when i was growing up one of my favorite activities to do with my friends was to go to live rock concerts we always enjoyed getting to see our favorite bands live and one of our favorite games when we did this was to guess each of us would make a guess as to what the first song would be and what the last song would be that the band would play because we knew that those songs were critically important that was going to set the tone the opening song was going to set the tone for the entire concert and just kind of create the kind of energy that was going to be there the entire show and then the last song was going to be what stayed with us and what we talked about on the way out to the parking lot and on the drive home and things just how things wrapped up that that was going to be the two most exciting parts of the show really were going to be the very first song and the very last song what we didn't know at that time is that we were really talking about a communication principle known as primacy and recency primacy meaning just what happens first and recency meaning what happens last and that those two things in the in the area of communication have great significance because we tend to remember what happens first and what happens last those leave a really lasting impression on us sometimes when i'm teaching in a face-to-face or synchronous live type of environment one activity i'll do in class to demonstrate this is to just bring in a list of 50 words it doesn't matter what the words are and i'll just read these words off to students and then i'll read them once and then put them away and then i'll say okay who can tell me you know what words i listed and ask them to write down what words i read off without fail almost all students can remember we'll get seven or eight of the first ten words and and six or seven of the last 10 words and then the 30 in the middle maybe another handful maybe six or seven of those words too because of primacy and recency people remember what happens first and what happens last whether it's a list of words whether it's songs at a rock concert doesn't matter primacy and recency dictates that people are going to be most influenced and retain and recall and and hear best what happens first and what happens last so what does that have to do with what we're talking about in this video as you're probably aware this video has to do with introductions and conclusions of a speech really primacy and recency plays just as much a role in public speaking as it does in any other form of communication what happens first in your speech and what happens last in your speech will create a memorable impression on the audience will help establish a variety of things so we want to pay careful attention on our speeches to the introductions and conclusions and have those be carefully prepared and and well thought out so let's take a look at each of those things as a part of our our advancement as public speakers starting with introductions getting your speech off on the right foot your introduction verbally at least is the first exposure the audience will have to you as a speaker now they'll see you before they hear you in most cases right they'll see you approach the podium see you get set up or whatever but once you start speaking your introduction is your first opportunity to make an impression on the audience with something we need to take very seriously and there are a few things we need to accomplish as a part of the introduction so the objectives of an introduction are as follow the first thing we want to do in an introduction is grab the audience's attention we have just a short period of time to give the audience a reason to listen to us and there are variety of ways that we can do this but we want to do something at the very beginning to grab the audience's attention some of the things that we can do some of the more common things that happen as attention getters in the introduction of a speech are first of all you can begin with a quote this is tried and true it's a classic way to start a speech and and quotes are easily easily accessible in the days of the internet here you can find quotes anywhere let me first of all make two comments about quotes first make sure your quotes are accurate and that they are attributed properly there's you know you can find all kinds of quotes on the internet right but that doesn't mean they are correctly attributed to the right person so do do a little research and dig in and make sure that the quote you're using is actually from the person you say it's from the other thing with a quote and with any of these really is that they need to be applicable to what you're talking about you can't just open with a with a quote because it's a really cool quote it should have something to do with what you're going to be talking about and in some way be related right but if you can find a quote that is related to what you're talking about and you can attribute it properly and make sure that it's it's being attributed appropriately then a quote can be a great way to open a speech and really grab the audience's attention you can tell a story as humans we are narrative creatures we like stories we operate oftentimes in stories and so we are sort of by nature both storytellers and story hearers so you can tell a story to grab an audience's attention and that can be an effective way to do so you can ask the audience a question whether that's a real question where you're asking for them to raise their hands or you know kind of taking an informal poll or whatever or if it's just a rhetorical question a question can be an effective way to pick an audience's interest you can state an unusual fact or statistic you know kind of a did you know type situation you can build suspense with a delayed reveal and and kind of build up to build some mystery into revealing your topic and incorporate that and i can peak the audience's interest in that way you can use humor again as long as that humor is appropriate and for that for that situation and for that topic and things you can use humor to kind of break the ice um with an audience you can refer to the occasion what is it you're giving a speech about or what what's the occasion for you to be giving the speech in the first place you can refer to that occasion and somehow tie it in and grab the audience's attention by somehow referring to that occasion and and acknowledging that occasion so there are a variety of ways you can grab the audience's attention but what we do