If you have ever told your parents about your daytime at school, or if you have explained to a friend how to cook chicken noodle soup, you already have practice giving an informative speech. An informative speech can be used to tell people about something you are interested in or to explain how to arrange something. If that sounds elementary, it's because it is. Simply pick your topic and make sure you know what you are speaking about.

Steps:

Choose a topic. Unless you are writing your speech for a school assignment, you probably already know what your subject is. If you're writing your speech for school, still, a good rule is to choose something you know a lot about; this will require the minimal amount of research. Alternatively, you may want to choose a topic you're really interested in, so you can research it and discover it. Keep in mind, informative speeches just inform people. You better don't choose a topic that will require you to build your speech on your opinion: that's for a persuasive speech.

Narrow down your topic. If your speech is restricted to five minutes, you don't have plenty of time to tell people everything about the history of invention or to explain how to build a car. You may, however, be capable of telling people about the history of the zipper or how to take apart a carburator. You should be able to thoroughly cover your topic in the time allowed.

Develop your thesis. Your thesis should be a summary of what the speech is about, a phrase that describes your topic. For example, "I am going to explain how to take apart a carburator," or "In this speech you'll discover how the zipper came to be" might be good thesis.

Do your research. If there's one formula to writing an informative speech it's this: know your topic. If you're writing about something you know good, you may not want to do much, if any, research. Otherwise, hit the ebooks, and study as much as possible about your subject. Take notes of crucial information as you go along.

Consider your audience. In general, unless your designation says otherwise, it might be a nice idea to assume your audience knows nothing about your topic. With this in mind, you may want to give a lot of background information and be careful about what shortcuts you bring in explaining your subject. If, however, you are having your speech on carburators to a group of auto mechanics, you don't need to give a lot of information, because they already know the subject fine.

Outline your speech. Write a listing of the info you think better be included. Arrange the list in logical order. If you are telling people how to do something, your outline might look alike the bolded first sentences. Keep in mind you want everyone listening to leave with at least one piece of information they didn't know.

Write an introduction. Your first appearance should grab the audience's attention, maybe with a funny anecdote or an interesting citation relevant to your topic. Then you ought to proceed to give your thesis statement, and then, if it is a long or complicated speech, provide your audience with a roadmap.

Expand your outline to create the body of the speech. Go through all key points on your outline and it.

Write your conclusion. A conclusion should rapidly summarise the primary points of the speech. Ideally, your ending should refer back to the introduction in some way--this shows the speech is cohesive and tells the audience that you have come full circle.

Time your speech. If you have been given a time limit, practice your speech - out loud - and time it. Cut down unneeded material if your speech is too long. Unless your assignment says differently, do not worry if the speech is short of the time limitation. The speech should be just long enough to cover the material thoroughly.

Tips:

Your outline is meant to be a guide to help you organize your speech, but it's not set in stone. As you fill in the details to actually write your speech, you may find that some points in your outline are unnecessary or out of order. Feel free to add, delete, and edit steps to make sense.

Be sure to edit and exercise your speech to make sure everything goes swimmingly once you deliver it to your audience.

If you have trouble thinking of a topic for your speech, search the internet for topics. There are sites with lists of potential topics.

Stick to the facts. Keep in mind, you are not attempting to persuade people to accept an opinion. You are just informing them.

Do not speak too quick; give people a chance to take in the information you are giving them.

Speak loud enough for the audience to hear you.

Speech Topics - http://www.bragar.net/ A weblog offering tips on how to prepare and give a speech