One of the best places to look for informational speech topics is things you enjoy learning about or doing. If you participate in a hobby regularly, you probably already know where to find information about the subject. In fact, you likely have many references already on hand. You know the subject, have a passion for it and may have good visual aids that will add to your presentation. Some hobbies and interests that make great speeches or presentations include genealogy, ballroom, salsa or ballet dancing, golfing, skating, hockey and recycling. The most challenging part in speaking about hobbies is narrowing the topic to an appropriate length for a presentation.
Another great source of topics for public speaking is people and places that interest you. This could be a political figure such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Sarah Palin or John Boehner. It could also be an entertainer or sports figure, such as Ben Roethlisberger, Kobe Bryant, the South Park creators, Lance Armstrong, Louis Armstrong, Shakespeare, Nicole Kidman, Bette Midler, Bill Gates or Galileo. Each of these people could make and interesting presentation. Places can be interesting as well. Vacation spots such as the islands of Spain, Barbados or the Caymans are fun, but so are relatively unknown places such as Albania, Cuba and Liechtenstein. While you can give biographical information about people and historical information about places, more interesting presentations will find unique aspects of a person or place and address those. Perhaps a person has a hobby raising domesticated pigs, or a country has a unique group of people residing in its borders.
One of the best ways to come up with an interesting and engaging topic is to look at the current issues of the day. These topics are likely to engage an audience, and give you the opportunity to develop an interesting and persuasive presentation. Some possible topics include reality television, the expanding rich-poor gap, fertility research and fertility treatments, artist fees for radio songs, entrapment of suspects by reality television, puppy mills, the prevalence of cheating in college, pollution, human trafficking and the continued U.S. presence in the Middle East. For a persuasive speech, choose a position to take on the issue and argue in favor of that point of view; for an informative speech, explain the controversy about the issue.
Another place to look for great presentation topics is to your values and thoughts. Communications authors Saundra Hybels and Richard L. Weaver II advocate creating a "personal inventory" when trying to come up with topics for a communications class presentation. They suggest writing down teachers who made a difference to you, things you want to accomplish, the life you want to lead, books you've read, personal concerns, views you hold, things you think are right or wrong in the world, the job you want to hold, lessons you've learned and personal convictions. From these items, you can create excellent speech topics.
For a presentation about interpersonal communication, choose one of the primary subjects of study in the field. Each topic is quite broad, so it's important to narrow the subject to one particular aspect that's interesting to you. Some topics include self-awareness and self esteem, self-disclosure, initial interactions, perceptions, attributions, development and dissolution of romantic relationships, conflicts in interpersonal relationships, personality, stereotypes and emotions.