Explanatory Speech Outline For Research Paper

Explanatory Speech Template Outline

1) Introduction (Approx. 1 min.)

a) Attention Grabber: What man was supposed to die young, but lived to an old age, predicted the behavior of the black holes, and was on an episode of the Simpsons.

b) Background and Audience Relevance: The fact that Stephen Hawking, a theoretical physicist is so well-known that the average person walking down the street has an idea who from an episode of the Simpsons is a testament to his work in physics that catapulted him to prominence.

c) Speaker Credibility: Hours upon hours of research from people that have written about Hawking to people who have personally met with him. My interest in Hawking comes from my interest in becoming an engineer and an astronaut.

d) Thesis: Stephen

There is no perfect proxy for scientific worth, but Hawking won the Albert Einstein Award, the Wolf Prize, the Copley medal, and the Fundamental Physics Prize. The Nobel Prize, however, eluded him.

b) Main Point 2: Became world-renowned.

i) Subpoint 1: He lectured at the White House during the Clinton administration and returned in 2009 to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama.

ii) Subpoint 2: His life was played out in biographies and documentaries, most recently The Theory of Everything, in which Eddie Redmayne played him. He appeared on The Simpsons and played poker with Einstein and Newton on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Transition (summary, signpost, and preview): Hawking's fame, and his tremendous talent for communication in spite of his impediments, gave him a unique platform. Throughout his life, he used this platform to popularize science but he never shied away from the political, a passion he inherited from his mother, who he described as a "free-thinking radical."

c) Main Point 3: Advocated powerfully for political