Keep Your Audience Interested With These Informative Speech Topic Ideas

An informative speech is a presentation you give in front of an audience with the purpose of educating others about a specific topic. At first, this may seem a bit dull. In reality, if your topic is interesting, you are an engaging speaker, and you find a topic that interests you, it’s possible for you to deliver a very interesting informative speech.

If you need further proof of this, hit YouTube and watch Ted Talks for awhile. Chances are, you’ll find yourself going down a bit of an internet rabbit hole with these. They’re very interesting, and a good number of them are informative speeches.

The Purpose of an Informative Speech

The informative speech is different from other speeches in that it isn’t intended to get the audience to take any action. Some speeches are given to persuade people to believe a certain way, or to do something as a result of what they have been told. With an informative speech your goal is to educate your audience, to keep them engaged and interested in your speech, and to ensure that they remember what you’ve told them.

If you have a college level speech writing assignment, the best way forward is to find a great topic idea, and to an excellent public speaker. We can’t help you much with the second part, but we can suggest some really great topic ideas.

Sports And Fitness Topics

Sports, health, fitness, and well being are topics that are important to many people. Consider covering one of these interesting topics if this is an area where you have expertise to share.

1. What is Intermittent Fasting And How Does it Impact The Body?
2. Is One Meal a Day a Healthy Plan?
3. How Does Keto Work?

This wildly popular diet has helped many people meet their fitness goals. Explain the process of eating Keto, and how it impacts weight loss.

4. What is The Impact of Exercise on Weight Loss?
5. The Physics of Hitting a Baseball

6. What is Tommy John Surgery?

7. How do Athletes Come Back After Severe Injuries?

8. How Does Sugar Impact Your Body?

Is sure addiction a real thing? How bad is sugar? Give an explainer speech on the effects sugar has in the minutes and hours after you eat it.

9. How Does Obesity Impact Your Joints

10. Explain High Intensity Training

11. What Happens When You Eat Too Much Sugar?

12. What is Burst Training?

13. What is The Difference Between Cardio And Weight Training?

14. How Does a Low Fat Diet Work?

15. Are All Performance Enhancing Drugs Bad?

16. How Does NCAA Eligibility Work?

17. Should College Athletes Get Paid?

18. What Behaviors Can Make College Athletes Ineligible?

19. Why Are Professional Athletes Allowed to Play in The Olympics?

20. What Exactly Happened at USA Gymnastics

21. How Can Parents Protect Their Child Athlete?

22. What is The Difference Between The Different Protein Powders on The Market?

23. How do Growth Hormones Impact Athletic Performance?

24. Why are Steroids Banned?

Political Topics

Politics and current events are always interesting to people. They’re also nearly always a good choice for an academic environment. Here are a few examples of these.

25. Explain Brexit And Its Potential Impacts on The Rest of The World

The people of Britain voted to leave the EU. How did this come to be, and how will it affect other nations in the EU and elsewhere?

26. Provide Information About The Paris Treaty

27. What is a Dreamer?

28. How do Tariffs Work?

29. What is Universal Basic Income?

Some people believe that a universal basic income will become necessary in the near future. Give a speech explaining how UBI works, and detailing the reasons why some people think it’s inevitable.

30. Explain The Relationship Between North And South Korea?

31. Describe a Challenge Faced by Your Local Government

32. How does the electoral college work?

33. What is the difference between Parliament and Congress

34. What do Cabinet Members do?

35. What is a Trade War?

36. How Did The Cold War Impact The United States And The Soviet Union?

Humorous Topics

Not all topics have to be serious. If you’ve watched the above mentioned Ted Talks, you know that  humor is often used to make speeches more effective. It’s also perfectly fine to use humor as an element in your speeches. This can help you keep the audience’s attention a bit better, and make your speech more enjoyable for all.

37. Weird And Wacky Facts About The Human Body
38. Craziest Kings And Queens Throughout Time
39. The Stories Behind Your Favorite Memes

Chances are at least some of your classmates are fans of this contemporary form of expression and humor. Some memes are completely fictional, but others have an interesting story behind them. Entertain your class and earn a good grade by delivering an informative speech about memes.

