To be an effective public speaker, you need knowledge, preparation, and delivery. It is important that everything you do as a public speaker is rooted in knowledge because practicing skill without knowledge is a fruitless endeavor.

After knowledge, preparation is the second major component of effective public speaking. Whenever you are scheduled to make a speech it is important to find a topic that interests you. Begin your search by making a personal inventory and consult newspapers, books, magazines, interviews with others, and indices to magazines and journals, along with the Internet.

Narrow your topic by brainstorming narrower aspects, writing down those ideas, then asking which ones will be of interest to and understood by your audience. Consider also what your assignment requires and how long you have to cover your topic.

Every speech should have a general purpose, a specific purpose, and a central idea. The general purpose relates to whether the speech is informative or persuasive. The specific purpose focuses on what you want to inform or persuade your audience about—or what you want your listeners to achieve as a result of your effort. The central idea captures the main idea of the speech—the specific idea you want listeners to retain after your speech.

Audience analysis is the process of finding out what your listeners know about your subject, what they might be interested in, what their attitudes and beliefs are, and what kinds of people are likely to be present. Useful demographic information about your audience includes age, gender, education, occupation, race/nationality/ethnic origin, geographic location, and group affiliations.

Analysis of the occasion should accompany your assessment of the audience. Time involves the time frame for the speech, time of day, and the length of time of your speech. Place refers to the physical stage for your speech and your interaction with your listeners. Channel is the route traveled by your signal as it moves from one location to another. Purpose refers to your specific purpose, that statement that tells precisely what you want to accomplish.

When you are putting together material for your speech, you should consider drawing on four areas: your personal experience and observations, interviews with others, the library, and the Internet. Always evaluate the quality of Internet information on the basis of reliability, authority, currency, objectivity, validity, and your own intuition.

Supporting material includes comparisons, contrasts, definitions, examples, statistics, testimony, and polls. Once you have gathered all your supporting material, you need to spend time pondering what you've uncovered.

The Internet has increased the research burden that falls on speakers' shoulders because of the amount of information available and the need to evaluate it. Speakers are a crucial ethical and judgmental link between their Internet information and their listeners.