0:03 one thing students often ask me is what
0:05 should I talk about and I always find
0:07 that interesting because then I'll say
0:10 what do you want to talk about and
0:12 sometimes people are frustrated by the
0:14 open-endedness of what they can do so
0:16 this is just a brief discussion of maybe
0:18 how you can select a topic and
0:20 guidelines for doing that so obviously
0:22 that's the first thing that you do for
0:23 this informative presentation is figure
0:25 out what is it that you're going to talk
0:27 about and I always suggest the first
0:29 thing is well what are you interested in
0:32 so you should consider topics that
0:33 interest you because if you're
0:35 interested in it you can make it
0:38 interesting for us and your enthusiasm
0:41 and interest will help the speech it
0:42 will help you in preparing it it will
0:44 help you in delivering it it will help
0:47 us in listening to it you will also want
0:49 to make sure that you can make the topic
0:51 relevant to the audience that you don't
0:53 want to be so technical that we are
0:55 saying gonna say this is over my heads I
0:57 can never understand this and I don't
1:01 want to so you don't want to do that so
1:02 you'll want to make sure that you can
1:04 always consider how is this interesting
1:07 or relevant to my audience
1:10 then finally you will want to make sure
1:12 that you find a topic that both informs
1:14 us because we've learned something new
1:17 but also that elevates us and what I
1:18 mean by that is that you do something
1:22 that creates an higher level of learning
1:25 and that just means things like don't
1:27 teach us you know how to shoplift
1:30 without getting caught don't teach us
1:32 how to cheat on an assignment or how to
1:33 take an online class where you don't
1:35 really have to take an online class that
1:37 doesn't elevate us right that that
1:39 provides us a cheat sheet and cheat
1:41 sheets are not elevating their shortcuts
1:43 so you'll want to provide information
1:46 that in fact after we hear it we say oh
1:47 I never knew that before
1:49 and that can be interesting like I never
1:52 knew that that was a cool step in making
1:54 pasta I think I could try to make my own
1:57 homemade pasta so you're elevating us
2:00 and almost encouraging us to consider
2:01 that this topic is something that is
2:05 interesting and worthy of our time so
2:07 you should never dishonor your
2:09 opportunities to speak in public or to
2:11 an audience by selecting things that are
2:15 trivial or problematic maybe unethical
2:17 or that's not really worthy of our
2:20 attention so how to tie your shoe is not
2:22 something that really elevates us
2:25 because most of us have learned that or
2:28 we don't wear shoes that I so what's
2:30 worthy of our attention and make sure
2:32 that you choose topics that in fact will
2:37 create that more knowledge goal for us
2:41 so what do I do how do I find a topic
2:43 well you can brainstorm you can
2:45 brainstorm your interests or ideas with
2:48 friends or with family you can just say
2:49 I've got to give this speech and
2:51 informative speech what are some ideas
2:55 and people can help you and ideally
2:57 you're always focusing on generating
3:00 ideas not censoring ideas because that's
3:02 what brainstorming does it helps you
3:04 create a big list of options and then
3:06 after you've got a list then you can
3:09 start to narrow and then you censor or
3:13 discard options you can also cluster the
3:16 topics into categories in what an
3:19 informative speaking assignment is I
3:21 talked about did
3:23 categories of informative speaking right
3:26 objects people places events processes
3:29 concepts so you can cluster eight
3:30 according to those categories and then
3:33 brainstorm those ideas and you can say
3:34 oh yeah I really am interested in doing
3:37 this speech on this person because I've
3:39 always been interested in as her as a
3:43 historical figure for example so those
3:45 categories can help you narrow and
3:49 therefore brainstorm some ideas um you
3:52 can google it crazy as it sounds you can
3:55 so let me just share this part of my
3:57 screen with you is to show you how I
4:01 googled it and I just typed in Oh what's
4:04 an interesting topic and here comes
4:07 random topics to talk about and then
4:09 just goes on a hiking oh yeah I did do that
4:09 that
4:12 interesting hike at the table rock this
4:14 summer I'm holidays I was always
4:16 interested in how we came to know about
4:19 Valentine's Day for example and so
4:21 there's just a hundred and one topics to
4:24 talk about you can use those and really
4:26 what Google has done for you is generate
4:29 that brainstorming that I've suggested
4:31 that you've done so that's an easy way
4:34 to come up with a list of topics and
4:36 then you can start to sort through
4:39 things that sound most interesting to
4:43 you okay so googling is a good idea
4:46 there are also many websites actually
4:49 that have lists of informative speech
4:51 topics you'll see here this is here's a
4:53 list of informative speech topics that's
4:55 what that's called it my speech class
4:58 and it lists by categories again and
4:59 then when you click on each of the
5:02 categories let's just look at psychology
5:04 then there are ten psychology
5:07 informative speech topics the meaning of
5:10 dreams for example and that works fine
5:14 for helping you generate ideas I would
5:19 like to return to this idea of using
5:21 these sites and there are lots of these
5:24 sites right that you can just go to and
5:26 find topics but I would like to offer
5:28 you a caution about those sites and
5:32 those sites can be traps as well so only
5:34 use them as brainstorming right
5:36 generative come up with ideas and then
5:39 I've got my idea and then now I'm going
5:41 to find out how to research it and move
5:45 on don't use those resources or those
5:47 topics to write your speech for you
5:50 right or to come up with how am I going
5:52 to organize the ideas just as a way to
5:56 generate your topic we know about those
5:58 sites those sites can be traps they can
6:00 be dangerous they can be shortcuts for
6:02 you that will not
6:04 of eight you or us and that will be
6:06 problems because you might overly rely
6:08 on them for your ideas rather than
6:12 relying on your own work so settle on a
6:14 topic as soon as possible
6:17 narrow it by we talk about how to narrow
6:19 it in the next lecture and make sure
6:21 that you run the topic by your
6:22 instructor what do you think will this
6:25 work and then you might be able to find
6:28 ways to help narrow that topic through
6:29 your instructor
6:31 make sure that you focus on things that
6:33 interest you that reflects your own work
6:35 that reflects issues of academic integrity
6:36 integrity
6:39 please don't take shortcuts because that
6:43 harms everybody and it does not elevate
6:45 good luck and I hope that you have fun
6:47 because this can be a really fun assignment
