A speech to the graduating class will have quite different language, tone and manner of 1 , for example, from information conveyed to a group of your friends. 2 , no matter how talented the speaker is, a talk without adequate preparation is usually a failure. To speak without preparing is to shoot without taking aim. Decide what your aim or objective is, then state it in a complete topic sentence such as “my purpose is to convince the class that cats as well as dogs should require licenses in our community”. Make sure that your subject is definite and not too broad.