You can`t hope to solve the world`s problems in one speech, so don`t even try. At the same time, you also want to make sure that you stick to a specific goal. Chances are it`s hard enough to educate your audience on a topic or convince them to change their behavior or opinion. Don`t stress yourself out by adding topics. If you use the word „and“ in your specific topic statement, you`re probably doubling down on the topics. Keeping these three entries in mind can help you start writing a specific purpose statement, which is the basis of everything you say in the speech and a guide to what you don`t say. This formula will help you develop your specific goal description: Writing your thesis/central idea is a four-step process: Another way in which purpose statements are sometimes unclear comes from the use of colloquial language. Although we often use colloquial expressions in everyday life, they are often only understood by a limited number of people. It may sound fun to have a specific goal like „convince my audience to tremble,“ but if you declare that this is your goal, many people probably won`t even know what you`re talking about.
By focusing on a very specific topic, you begin to formulate your purpose statement. In short, a goal clearly shows what you want to achieve. Statements of intent are particularly useful to guide you in preparing your speech. When deciding which main points, facts, and examples to include, you simply need to ask yourself if they are not only relevant to the topic you have chosen, but also whether they support the purpose you have described in your statement of intent. The overall message of a speech can be to inform, persuade, celebrate or entertain. Therefore, it is common to formulate a particular objective statement around one of these objectives. According to O`Hair, Stewart, and Rubenstein, a specific purpose statement „expresses both the theme and the overall purpose of the speech in the form of action and in relation to the specific goals you hope to achieve“ (2004). For example, the home design enthusiast could write the following specific purpose statement: At the end of my speech, the audience will learn about the pros and cons of turning houses over. In short, the general statement states the broader purpose of the speech, while the specific statement of intent describes exactly what the speech is intended to do. Some of your instructors may ask you to include the general goal and add the specific goal.
Now, when we talk about concrete goals, we are talking about who, what, when, where, why and how you ask questions for your speech. Let`s look at each of them separately. First, you want to know who will be in your audience. Different target groups, as discussed in the chapter on audience analysis, have different wants, backgrounds and needs. Keeping your audience in mind first and foremost when choosing a specific goal increases the likelihood that your audience will find your speech meaningful. For this example, we used the same general domain, but we showed how you can easily turn the topic into an informative speech or a persuasive speech. In the first example, the speaker will talk about the danger faced by journalists on board. In this case, the speaker is not trying to change people`s ideas about embedded journalists, but only to make them aware of the dangers. In the second case, the specific objective is to convince a group of journalism students (the public) to avoid the jobs of embedded journalists. In this example, we quickly narrowed a topic from a more general topic to a more specific topic. Let us now consider this topic in terms of general purpose and specific purpose: the general purpose of any speech will be either to inform; motivate/persuade; or entertain your audience. Once you know the overall purpose of your speech, you can develop your specific purpose statement (what the speaker will achieve).
Your specific purpose statement will be used to develop your speech. You don`t really say that in your speech. Limit your specific goal to a single idea. In speech 151 for informative speech, your overall goal is to inform. For an informative speech, include your specific statement of intent with „I will inform my audience about.. begin. A specific purpose statement for an informative speech is formulated in the same way as the following statements.