1. Material-Based Introduction

A. Jokes, Stories or Anecdotes

If you can tell them, you've got a powerful skill at your dis­posal.

Here's how Alexandra York, founder and President of the American Renaissance for the Twenty-First Century, used a per­sonal anecdote to begin a speech about American culture:

What is the current state of our culture? By way of a short answer, let me relate a true, personal experience.

A few years ago, while recovering from a tennis injury, I work­ed out regularly with a personal trainer. At that time, the new Broadwa y musical casually named "Les Miz" had reawakened interest in Victor Hugo's immortal book, "Les Miserables", on which the play was based. New Yorkers were reading or re­reading the book with fervor — on subways and buses, on bank lines, in doctors' offices, and even on exercise bikes. One day at my "very upscale" gym, the woman next to me warmed up on her bike reading a paperback of that great, classic novel which she had propped up on the handlebars while she cycled. A trainer wandered by — a male in his mid-30s with a B. S. degree — and noted the reading material with visible surprise. He stopped short and asked in wonderment, "They made a book of it already?" So may we ask in wonderment, "What is the state of a culture where such a question can be asked by a college graduate?"

B. Historic Events

An historic event that relates to your topic is always a good way to begin. Historical references make you look smart and put your topic in perspective.

Julia Hughes Jones, former Auditor of Arkansas, used this device in a speech about women and equality:

Why is a vote important? Many times, a single vote has changed the course of history. More than a 1,000 years ago in Greece, an entire meeting of the Church Synod was devoted to one question: Is a woman a human being or an animal? It was finally settled by one vote, and the consensus was that we do indeed belong to the human race. It passed, however, by just one vote. Other situations where one vote has made a difference:

In 1776, one vote gave America the English language instead

of German.

In 1845, one vote brought Texas and California into the Union. In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.

In 1923, one vote determined the leader of a new political party in Munich. His name was Adolf Hitler. In 1960, one vote change in each precinct in Illinois would have defeated John F. Kennedy.

C. Today

Any fact about the date you're speaking can be used to open your presentation. Is it a holiday? Is it a famous person's birth­day? Is it the day the lightbulb was invented? This device is closely related to the historical event opening, but it's not identical. You're not looking for an historic event related to your topic. You're looking for an event that occurred on this date. (When you find it, then you relate it to your topic.)

John V. R. Bull, as Assistant to the Editor, The Philadelphia Inquirer, used this device in a talk called "Freedom of Speech: Can It Survive?"

Today is marked on my calendar as "Traditional Columbus Day," which seems a particularly good time to take stock of our legacy from that adventure of 500 years ago. A conse­quence of that journey was the creation of the United States of America, a nation that Time magazine last week called "a daring experiment in democracy that in turn became a symbol and a haven of individual liberty for people through­out the world". But today as we survey — and presumably celebrate — that "daring experiment", there are strong indi­cations that we may have failed to create a lasting monument to freedom, for those very blessings of liberty that we thought were enshrined forever as inviolate constitutional guaran­tees — freedom of speech, press, and assembly — are under attack as seldom before in our nation's 215-year history.

D. Quotations

Quotations make good openings for several reasons: they're easy to find; they're easy to tie into your topic; and they make you sound smart.

Here's how Warren Manshell, as an investment banker with Dreyfus Corporation and a former ambassador to Denmark, opened a speech about the Constitution:

"The Constitution is an invitation to struggle for the privi­lege of directing foreign policy".

That is Edwin Corwin's famous description of the Constitu­tion, and the history of executive-congressional interplay in the area is replete with examples to prove his point.

E. Rhetorical Questions

Asking questions is an effective way of introducing a topic. A rhetorical question involves the audience as it mentally an­swers.