know is that right off the top you've got to do something to pull that audience in give them a reason to want to listen and give them a reason to to start focusing on what you're doing and ignore some of the other distractions that may be going on for them so we want to grab the audience's attention we also then as part of the introduction want to reveal the topic and the purpose this may sound like overly simple but you'd be amazed how many times people get up to give a speech and they're halfway through the speech before the audience is aware of oh this is what they're talking about you want to make very clear at the beginning of the speech this is my topic this is why i'm i'm giving this speech this is why i'm i've chosen this topic you know and again you can take the context into account if the audience has a has a program that is that lists off the details of why you're there and what you're talking about if your major keynote speaker or something like that that may be a little bit different although you still want to acknowledge this in the introduction but if not if it's just a general classroom type setting for example you need to be very clear in revealing that topic and purpose right at the introduction of your speech you need to establish relevance not only do you need to pull the audience in to gain their attention but you need to explain to the audience why does this matter to them why should they care about any of this you've got to establish the relevance with the audience and explain to them and connect with them why they should care about this topic at all in the first place you need to establish credibility give the audience a reason to trust you or let them know why they should trust you whether this is listing off your qualifications if you're if you're not known to the audience or discussing the amount of research you've done on this topic and and you know informing the audience of of your background in that way in some way you've got to let the audience know why they should trust you on this topic why they should believe or care about what you have to say on this particular topic and then you want to give a preview of your main points a preview statement is incredibly important in the introduction it lays the the groundwork and sets the stage for the audience as far as what you're going to be talking about so your preview statement should identify the main points of your speech okay at a professor one time you saw let's say first you're going to tell them what you're going to tell them then you tell them then you tell them what you told them that's the idea of the preview and the main points and the review statement right so first you're going to tell them what you're going to tell them give the audience an advanced preview so that they have an idea of what's coming so these are the five objectives of an introduction every really pretty much every speech introduction ought to contain each of these five things not necessarily in this order and not necessarily totally balanced sometimes you're gonna have to spend more time on credibility than you will others but but you know for example but in some way you ought to be touching on each of these five things or making sure these five things are accomplished within your speech introduction so let me offer a few tips for preparing and delivering your speech introduction first of all you want to prepare the introduction after you prepare the body of your speech for example you're not going to know what's going to be in the preview statement until you've already established your main points and know what those are going to be so when you're preparing your speech first focus on the main points focus on your organization and transition and those types of things then you can go back and effectively prepare for the speech introduction because you'll know what you want to talk about what it is you're going to be introducing so the introduction should be prepared after the body of the speech the introduction should be relatively brief probably not more than 10 to 15 minutes of the total time of the speech or the or at least the body of the speech time right so if you have a three-minute speech for example just take a nice round number three minute speech so you're not going to want to take more than 10 or 10 to 15 of that three minutes as part of the introduction so it should go fairly quickly you shouldn't spend all your time in the introduction you should you should accomplish what you need to accomplish those five objectives but then move on to the the real core of the speech the body of the speech and spend more time discussing those main points in detail remember the primacy effect we just talked about privacy and recency so remember that the audience cares about what happens first so with that in mind we need the introduction to be prepared and and polished so you want to practice and be polished with your introduction even an extemporaneous speech if you're going to over prepare or over manuscript any part i would make it the introduction so that you have a good flow there you know what's going on in the speech you're not just winging it in the introduction that introduction is your chance to make a good first impression on the audience and so it needs to be practiced and it needs to be polished because that's what they're going to hear first and that's going to affect the primacy effect you also want to be creative in your introduction to a certain degree now you shouldn't spend all your time preparing or crafting your introduction but but you do want to be creative i can tell you one of my kind of pet peeves so just because is when anytime somebody starts a speech with the definition of so and so is blah blah i mean that's that's not very creative it's not very engaging for the audience it's not very interesting it doesn't demonstrate to the audience that you've taken the time and that you really care about this topic so be a little bit creative in your in your introduction don't be afraid to to get creative in how you present your topic and how you how you set the stage for the speech okay the flip side of this is of course conclusions once we've opened the speech with the introduction and we've given and delivered the body of our speech effectively we need to leave a lasting impression with the audience and we need to wrap it all up neatly so there are a couple of objectives for conclusions as well and in some ways these are kind of the flip side but not entirely the flip