Btissam Hajjaoui
ID: 72883
COM 1301 11
Pr. Abdelmajid Hajji
Summary of Chapter 5: Selecting a Topic and a Purpose
Many people face difficulties in choosing a topic of their speeches that will interest
and be accepted by the audience. In fact, the speech topic is usually related to the event, to the
listeners and to the speaker’s field. On the other hand, in public speaking class, students have
more freedom than other speakers in choosing their topic. There are two categories of
potential subjects that a speaker should take in consideration while making his or her speech.
The first category requires choosing a topic that the speaker knows a lot about. Indeed,
people who make speeches based on their experiences and personal knowledge may give
interesting speeches because most people want to learn from others’ experiences or from
someone who masters a topic so that he can explain better a specific subject than others can
do. In addition, our lives are full of experiences which make choosing a topic of that kind easy
