Welcome to Volume 2!  Congratulations on nailing down a topic for your presentation. Now comes the important work.  It is time to break the topic into three main ideas and write a paragraph for each. After you finish writing each section, ask a trusted adult or fellow 4-H members to read it.  Ask them to make comments in the margins.  Encourage them to write questions about what they are not clear about or want to learn more about.  Sometimes when they ask you the who, what, where, when, why, and how questions, it helps you as a writer.  Thank them for their time and edit your script with any information you choose to add.  Keep in mind not all recommendations are necessary for you to add. Do this a few times with a few different people until you feel comfortable with your manuscript.

Now comes the time to focus on an introduce to your speech. You want to hook the audience from the very beginning. You can start with a story, a relevant quote, or an attention-getting fact to get them excited for what is to come. After that, you should introduce yourself and explain why you chose this topic followed by the three main ideas of your demo/talk/speech.

Time to write your conclusion.  The conclusion should leave an impression. Start by recapping what the main ideas were and then leave them with something that you did not use in the hook such as a relevant quote, attention getting fact or question.

• Introduction
• Main idea
• Main idea
• Main idea
• Conclusion

Stay tuned for the next volume of Preparing 4-H Youth to be Tomorrow’s Leaders and learn some strategies for practicing your speech.

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