What is the Conclusion?

The conclusion is the last thing that you get to say in you speech and will be the last thing that the audience hears. The goal of your conclusion should be that it resonates with the audience and basically sums up the speech. You should try for a one minute conclusion or 45 seconds at minimum. There is a lot that needs to be covered in the conclusion so make sure you both give yourself enough time to compete it and make it flexible enough you may get as close to the five minute mark as you can.

We found a really good website that can help with giving speeches, especially the conclusion. Here is the link to the website that gives 5 good strategies for making a good conclusion: http://www.speech-topics-help.com/speech-conclusion.html

It recommends you should:

1. Restate most important points.
2. Summarize major supporting arguments.
3. Offer a solution to the problem.
4. Reaffirm the connection between the requisites and commitments of the listeners, and your thesis.
5. Close with a dramatic but appropriate statement.

All of our sources have very similar styles that could be followed for RCM 401. They all state a need for a quality summary and that you should close with an attention getter to resonate with the audience.

5 good ways to finish off the speech with a bang:

1. Direct call to the action
2. Short story or anecdote
3. Call-to-question
4. Contrast
5. Quote

In our RCM 401 class, most students finished off their speeches with a quote, which is an effective method, but it is not the only one. As you can see there are numerous ways to end a speech that will be just as or more effective. Out of the five given above, we really like using the contrast method. This involves tying the conclusion directly to the action by using a comparison between what could happen and what couldn’t happen if the action is not taken.

Recommendations for your conclusion:

A summary is important and should be the main goal of the conclusion, this must be done to make sure the audience re-thinks about the points in the speech. You should spend one sentence on each point at least, don’t just list the points you went over. After the summary we would recommend you to make your final plea to the audience here since the goal is to persuade them, this can be you filler and should extemporaneous this part so that you can rush it or drag it out to meet your time needs.

The speeches closing sentence(s) should relate to the plea and with the rest of the speech. It may be a stat or a funny joke but relevance is key, since it has the best chance of being something that gets stuck in the audience head. The best kind of wrap up in the previous types of speeches has been ones that relate back to the hook, whether it be a similar stat or a reference to the original story.