Informative Speeches: Definition, Examples, Objectives
Informative Speech Definition
In an informative speech, your goal as a speaker can be:
- to provide your audience with information about a topic they are unfamiliar with – OR –
- to provide more information about a topic with which they are already familiar.
This distinction is important because the key to a successful informative speech is to understand how much your audience already knows about the topic in question. Informative speeches must be carefully calibrated to the audience’s level of understanding.
Examples of Informative Speeches
Shae is the assistant manager at a coffee shop near the campus where she is going to school part-time to complete her bachelor’s degree in Marketing. She has been asked by the store’s manager to train all the employees on a new line of iced coffees that the store will be selling for the summer season. The store’s manager schedules the training Shae will lead for an all-staff meeting.
Shae is anxious because this is the first time she has had to present information like this to the entire staff. She decides to start by explaining why the new iced coffee is being introduced, then demonstrate the steps involved in making it for the customer, after which she’ll pass around samples to all the employees and ask them for feedback on what they think about the new coffee and how to sell it to customers.
The training goes well and the employees appear enthused about the new product. Shea is relieved and her manager tells her she did a great job and says, “Would you like to do more trainings in the future?”
Shae’s presentation is an example of what is called informative speaking. When you explain how to do something to an audience or educate them about new information, you are engaged in informative speaking.
A lecture given by a teacher in a college class is an example of an informative speech. A manager in a retail store giving a presentation to her staff about how to explain a new product line to customers is an example of an informative speech. A software trainer explaining to an audience how to use a new software product is an example of an informative speech.
You probably are called on to present information to an audience more often than you realize.
In the following example of an informative speech, sound and communication expert Julian Treasure outlines “The Four Ways Sound Affects Us.”
You can view the transcript for “Julian Treasure: The 4 ways sound affects us” here (opens in new window).
Here is the video with accurate captions: TED 1 The 4 ways sound affects us (opens in new window).
What to watch for:
As we might expect, Treasure weaves sound into his speech extremely cleverly. His demonstrations of relaxing versus annoying sounds, for instance, illustrate his points far more effectively than simply stating his argument outright. Demonstrations, which allow the audience to experience directly the effect you’re talking about, can be a great way to make your informative speech compelling and memorable.
Informative Speech Objectives
Even if you have never delivered a formal informative speech, you have likely given informative presentations to other people. Some objectives for giving an informative presentation might be explaining, teaching, or describing. For example, think about a time when you were asked to explain a concept or idea, describe an event, explain how a process works, or teach someone to do something. In each of those cases, you were providing information to an audience.
In order to accomplish these objectives, when you develop and deliver an informative speech, you want to make sure the information you’re presenting is communicated:
- accurately
- clearly, using language the audience will understand
- meaningfully, in such a way that the audience understands why the information is relevant to them
There is one objective you are not trying to achieve when you give an informative speech: persuasion. When you speak to inform, your purpose is to help your audience better understand the topic you are speaking about; you are not advocating that the audience change their beliefs or their behaviors. When a speaker tries to convince someone to change a belief or motivate them to take a particular action, they are engaged in persuasive rather than informative speaking.
The overall objective of an informative speech, whether formal or informal, is to explain in a way that your audience understands. Informative speeches require planning, preparation, and practice to meet this objective.
The most important thing to remember is that an informative speech is a speech to inform your audience, not to demonstrate your own knowledge. Whether the speech is about a process, an event, a person, or even yourself, the question you need to ask is, how can this information benefit my audience?
This video provides a good overview of informative speaking.
