How to Write a Speech in Public Administration

Need to prepare an informative or a persuasive speech in public administration and are searching for good advice on how to do it right? Public administration is an academic discipline that studies implementation of government policy. Writing an effective speech in public administration can be challenging because it’s a complex subject. Being a multidisciplinary field of study, public administration uses concepts and insights from a variety of other disciplines, for example, political science, philosophy, economics, law, and sociology.

To help you get started, we have prepared a comprehensive guide on how to write a powerful and memorable speech in public administration where we discuss all the important aspects of the writing process. If you need instructions on how to write effective speeches in other subjects, check other articles on our website where we offer full guides to all writing assignments out there.

What Is A Speech in Public Administration?

Writing a speech doesn’t differ much from other types of writing. You need to know your audience, the purpose of your speech or a topic. When writing a strong speech in public administration (just like in any other subject), you actually have 2 objectives: to make a good impression on your audience and to deliver a message and leave your listeners with 2 or 3 takeaways.

The only problem is that you’ll need to give your speech publicly and that differs from delivering written presentations. When writing the text of your speech in public administration, you’ll need to think about different ways of establishing positive relationship with a live audience. You’ll need to think how you are going to engage your audience’s attention and how you’ll convey your great ideas in a logical manner and what evidence you should use to support your point. But the good news is that writing a speech for public speaking involves the same basic steps you have to follow when writing other types of presentations.

How to Choose a Good Topic for a Speech in Public Administration

The first step is selecting an engaging speech topic that will be interesting not only for you but for your audience as well. The topic should be meaningful and important to your audience. When choosing a topic, you should also consider what type of speech you are writing – informative, persuasive or special occasion. The purpose of an informative speech is to inform your listeners about a specific topic, event or an issue. The goal of persuasive speech is to convince your audience to support your side in an argument so you’ll need to pick up a debatable speech topic in public administration. If you can’t decide what topic to choose, take a look at our short list of interesting speech topics and feel free to choose any of them.

• Is Public Administration an Art or a Science?
• The Policy Analysis Approach to Public Administration;
• The Role of Public Administration in the Modern State;
• Challenges of the Public Administration in the Developed Societies;
• The Importance of the Public Service in a Democratic Society;
• What Is the Role of a Great Leader?
• The Future of Government in a Digital Age;
• The Influence of Economic Reforms on Human Development;
• Should We Continue to Use the Term ‘Developing Countries’?
• Why Is the Administrative Law Important?
• How Can We Control Fraud in the Public Sector Organizations?
• Why Are Budgets Important for Governments?
• The Importance of Change Management in the Public Sector;
• How Can We Enhance Innovations in Public Administration?
• Why Is It Difficult to Implement Reforms in the Public Service?

When choosing your topic, don’t try to cover too much information. Think about the time limit and remember that people are more likely to remember the content of your speech if you focus on one or two key points. That’s why you should research your topic to get a good understanding of all its aspects and narrow it down to make it manageable.

Create a Speech Outline

It’s the essential step when writing any type of paper. A good outline will help you stay focused on supporting your main ideas and will save you a lot of time during the writing process. Any speech should consist of 3 main parts: an introduction which provides a strong opening, the main body where you give the bulk of the information, and a conclusion where you summarize the key ideas. Just remember that you should tailor the information you are going to present in your speech to your audience’s needs.

Write an Engaging Introduction for Your Speech in Public Administration

If you are writing an informative speech in public administration, your introduction should include an attention-grabber or a hook, where you should appeal to your audience on a personal level to capture their attention and make them want to listen. You may start with telling an anecdote, asking a provocative or rhetoric question, providing some shocking statistics or using a quotation.
After that, you have to introduce the topic of your speech in public administration and explain why it’s important. End the introduction with a strong and highly specific thesis statement and briefly outline how you are going to support it. Make sure to present a well-organized preview of the main points of your speech.

For example, you may present the topic of your speech and the thesis statement like this:

In my speech, I want to address a high ideal of the public service – working for the good of the community. I think it can only be achievable if we trust public sector workers more and encourage them to be dedicated to give public great service.

Don’t make your introductory paragraph too long. Quickly get to the point and move from intro into the body to keep your listeners interested.

