Anxiety is a complex emotion that afflicts people of all ages and social backgrounds and is experienced uniquely by each individual. We have seen that there are multiple symptoms, causes, and remedies, all of which can often be related either directly or indirectly to cognitive behaviors. While most people don’t enjoy anxiety, it seems to be part of the universal human experience, so realize that you are not alone, but also realize that you are not powerless against it. With that said, the following quote, attributed to an anonymous source, could not be truer, ‘Worry does not relieve tomorrow of its stress; it merely empties today of its strength.’ “

Conclusion Example #2: “I believe you should adopt a rescue animal because it helps stop forms of animal cruelty, you can add a healthy companion to your home, and it’s a relatively simple process that can save a life. Each and every one of you should go to your nearest animal shelter, which may include the Catoosa Citizens for Animal Care, the Humane Society of NWGA in Dalton, the Murray County Humane Society, or the multiple other shelters in the area to bring a new animal companion into your life. I’ll leave you with a paraphrased quote from Deborah Jacobs’s article “Westminster Dog Show Junkie” on Forbes.com: ‘You may start out thinking that you are rescuing the animal, and ultimately find that the animal rescues you right back.’ “