Hi, RP. I keep coming back to this thread 'cause public speaking is an interest of mine and something I enjoy. I wish I could do it more often. Anyway, I think you may be having problems in gathering your speaking points because you possibly still have not narrowed down the nuts and bolts of your topic enough. Fortunately, you still have plenty of time. I know you have given these things before, but it might be helpful to look at it step by step.
First - you said that this is a "Workshop" and that your goal is "to help poly people who love mono people cope and understand them so that they can be sucessful in their relationships." Great - sharing strategies for success!
Helping one group of people cope and understand another group is a very big and rather broad goal. And a workshop by its very nature usually implies participation by all the attendees and some kind of insight or skill gained. Most of the time, people take part in exercises, do quizzes, role-play, etc., in workshops. If what you're really setting out to do is hold a seminar, that would be a bit less intense than a workshop, and basically you'd be giving a speech with Q&A afterward. So... workshop or seminar? And what kind of speech? Informative or persuasive?
When you say, "help poly people who love mono people cope and understand them," it sounds like you see problems that you feel can be addressed. Maybe you should list those problems and come up with what you see are good answers or solutions to them. Are there examples you can point to? It sounds to me like a persuasive speech would be effective because you want to sell your audience on the idea of trying new ways of dealing/seeing/being with monos, etc. If you just want to provide information to your audience, it would be an informative speech, but you would have to be careful to present several sides and not steer them toward one or the other. The important thing is to keep your goal clear -
what do you want your audience to do at the end of it? Change a behavior or attitude? Learn a new coping skill?
Then, to keep it simple, you have your Introduction, the Body of your speech with three to five main points, and your Conclusion. Now, if it is a workshop where you will engage people in some kind of activity, you can do it before your Conclusion.
So, here's a good way to plan a speech:
- Choose a Topic
- Establish your specific purpose (a strategic approach to your topic - what do you want your audience to go away with at the end of it?)
- Research for an overview
- Brainstorm for your main points [I think these could be where you list the problems or challenges]
- Research details to support main points
- Create your outline
I know this is all about creating the speech itself, and not about mono or poly, but does this help at all???