Communication Assessment & Learning Lab
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Top 10 Things to Remember When Delivering a How-To Speech

• Analyze your audience.  This is the first thing you should do before preparing or giving your speech.  The topic, the delivery method, and the closing, should all be prepared upon the type of audience you are addressing.

• Choose a topic that you are familiar with.  A how-to speech is an instructional speech (you are showing the audience how to do something).  As the speaker, it will be helpful if you are comfortable in showing the audience how to make or do something.

• Make sure you evaluate the room you are delivering your speech in.  For example, if your speech is planning to demonstrate how to cook your favorite recipe, make sure that the room has electrical outlets accessible at the place in the room where you will be standing.  Should you need to hang a poster or other type of visual aide, make sure that there are thumb tacks or clips available on the black board.

• Deliver a catchy attention getter (sometimes referred to as an opening statement) in your speech.  Make the audience want to learn how to do whatever it is that you are talking about.

• Have some form of visual aide for your audience to refer too.  For example, if you are preparing food, you should come prepared not only with ingredients to make your recipe, but also come with a printed version of the recipe to hand out to your audience.

• Make eye contact with your audience throughout the speech.  This will keep the audience attentive to your topic through the delivery of your speech.

• Clearly walk the audience through each step of the process during your how-to speech. 

•  Delegate a classmate to be the one to hand out your visual aid towards the END of your speech (i.e.:  a copy of a recipe).

• End speech by recapping your topic and closing with a catchy phrase.  Tell the audience some of the benefits in learning how to complete the task you just taught them.   

• Most importantly, HAVE FUN!