9 Tips on How to Introduce a Speaker

For great advice on how to introduce a speaker, look no further than Richard C. Borden’s 1935 classic Public Speaking as Listeners Like It.

Answer the following four simple questions briefly and skillfully, and you will effortlessly create a pleasant harmony between subject, audience, occasion, and speaker.

1. Why this subject?
2. Why this subject before this audience?
3. Why this subject before this audience at this time?
4. Why this subject before this audience at this time by this speaker?

Here is an example using the model. Needless to say, (although I’m saying it), if you are writing a speech to introduce a speaker, you need not verbalize the four questions that are bolded.

1. Why this subject? Everywhere I go these days, people are using the word story when they talk about presentations.
2. Why this subject before this audience? Since you are a reader of this blog, you no doubt find yourself giving presentations and introducing speakers on a regular basis.
3. Why this subject before this audience at this time? The popularity of storytelling is at an all-time high. Stories are omnipresent in every human culture, including every business culture. And while stories are entertaining and persuasive, they are in some situations over-simplifications of complex realities. In fact, stories are often convenient fictions–the most dangerous things there are, especially when a great mass of people believe them.
4. Why this subject before this audience at this time by this speaker? James Dunkel is a Professor of Rhetoric at Parthenon University. He has tracked the vagaries of rhetorical style through the ages, and believes that the pendulum is about to swing back, against story-telling, in favor of reasoned argument. Please welcome Professor James Dunkel.

And now, in addition to the four pointers on how to write a good speech of introduction, here are five pointers on missteps to avoid in your delivery of your introduction.

1. Avoid all moldy, clichéd phrases such as: “It is indeed an honor…a man who needs no introduction.”
2. Don’t embarrass the speaker with extravagant promises of her oratorical brilliance.
3. Don’t exaggerate your speaker’s qualifications.
4. Don’t give the speaker false starts like, “and so I take great pleasure in introducing Ms. Paula Prolix [Ms. Prolix stands up]…a woman who is eminently qualified…” [Ms. Prolix sits back down.]
5. Don’t try to steal the show by showing off your own speaking chops.

Follow these “Do’s” and “Don’ts” and your introductions will be short, elegant and instructive.