side of introduction objectives but we do want to restate our purpose and main points so in the introduction we had the preview statement right now we're going to have a review statement so again you want to tell the audience what you're going to tell them then you tell them then you tell them what you told them this is your chance to really hammer home those main points to state them one more time and make those things clear for the audience as clear as possible right so restate then the purpose and main points of your speech you can really just take that preview statement flip it around in the review at the very least and the most simplest way to do that is just to you know reword it so that it's now in past and so this is what we did instead of this is what we're going to do but you want to restate the purpose and the main points of your speech you also want to remind the audience of the relevance if this is an informative speech or if it's a persuasive speech you want to call the audience to some sort of action or push them towards some sort of action for a persuasive speech so again this depends on the type of speech you're giving but in some way you ought to either come back to this is why this is important this is why we should care about this or push the audience toward this is what you want to do with this information this is what i encourage you to i encourage you to take action with the information that i just provided or based on the information that i just gave you so we're either going to you know you know kind of re-establish our relevance or push that audience toward action in a persuasive speech and really we want to end clearly and memorably in the introduction we wanted to gain the attention of the audience now we want to provide something that's going to make this really last with them make you know leave that important lasting impression again that last song of the concert if you will that's going to have the audience talking on the way out what is it that's gonna have this topic resonate with them and the main points here resonate with them even after you've stopped speaking just like in the introduction with the attention getters there are a variety of ways you can do this again using a quote just like in the beginning is another tried and true effective potentially memorable end and clear end and a way to wrap things up you could make a dramatic statement you know something that's really going to make an impression on the island something dramatic that will stick with them you can refer back to the introduction maybe you started a story in the introduction and you come back and provide the conclusion now in the conclusion of your speech so you can refer back to something that you discussed in the introduction you can use humor again just like you did with the attention getter humor can be a good way to leave the audience on a good note on a positive note on something memorable and or you can ask a question so whatever you're going to do though we need some way to first of all indicate to the audience that this is ending you don't want to cut it off abruptly and leave the audience surprised at the ending so these things can help with that but they'll also help provide some sort of memorable ending something that's going to get linger and last for the audience and in their mind a few tips for the conclusion again you should prepare the conclusion after the body and after the introduction probably too so the first thing you want to do is prepare the body of the speech because none of you're not going to know what to talk about in the introduction of the conclusion if you don't know what you're talking about in the body of the speech so both of these things come after the body and probably the conclusion is going to be prepared after the introduction you want to signal the end is near with a transition to the conclusion so this can be really really simple by saying something like in conclusion or as i conclude as i wrap up as i bring things to a close here again that's going to help the audience know that the conclusion is coming it's going to be more satisfying in that way as opposed to something that just ends abruptly think about watching a movie or a song or something that just cuts off without explanation it just it just ends abruptly it's not very satisfying it's not very memorable so you want to signal the end is coming with that transition a very simple transition into the conclusion and then with that memorable statement as well that will kind of let the audience know you're bringing this thing in for a landing the conclusion should actually be a little shorter than the introduction probably because you're not doing quite as much here so you want to be brief usually no more than 10 percent of the total time dedicated to the body of the speech should be dedicated to the conclusion again keep it short spend the majority of your time in the majority of your focus on the body of the speech in a persuasive speech you can use emotive language as well again you're pushing the audience toward action so use language that has some emotion and has some drive in it and then finally we talked about remember the recency effect right just like we want to remember primacy in the introduction what the audience hears last is going to be important so much like the introduction your conclusion should be practiced and polished it should be something that that's prepared and you should have a very clear idea of how you're going to get out of this thing don't be left rambling at the end trying to come up with a way on the spot and winging it as to how you're going to conclude this thing have an idea in advance and again just like the introduction be creative here be creative don't necessarily go with the just the same thing everybody else is doing but if you have a creative way to end this thing that's going to help it be more memorable for the audience which is important in leaving that final impression if you have questions about introductions conclusions anything else about public speaking please feel free to email me i'd be happy to chat with you via email about any of these items in the meantime i hope you're getting out there you've at this point thoroughly prepared the body of the speech that you're working on and now you can start focusing on okay what can i do to make a memorable first impression and a memorable final impression to help drive my points home with this audience through an effective introduction and conclusion