• Part 1 symbol pink circle
    getting started
  • Part 2 symbol blue triangle
    fundamentals
  • Part 3 symbol green square
    content
  • Part 4 symbol purple triangle
    delivery
  • Part 5 symbol three blue circles
    engaging your audience
  • Part 6 symbol orange asterisk
    speaking to inform
  • Part 7 symbol pink diamond
    speaking to persuade
  • Part 8 symbol green star
    speaking occasions

Narrow the Scope of Your Topic

There’s an old saying: “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.” For presentations, the saying should be: “Don’t say more than your audience can digest.” If a topic is too broad, you’ll bury your listeners under mounds of information. If you had time to tell them just one thing about your topic, what would it be? Often, conveying a single important idea is enough to achieve a worthy purpose.

Here are a few examples of general topic areas that have been narrowed down into better-defined topics:

✗TOO BROAD:

The history of hip-hop

✓BETTER:

Grandmaster Flash and the development of quick-mix theory, punch phrasing, and scratching in early hip-hop

✗TOO BROAD:

A review of Greek mythology

✓BETTER:

The origins of the Greek goddess Aphrodite

✗TOO BROAD:

The effects of global climate change

✓BETTER:

The “death” of the Great Barrier Reef

✗TOO BROAD:

Graphic narratives

✓BETTER:

The power of graphic novels: Maus and Fun Home

Once you’ve narrowed your topic to a manageable scope, you should be able to further develop and refine your PURPOSE STATEMENT Part 2 symbol blue triangle (115–17) into a single sentence.

START YOUR RESEARCH NOW

The time to start DOING RESEARCH Part 3 symbol green square (139–43) is now—that is, as soon as you select and narrow your topic for a particular rhetorical situation. In most cases, doing research early will help you sharpen the scope and purpose of a presentation on a particular topic. In some situations, it may even point you toward a better topic. It will also help you find useful and appropriate SUPPORTING MATERIAL Part 3 symbol green square (135–39) for a more narrowly focused topic.

In some cases, if you have extensive knowledge about a topic, or have thoroughly researched it for some other assignment, doing research may simply be a matter of reviewing what you know about the subject and selecting and ORGANIZING Part 3 symbol green square (152–70) the information you need to support your presentation’s purpose.