What is the general purpose of your speech to inform to persuade or entertain?

Before you carry on with this article, first read its preceding article: Speech Basics 1: The General Purpose

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Gathua Muigai PHRi
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What is the general purpose of your speech to inform to persuade or to entertain?
What is the purpose of each speech to persuade?
What is the general purpose of this speech what is its specific purpose?
What is the purpose of the speech to inform?

A quick recap reads that the general purpose of a speech serves one of these four major purposes: To inform, to persuade, to entertain, to inspire. In this article, we shall delve into why a general purpose needs to be specified further, and look at a set of criteria that will help us do so effectively.

Suppose you are planning to deliver an informative speech about having female representation at the board level. This is a very broad purpose, and you will most probably have difficulty addressing the topic because it can move in any direction. For example you could choose to focus on the importance of female representation, cost-benefit analysis of the same...the canvas is pretty blank in this regard.

The specific purpose narrows down the general purpose (whether it be to inform, persuade, entertain, or inspire) into a speech that is more practical and manageable for you the speaker, and more beneficial for your audience. It does so by providing a one sentence statement about what you hope to accomplish in your speech. At Toastmasters, we believe a well crafted specific purpose should meet the following criteria:

It should be worded from the audience's viewpoint- What do you want the audience to do after listening to your speech?

When writing the one- sentence statement from the audience's viewpoint, instead of saying your purpose is to "inform the board about female representation", you could say, "After hearing my presentation, the board will be able to identify three reasons why having female representation at the board level will help them achieve the triple bottom line"

Specific- Your goal should be clear; not vague.

If you want to know if your speech has a specific specific purpose (that is not a typo), ask yourself: Is it possible for me to actually test the audience to see if I have achieved my specific purpose? To ensure you answer to the affirmative on this, ensure you pay careful attention to the verbs you use on your one sentence statement. For an informative speech, words such as compare, identify, name, prepare, and list are more precise than using words such as know, understand, recognize, and be aware. In our above example we have been specific about the three reasons that our audience should identify by the end of our presentation. If we were to test the success of our presentation, we could easily ask a member of the audience to identify "three reasons". Do you now understand why keeping your specific purpose as specific as possible is important?

Attainable- The specific purpose should be achievable.

Depending on the duration of your speech and other factors such as the allocated time, concentration span of your audience, and location (in some cases), it is important to ensure your specific purpose will be well delivered. These factors will dictate how long you will spend on stage, the props that will best support your message, and the number of supporting points to include in your speech.

This criteria applies across all the different general purpose speeches listed above, but in the interest of my reader's time constraints, I have focused on just the "to inform" general purpose. The only difference compared with other general purposes would be the verbs used in crafting a specific purpose. For example, for a persuasive speech, specific verbs could include: buy, contribute, join, offer, vote for.

I would now love to hear from you, by responding to this trivia question: What verbs do you think could be an appropriate fit the specific purpose of an entertaining speech? On the comment section, craft your response as follows: "At the end of / during my entertaining presentation, the audience..."

Gathua Muigai PHRi

Recruitment and Communications enthusiast | Recruiting talent to end hunger

Published Mar 4, 2020

(Reference is made to the preceding article Speech Basics: Thought Organization where you will learn about the five part tool aimed at helping you better organize your thoughts for speech/presentation delivery.)

You have received an invite to speak at an event, a meeting, or lead a panel discussion with a desired objective in mind. You understand how important the discussion is for your organization; and your boss has communicated that the company seeks a favorable outcome from the stakeholders (no pressure, of-course). How will you go about it?

(Enters General Purpose.)

The general purpose discloses the broad intention of your speech or presentation (panel discussions, training, name it). According to Toastmasters, a lot of presentations fall under the following four general purpose categories:To inform, To persuade, To entertain, To inspire.

To inform: You shall adopt this approach if you are creating awareness about your topic or if you want your audience to learn something new. Most training endeavors fall under this category. Other types of communication that settle well in this category: brand discussions, briefings, and lectures.
To persuade: If you seek to convince your audience to adopt a new attitude or perspective on a particular subject, then you deliver a persuasive speech. Sales pitches, campaign pitches settle well in this category.
To entertain: I don't think an entertainment speech could be appropriate for a corporate setting but can be useful in social settings where you want your audience to laugh through your presentation, while subtly soaking in the message contained in the humor. However, when it comes to the office setting, you can always make your speeches entertaining by adding anecdotes without making them laugh-out-loud speeches.
To inspire: These speeches ask your audience to achieve noble goals or to live to their maximum potential (I believe a lot of us have been exposed to a motivational speaker who pepped us to achieve more). When you need to inspire your team to hit those sales targets, you are looking at a presentation that falls under this category.

Your speech's desired end determines your speech purpose. It is important to get it right at this point. For example you don't want to embark on inspiring customers to test a particular product/ Also, try as much as you can to develop your presentation or speech along one general objective. If you straddle along two, you may end up missing the mark on both, leaving your audience feeling under-served.

Next Wednesday, we shall look at how to define specific purposes from each of these four general purposes.

Your speech is starting to take shape.

(Feel free to leave questions and comments on the comment section on communication topics you would want me to discuss. I will schedule them for discussion. Also, if you need help with your communication project, I invite you to reach out via Messaging or comment section below)

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What is the general purpose of your speech to inform to persuade or to entertain?

The final general purpose people can have for public speaking is to entertain. Whereas informative and persuasive speech making is focused on the end result of the speech process, entertainment speaking is focused on the theme and occasion of the speech.

What is the purpose of each speech to persuade?

A persuasive speech is a type of speech where the goal is to convince the audience to accept the speaker's point of view or perform a desired action. The speaker uses words and visuals to guide the audience's thoughts and actions.

What is the general purpose of this speech what is its specific purpose?

The general purpose refers to the broad goal for creating and delivering the speech. The specific purpose, on the other hand, starts with one of those broad goals and then further informs the listener about the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the speech.

What is the purpose of the speech to inform?

The speech to inform people provides them a clear understanding of the speaker's ideas on a subject. It also arouses interest in the subject because the material which is presented is relevant to the lives of those who hear it.