Some students feel overwhelmed when it comes to writing a speech about themselves. However, such a reaction usually arises because they don’t understand the purpose of this task or lack the prowess to tackle it successfully. Fortunately, in this article, you can find valuable information on how to write a speech about yourself step by step.
Remember that you should treat a self introduction speech as a possibility of presenting yourself. You need to dwell on your experiences and personal achievements, as well as qualities that may interest the audience. There are different life situations when you may need to create such a speech. For instance, you may have to introduce yourself to teachers or group mates, as well as potential employers.
So, it is paramount to master the skill of writing an introduction speech and level up your public speaking proficiency. Take advantage of the step by step tips on how to write a speech about yourself below and you’re sure to achieve success.
Do Your Best to Understand Your Audience
Before you start writing an introductory speech, it is crucial to envisage people, who will listen to it. Even when delegating the task to an essay writing help service, you need to describe your listeners, so that experts can choose a proper tone of voice. The thing is that the background, expectations, and even interests of your audience have a direct impact on their perception of your speech.
As a student, you are likely to present your introduction speech to such categories of people:
- Teachers. Usually, they think that a great speech is one devoted to your academic achievement, future goals, and experiences acquired during study.
- Peers. When you plan to deliver your speech in front of groupmates, you should focus on funny life stories, your interests, and hobbies that may resonate with their experiences.
- Probable employers. You should sound more serious in your speech. Interviewers want to learn about your professional achievements, qualifications, and skills that may be beneficial for their company.
Once you know your audience, think about a suitable tone of voice, language, and examples you’ll use in a speech. Keep in mind that you never have a second chance to make the first impression.
Preferable Tone
If you are going to communicate with an interviewer or teachers in an academic environment, stick to a formal tone. Be respectful and talk about your accomplishments and aspirations in a structured manner.
When you are among peers, you can get more casual. Choosing a more relaxed style and using humor is a good approach to establishing a connection with a group.
Select Appropriate Language
Teachers and employers will surely appreciate more academic language and technical jargon. You need to demonstrate confidence, so devote sufficient time to thorough preparation.
Peers aren’t interested in complex sentences and rare terms. To make sure you are on the same page about the speech topic, use everyday words and simple examples.
Prepare Relevant Content
Public speaking always supposes engaging with your audience. When presenting a speech at your university or professional setting, include content that sheds light on the challenges you faced and the achievements you got. Add vivid examples.
When your presentation takes place among peers, you can choose less formal content. The main thing is to talk about yourself in a way that aligns with the audience’s experiences and interests. Descriptive examples can make your content easier to grasp and remember.
Main Points of a Good Speech About Yourself
If you have ever read a persuasive speech example, you probably noticed that it is like a snapshot of a person’s life. However, defining which experiences are worth describing in the speech may not be easy. To make a reasonable choice and write a captivating introductory speech, take advantage of the following tips.
Concentrate on the Key Moments and Turning Points in Your Life
A foolproof method to create an engaging minute speech is to talk about experiences and occasions that had a huge impact on your personal development. Every human undergoes various situations that shape them. Great topic ideas are to tell the audience about:
- Events from your childhood. Setting listeners in the proper mood is easier when your opening statement has a personal touch to it. You need to remember something meaningful from your early years and describe those experiences in an engaging manner. It can be time spent with your relatives or an interesting endeavor from school that defined your future being.
- Significant accomplishments. Another approach to making a lasting first impression is to focus on your achievements. This can be both personal triumphs you are very proud of and academic or professional victories. By including this information in your speech, you can vividly show your confidence, determination to grow, and readiness to tackle any complicated assignment. For example, you can write about participating in a challenging project, winning a sports contest, or earning a scholarship despite a huge competition.
- Challenges you’ve overcome. While the purpose of an introductory speech is to present yourself, it is worth elaborating on the various hurdles you faced. By providing clear life examples, you can help your audience visualize what you’ve gone through and even empathize with you. This is helpful for engaging your audience. For example, you can describe how you moved to another city to realize your study ambitions or found your first gig job to cover additional expenses.
Establish a Balance between Personal and Professional
When writing an introduction speech, sometimes students get too carried even either with personal information or professional/academic content. It even happens that they seek our expert writing help to improve the existing text and restore the proper balance between the 2 sides of their lives.
Our guidelines for making a perfect combination of personal and professional are the following:
- When writing about personal stories, highlight your character, values, and interests. In fact, you should stick to a lighthearted tone and be sincere with your audience. Usually, it is better to start with personal revelations and then complement them with professional content.
- Weave your academic realizations into personal stories naturally. For example, you can describe how to combine your study and side job. Accentuate that you managed to prioritize tasks and develop a good schedule for you. Thus, both study and work were successful. Such efficient time-management skills are sure to attract the attention of potential employers.
Talk about Your Competencies and Values
Next, your presentation should touch upon your major skills and values. If you have properly described your key life moments and shared both personal and professional stuff, the audience will gladly accept this part of a speech.
