Discovery Quest

How to Begin Your Speech

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Your Discovery Quest presentation should start with an interesting beginning and end with a nice conclusion. The first paragraph of your speech should start with something to capture everyone's interest. Then you should restate your topic, and tell where you got your information.

Grabbers

When you are delivering a speech, your first line should "grab" your audience's attention.  The grabber is what you use when you want to "grab" your audience's attention.  Here are some examples of grabbers:

Give a startling or interesting fact...

Did you know that most sharks get a new set of teeth every two weeks?  That means that in only ten years a tiger shark could use up to 24,000 teeth!!  Imagine how much money the tooth fairy would have to bring you if you were a shark?!  Today I'm going to tell you a little bit about sharks.  I found out about these fascinating creatures by reading Sharks by Ann McGovern.

Start with a fun sound...

Daa, dun...daa, dun...daa, dun, daa, dun...Ahhhhhh!  Nearly everyone knows the theme music to the classic film "Jaws."  During my discovery quest today I'm going to tell you why sharks are so misunderstood.  I did not get my information from the movie. After all, it's make-believe!  Instead, I went to www.shark.com and found out all kinds of really neat things...

Begin your speech with a question...

How many of you have ever been swimming in the ocean?  Were you nervous?  It's ok, be honest!  Chances are you were a bit squeamish about running into a shark.  Today during my discovery quest I'm going to tell you why you probably didn't have to worry.  I interviewed my Uncle Bobby who is a marine biologist and he told me...

Start with a bit of dialog...

"Whoa, MOM!! Look!! Is that a shark fin?"  At the beach this summer, I was constantly asking my mom if the harmless dolphins swimming off shore were sharks.  For my discovery quest I decided to get to the bottom of my questions about sharks.  I went to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and wrote down some things I learned while I was there...

I hope you noticed a couple of things:

I never started my speech by saying, "Today I'm going to tell you about sharks."

I never just started talking. I always introduced my topic to the audience.

After I delivered my grabber, I restated the topic and I told where the information came from.