Self-introduction Based on Object Speech

Holding an object during a speech can help nervous speakers stay calm.

Objects significant to your life and your personality help you develop an effective self-introduction speech. A self-introduction speech is a presentation where you explain elements of your life and personality to an audience. You can use an object to demonstrate parts of your life to your audience and give them a visual cue to help them remember who you are after your speech.

1 Chosen Object

An object-based self-introduction speech uses an item to suggest interesting or significant things about who you are as a person. This object can be metaphorical, such as a new mother bringing a baby bottle for her speech, or literal, such as a baseball autographed by your favorite player. The mother is not literally suggesting that the bottle is important to her, just that it represents a significant shift in her life. The sports collector may see the autograph as an important literal part of his life, where he connected to his baseball hero. Select an object that says something about you, or something to which you have a special, personal connection.

2 Departure from Object

A self-introduction speech is about you. The item should serve as a jumping off point for your personal introduction. Use it for motivation, or as a representation of elements of your life. For instance, the baseball collector could say that he was a sports fan for years, before he had the opportunity to meet his favorite baseball hero. He could describe ways that meeting his hero changed his life, such as giving him the inspiration to chase his own dreams or teaching him that great people are just people. Ask yourself how your object changed your life, or your perspective of other people.

3 Personal Information

Self-introduction speeches should contain personal information about who you are and how you see the world. Look for elements of your personality that are interesting or important to you, and include them in your speech. As an example, your audience may not care if you watch five baseball games a week, but they may care that you learned leadership skills on your high school baseball team because you refused to let your team give up, even when you were far behind in the score.

4 Specifics

A short self-introduction speech should last between 30 and 60 seconds. Longer speeches should take between two minutes and four minutes. If you have a specific time allotment for your speech, use that as your guide for how long you should take. Develop a creative opening introduction that uses your object and explains its significance. Write a clever conclusion that returns your speech to your object. Use the middle section of your speech to provide information about yourself to your audience. For example, you may start the story of how you got your autograph in your introduction and leave the moral lesson you learned from the experience to your conclusion.

Kristyn Hammond has been teaching freshman college composition at the university level since 2010. She has experience teaching developmental writing, freshman composition, and freshman composition and research. She currently resides in Central Texas where she works for a small university in the Texas A&M system of schools.

×