40. The Science of Telling a Lie

41. Insignificant Events That Changed History

42. Odd Habits of Old Presidents

43. How to Tell a Joke

44. What is a Dad Joke Anyway?

Social Issues

Sadly, every culture is impacted by poverty, violence, pollution, and oppression. Your assignment could be your chance to educate people on a pressing issue that impacts many people.

45. The Impact of Lack of Clean Water on Society
46. Gun Violence Statistics Across Multiple Nations
47. How Poverty Impacts Healthcare Delivery

Poverty doesn’t just leave many people without insurance, it also impacts the ability of healthcare providers to deliver services. Lack of community resources, and the inability to draw healthcare providers to impoverished areas  means that fewer people get the care they need. Write a speech that explain healthcare delivery, then explain how poverty up ends models that work elsewhere.

48. Explain a Government Program Related to Opiate Addiction

49. What is The Wage Gap?

50. How Does The Food Stamp Program Help Americans?

51. Do Undocumented Immigrants Receive Welfare Benefits?

52. How Does Child Support Work?

53. How Can Disabled People Find Resources?

54. What Are my Rights as an Unemployed Person?

55. How Can I Collect Child Support?

56. Can Felons Receive TANF?

57. What is Work For Welfare?

58. Can I go to School And Receive Benefits?

59. What Does a Caseworker Do?

Legal Topics

60. Do Students Have Legal Rights When They’re in School?

61. When Can You Refuse a Search?

62. How Can a Convicted Felon Regain Their Voting Rights?

63. What Are Your Rights When You Get Pulled Over?

64. Who Can Use Medical Marijuana?

Many states have passed medical marijuana legislation, but what does that mean? In some cases use of limited to people with very serious, even fatal, illnesses. In other states, nearly anyone can get a prescription card. Explain what it takes to become a medical marijuana patient based on the laws in several states.

65. How do Plea Bargains Work?

66. When Can a Judge be Recalled?

67. What is Tort Reform?

68. What is Excessive Force?

69. How will a Defense Attorney Protect You?

70. When Should You Invoke The Fifth Amendment

71. What Are Punitive Damages?

72. What Should You do if Your Are Sued?

73. How do You Sue Someone in Small Claims Court?

74. What Happens if Your Employer Violates Labor Laws?

75. How does Bond Work?

Business Topics

76. How do You Make a Website?

77. What is an S Corp?

78. What is a Partnership?

79. How do Businesses Pay Taxes?

80. How Does Payroll Work?

81. What is Content Marketing?

82. How do I Know if I Needs Workmen’s Comp?

83. How do I Handle an Accusation of Sexual Harassment at my Business?

84. What Licenses do I Need to Open a Business?

85. How do I Market my Business on Social Media?

86. How Should I Handle Customer Complaints?

87. Can The SBA Help Me?

88. Does my Business Need an App?

Literary And Creative

89. How do I Write my First Novel?

90. Should I Self Publish?

91. How do I Sell my Book on Amazon?

92. Where Can I Earn Money From my Poetry?

93. How do I Use Canva?

94. How do I Sell my Art on Etsy?

95. What Does it Take to be Creative?

96. Finding The Perfect Art School

97. Mastering a Musical Instrument as an Adult

98. The Work of a Museum Curator

99. An Overview of The Different Styles of Dance

100. The Art of Auditioning

Visual Aids For Your Speech

Should you use visual aids during your informative speech? That depends. If your instructor allows it, and you have time, maybe. If there are images that help you drive home your lesson, or if you would benefit from a whiteboard, these things can help you deliver a more impactful speech. Just be careful about using a prop to ‘hide behind’ or to use as a gimmick.

Getting Ready For Your Big Moment

It’s perfectly natural to feel nervous about giving a speech, even if it is in front of a small group. However, you can reduce your nerves quite a bit if you are well-rehearsed. Go over your speech frequently. If you can nearly deliver the whole thing without referring to your notes, that’s perfect. You’ll deliver a speech much more naturally than you would if you have to read from your notecards.

Final Thoughts

Try out one or two of these topic ideas for your next informative speech assignment. Hopefully you’ll enjoy both writing and delivering  your speech assignment