How do you keep an informative speech from sounding like a report?

Question

I have to write a 2-5 minute informative speech. How do I keep it from sounding like a boring report if I have a paper I'm reading/referring to?

Answer 1

Practice your speech until you know it well enough that you can take your eyes off the page, but not memorized. It is especially helpful to break your page up into sentences or groups of sentences so you can find your place when you look down. Try to vary your voice so that it sounds natural.

While writing try to find ways the subject can connect to you and your audience, that will make it more interesting and more informative. If you enjoy writing the paper and find it interesting, your audience will find it interesting too.

Answer 2

First get so well-versed on your subject that you don't need to read your speech or even refer to notes very much.  And make sure that what you have to refer to is only a few notes to jog your memory.

Then,  keep telling yourself that you're talking to the class, not to the teacher, and that your purpose is not to show what you know but to impart your knowledge to your classmates--to teach it to them.

Finally, get as enthusiastic as you can about your subject, so that you have something great that you want to share with your classmates.  Enthusiasm can be contagious!

Good luck!