Creating the speech objective

Identifying your objective is the first step in structuring and stating your main ideas in a clear and coherent manner. If you are not clear about the objective, you may find yourself having to include many ideas that do not make sense or are not connected to each other.

To identify the objective, you must take into account what you need to communicate and who you are addressing. For example, giving a speech to young people and teenagers is not the same as giving a speech to senior executives.

In both cases, the objective and the structure of the speech may change. A good speaker must internalize this approach in order to be able to intervene or convince others effectively.

Elaborate the objective: In elaborating our objective, we will do so in a similar way to how a teacher drafts his or her lesson plan. We will consider the following:

• What do we want to achieve?

• What are the benefits of the objective?

• What is the educational potential that can be achieved?

To achieve our main objective, we will choose the most appropriate function from the following options:

• Entertain.

• To inform.

• Persuade.

Functions: The functions of discourse can be explained as follows:

• Entertain: This function seeks to provide amusement and pleasure to the audience. The aim is to keep the viewer attentive and distract him/her from everyday concerns. Humorists often use this function to provide content that leads to reflection and reasoning.

• Inform: This function involves objective and honest analysis of a particular topic. It is used in presentations by experts on a topic, in talks by opinion leaders or in news programs. The objective is to inform the population about a specific topic, such as a recent scientific breakthrough.

• Persuade: This function seeks to convince the public about a particular idea, attitude or action. The objective is to get the public to adopt new ideas through the ability to convey information in a convincing manner.

This function is used when the objective is not only to inform about an event, but to convince the public of the importance of an issue or activity in their lives.

Writing the objective: Let's imagine that the task at hand is to give a keynote speech for a sports project. Our objective will be to convince or motivate the public to make use of the facilities. To achieve this, we must choose actions aimed at motivating those present.

The first step is to define the objective: "to encourage". Then, we must consider to whom the speech is addressed: is it for all ages or is there a limit? After reflecting on this, we can emphasize who will benefit from the project. For example: "To encourage adolescents and young people to use and enjoy sports facilities".

The first step in formulating the objective of this sports project is to define the key verb: 'encourage'. Secondly, it is necessary to establish a framework for action to determine what the creation of this sports project is intended to achieve. What is its purpose? Why is it important for young people to exercise?

Putting these premises together, the final objective would be formulated as follows: 'To encourage adolescents and young people to make use and enjoy sports facilities to improve their health, and to participate in competitions at national and international level representing the country'.

Summary of the objective: Once we have defined the objective, we can summarize it to make it clearer and more concise. To do this, we should keep the key verb, the target audience and the specific purpose in a single line.

In this way, we make the objective easier to understand and relate to other topics. A possible restructuring of the objective would be: 'Encourage young people to use sports facilities to improve their health and represent the country in competitions'.

Ideas: The intention now is to encourage reflection in our listeners. This is achieved by leaving on air questions that require meditation, once they return home. In this case, we seek to demonstrate:

• In what way or under what conditions can this center improve the training of young people to compete?

• Do young people have the necessary physical capacity to start a competition?

• Is there a relationship between promoting competition and encouraging healthy physical activity?