Is the topic introduced gracefully? 
Is it introduced clearly? 
Is the introduction too long? 
Does it begin too far away from the topic? 
Is it interesting? 
Has it any defects of material? 
Has it any faults of manner? 
Can any of it be omitted? 
Do you want to hear the entire speech? 
Can you anticipate the material? 
Is it adapted to its audience? 
Is it above their heads? 
Is it beneath their intelligences?

Topics for these exercises in delivering introductions should be furnished by the interests, opinions, ideas, experiences, ambitions of the students themselves.  Too many beginning speakers cause endless worry for themselves, lower the quality of their speeches, bore their listeners, by “hunting” for things to talk about, when near at hand in themselves and their activities lie the very best things to discuss.  The over-modest feeling some people have that they know nothing to talk about is usually a false impression.  In Elizabethan England a young poet, Sir Phillip Sidney, decided to try to tell his sweetheart how much he loved her.  So he “sought fit words, studying inventions fine, turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow, some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.”  But “words came halting forth” until he bit his truant pen and almost beat himself for spite.  Then said the Muse to him, “Fool, look in thy heart and write.”  And without that first word, this is the advice that should be given to all speakers.  “Look in your heart, mind, life, experiences, ideas, ideals, interests, enthusiasms, and from them draw the material of your speeches—­yours because no one else could make that speech, so essentially and peculiarly is it your own.”

The following may serve as suggestions of the kind of topic to choose and the various methods of approaching it.  They are merely hints, for each student must adapt his own method and material.

EXERCISES

1.  By a rapid historical survey introduce the discussion that women will be allowed to vote in the United States.

2.  By a historical survey introduce the topic that war will cease upon the earth.

3.  Using the same method introduce the opposite.

4.  Using some history introduce the topic that equality for all men is approaching.

5.  Using the same method introduce the opposite.

6.  Starting with the amount used introduce an explanation of the manufacture of cotton goods.  Any other manufactured article may be used.

7.  Starting with an incident to illustrate its novelty, or speed, or convenience, or unusualness, lead up to the description or explanation of some mechanical contrivance.

Dictaphone
Adding machine
Comptometer
Wireless telegraph
Knitting machine
Moving picture camera
Moving picture machine
Self-starter
Egg boiler
Newspaper printing press
Power churn
Bottle-making machine
Voting machine
Storm in a play
Pneumatic tube
Periscope, etc.