- Talents. What tasks do you excel at? Do you demonstrate confidence when performing on the stage? Can you work successfully in a team? Are you a natural leader who can quickly organize other people and help them whenever needed? Can you generate fresh ideas when you are pressed for time? Are you good at multitasking? How do you handle stressful settings? Answer these questions before writing a speech and you will better understand your proficiencies.
- Values. What principles do you follow in your life? Is honesty important to you? What about hard work and diligence? Are there any non-negotiables in your life? What are they? What qualities do you admire in people around you? Are you ready to help your groupmates? What lessons did you learn from your past? When you answer these questions, you can get inspiration for your speech and sound really interesting to your audience.
Basic Structure of a Speech About Yourself
Some of our clients address our top speech writing service online because they can’t organize the bulks of information they have into a cohesive and easy-to-read speech. Generally, it is a really complicated assignment, especially if you want to describe lots of life events and experiences but need to write a short speech.
Our recommendations for a good speech outline are the following. They are applicable not only for an introduction speech, but also for an essay, a persuasive speech, an article, and more.
Introduction
An introduction has a very important mission. It should intrigue your audience and encourage them to read or listen to your speech further. It is necessary to start your introduction with a catchy hook statement. For instance, if you are talking about your endurance and capabilities to handle difficulties, you can recollect any event from your childhood when you demonstrated persistence.
Alternatively, you can begin an introduction with a rhetorical question. This is one of the best ideas to spark curiosity in your listeners. For instance, you can ask “Was there an episode in your life that marked a new beginning for you?”. In fact, the trick with such a question is suitable for other speeches as well.
Hope you remember that audience and purpose are the factors that should direct your speech flow. You need to introduce yourself in a way that resonates with your audience. We have shared useful tips above. After that, state the purpose of your speech, like “As a volunteer with 5 years of experience working with different pro bono organizations, today I want to talk about the importance of helping people in need.”
Generally, an introduction isn’t big. The maximum size is 12-15 sentences. Still, your sentences shouldn’t be long. Besides, there should be smooth transitions between all of them.
Body
Next, you need to write an informative body part. It is bigger than an introduction because it contains your main points, complemented with examples and personal reflections. To retain the attention of your audience, we recommend sticking to the 3-section body outline:
- Past experiences. When writing about the past, reflect on your background and roots. Add some information about your family, childhood, educational victories, and other important milestones. Thus, you can help the audience understand who you are. Besides, your persuasive speech will entice the listeners with sincerity.
- Today’s life. Move gradually to your current situation. Outline your academic studies, career goals, and various barriers you overcome. Reader success stories usually evoke genuine interest among other people. When writing this part, try to evaluate it critically, as if you are a listener. Thus, you can understand what main points are worth writing about.
- Future aspirations. Plans for the future are an important part of a persuasive speech outline. This is a logical continuation of everything that has been presented above. Besides, shedding light on what you plan to do next, you can solidify the audience’s impression about yourself. Avoid vagueness. Be specific and down to the topic.
Conclusion
How to end a speech about yourself? You probably want to say something smart and interesting, so that people will remember your persuasive speech. Experts from EssayLTD suggest recapping the key ideas first. Thus, you can reinforce your main points covered in the speech. Besides, you can help the audience retain your message better.
A useful trick is to finish your persuasive speech with a thought-provoking question, a call to action, or a deep personal reflection. Since your task is to leave a lasting impression, you have to make a speech that evokes genuine feelings and thoughts in people.
Generally, a conclusion and an introduction are similar in size. Don’t make the closing part too long because you risk tiring your audience.
Speech in Three Perspectives
When writing a text and developing a speech outline, you have to decide which perspective you’ll adhere to. Generally, there are 3 common options.
| First-person perspective |
Second-person perspective |
Third-person perspective |
| A person uses “I” and “we” in the minute speech. All ideas, thoughts, and feelings are shared directly. |
A person writing an essay or speech uses “you” to address the audience. This approach helps build a connection between a writer and listeners. It is suitable regardless of the topic you want to cover. |
When writing a speech from a third-person perspective, an author uses “he”, “she”, “they”, or proper nouns. The purpose of this approach is to be more objective and detached. It works best for describing events or actions of others. |
| “I think it is important to teach kids not by talking to them but by behaving in a proper way.” |
“You may feel displeased with your kid’s grades at school but never make them feel miserable because of your expectations.” |
“My father was a very hard-working man. He taught me that doing your best in any work will yield the desired praise and recognition.” |
Final Thoughts
Whether you need to write a minute speech or a more detailed essay, you can always delegate the task to our company. We know that students usually have lots of tasks to handle and we are always glad to help them with writing assignments.
Our experts can not only write your speech from scratch but do lots of related tasks. For instance, they can improve a speech outline, suggest interesting topics for presentation, enhance your introduction, or even give you offbeat ideas for inspiration.
Besides this piece about how to start a speech about yourself, we have a separate blog section with lots of useful articles. For instance, you can learn how to choose persuasive speech topics that spike interest immediately, what the terms of use when adding quotations to your speech are, and more.
Moreover, we hope this step by step guide will be useful for you. For any writing help, drop us a message.
