Brainstorming and Narrowing
Good topics rarely arrive fully formed; they come from a wide brainstorm narrowed by testing. You'll learn a practical method for generating and cutting topic ideas.
Casting a Wide Net
Start by listing 15-20 possible topics from varied sources: personal hobbies, recent science articles, unusual jobs, historical footnotes, or things you've wondered about but never looked up. Quantity matters at this stage — the goal is raw material, not immediate quality.
Narrowing With Criteria
Score each candidate against three criteria: passes the obscure-but-relevant test, has enough substantive research available (not just a single Wikipedia page), and lends itself to a strong visual aid. Cut anything that fails two or more criteria, then pick from what remains based on personal genuine curiosity, since a bored speaker's boredom shows.
A speaker brainstorms 18 ideas ranging from 'the history of the metric system' to 'why airplane food tastes different at altitude.'
She scores 'airplane food' high on all three criteria: it's relatable (everyone flies), has genuine science behind it (pressure affects taste buds), and could use a diagram of the tongue's taste receptors as an aid. 'Metric system history' scores low on relevance and visual potential. She narrows her list to three finalists and picks the airplane food topic.
1. What is the goal of the initial brainstorming stage?
Answer all 1 to check.
Generate broadly, then narrow using concrete criteria rather than picking the first idea that comes to mind.