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1.6 Construct and deliver an oral text

The writing process

An oral presentation is when you deliver the written word, making it come alive for the audience. The following guide focuses on speech writing and follows a series of steps very similar to that of creative and formal writing:

1. Understand the purpose and the task.
2. Brainstorm ideas – choosing a topic.
3. Organise ideas.
4. Write your speech.
5. Edit for structure, ideas, and language techniques.

These notes will help you with the writing process:

1. Understand the task

   Try underlining keywords in the instructions and the task before you start writing. The purpose will be influenced by the task and the audience.

   The following chart shows how asking to borrow the car sounds different depending the purpose.

   Purpose	Example	How achieved in example
   To inform – give information and facts.	I'm using the car tomorrow afternoon.	Simple statement of fact.
   To entertain – use humour to get message across.	Because I'm such a bad driver I need the car tomorrow to practise my driving. Yeah, right!	Exaggeration of the truth and use of a popular saying.
   To persuade – to convince or influence someone's opinion.	You won't regret lending me the car. I'll wash it and return it better than new. I'm clean, tidy, and careful.	Gives reasons as to how the owner can benefit.
   To convey emotion – to share an experience on a personal level.	Oh pleeeaase can I borrow the car? Please, please, please.	Emphasis on the word please to show desperation.

   For more detail on purpose see:

   • Persuasive speech
   • Writing to argue, persuade, instruct
2. Brainstorm relevant ideas – choosing a topic

   This is how you record all of your initial thoughts and ideas to help you select an approach to the topic. It is important to spend time thinking about all the possibilities and to think your ideas through before you begin the writing process. A good topic or idea is one that you have a lot to say about and can add carefully chosen accurate detail.

   See:

   • What is brainstorming?
   • Making a Mind Map
3. Organise ideas into a logical order

   Your initial brainstorming may need to have some ideas researched or discussed before putting them into a logical and interesting order, to give your speech an overall structure.

   See 1.5 formal writing for some ideas on possible structures

   Look at your introduction and conclusion
   Having an effective introduction will encourage your audience to listen to your speech, help to set the tone and to introduce the main idea and/or opinion. Try using some of the following techniques to grab their attention from the start: rhetorical question, anecdote, singing, role play, or gesture.

   A conclusion is more than just repeating the introduction, it should tie any lose ends together and leave a clear message with the listener. A strong conclusion will challenge the audience to think beyond the limits of the topic and may offer solutions, or recommendations.

   It is important to write your speech in paragraphs so that appropriate ideas are grouped together and linked to guide the audience to your next point without confusion. For help with the overall structure of your speech see Speech preparation.

   Using a variety of sentence structures will help to add interest and emphasis to important ideas. Often parallel sentence structure (repetition of some words, patterns of language) is used to get the point across in a persuasive and memorable way. See the web page Repetition: patterns of three or four for an explanation. Contrasting ideas is another effective way to make a point.

4. Write your speech out in full so you know how it will sound on the day.
5. Edit carefully so you have a speech that has covered all your main points and has a clear structure.

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