Write the Body of Your Speech

In the body, you need to deliver the main message of your speech in public administration. It should include valid arguments, and ethical, logical or emotional appeals. You should present your material in a simple, organized way and support your thesis. But you shouldn’t try to share everything you know about the topic. Instead select a few main points to present to your audience and support them with relevant evidence and illustrate with appropriate examples from the research. Generally speaking, 3 strong main points work more effectively than 4 or 5.
It’s important to arrange the main ideas and sub-points in a logical way. You should think about using a transition from your introduction to the body of your speech to help your audience follow your logic. You can choose from 6 basic patterns to organize the body of your speech in public administration:

• Problem – solution
• Advantage – disadvantage
• Chronological
• Geographic or special
• Logical
• Cause–effect

The body of your speech in public administration should follow a clear organizational outline pattern. You should consider what type of material you need to present and the purpose of your speech to choose the most appropriate organizational pattern for presenting your argument. If you are planning to use some visual aids like charts or graphs, you should also mark them in the body of your speech.

Start each body paragraph with a topic sentence that introduces your main idea. Then give the necessary explanations and present supporting ideas. Illustrate the main point with appropriate details and examples. Finish each paragraph with a strong concluding sentence that also includes a transition to the next paragraph. Strong transitions help your audience to see how the new information is related to what they have already heard. For example, if you want to add additional information, you can say:

Another good example that supports my key point is …

If your speech is long, a good idea is to remind your audience about the main points you have made. You can also repeat some key term throughout your speech to make it easier for your listeners to connect information.

Write a Memorable Conclusion

A memorable ending will help you create a lasting impression on your audience. The conclusion should present the takeaway that you want your audience to remember from your speech in public administration. To make an effective conclusion to your speech, you need to draw together and summarize the key ideas you presented in the introduction and the body and finish your speech with a call to action.

You should restate your major points but you shouldn’t repeat them. And you should include a logic tie back to the thesis statement of your speech. It’s better to include a memorable closing statement that your listeners are likely to remember after several hours. Many speeches often end with an appeal to their listeners to take a specific action using their new knowledge. But you should make sure that the recommended action is realistic and specific. Another memorable way to end a speech is a powerful quotation from a well-known public leader.

Revise and Edit Your Speech in Public Administration

Revision process means looking at a speech from a critical perspective. After you have written the first draft of your speech, you need to revise it and to make changes in the content and style to ensure that you present your message clearly and concisely and your argument is logical. First, you need to revise your speech globally and look for such issues like poor cohesion. You may need to change the order of your paragraphs, add some information to existing paragraphs or create new paragraphs to improve the logical flow.

Local revision involves looking for issues in separate sentences. Make sure that each of your sentences is clear and simplify them by cutting out unnecessary words. Use synonyms to avoid repletion of word. Make sure that you use a varied sentence structure because if you use the same sentence structure, your speech in public administration may feel boring no matter how interesting and engaging your topic is.

When you are satisfied with the content and the structure of your speech, you need to review what you have written and look for mistakes in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The best approach is to read your speech aloud. In this way, it will be easier for you to spot possible mistake. Another way is to ask your friend to read your speech to you. Editing allows you to polish your writing and make sure that you have no minor error or awkward sentences that don’t make sense.

Additional Speech Writing Tips

• Write as you speak. It’s a speech in public administration and not an academic essay. Use conversational style to ensure that your audience will be able to understand you better.
• Use rhetorical strategies of ethos, pathos, and logos. They can make your argument stronger and will help you convince your audience to accept your point of view. Ethos establishes your trustworthiness and authenticity as a speaker. Pathos appeals to your listeners’ emotions. Logos includes using logical argumentation, statistics, and hard facts.
• Use short, simple sentences. Avoid using to many sentences with subordinate clauses. It’s better to divide a long, complicated sentence into 2 short ones. Always try to put a subject and a verb close together. Keep in mind that shorter sentences are easier to remember.
• Try to avoid big words that you are unlikely to use when speaking. You should use words that are familiar to your audience and avoid jargon.
• Be specific. Avoid vague statements. Use concrete words to present details and examples in sentences to keep your audience interested.
• Although personal pronouns can create a sense of relationship between you and your audience, you should limit pronoun use when you present your information about problems of public administration. Your audience may find it difficult to figure out to whom ‘this’, ‘it’ or ‘they’ refer. So, you should use key nouns instead of unclear pronouns.

A speech in public relation is a great way to communicate your message. We hope that our step-by-step guide will help you create and deliver a well-structured speech that is easy to follow and that is sure to make a powerful impression on your audience.