Demonstration speeches are sometimes referred to as "process" or “how to” speeches because they often entail demonstrating something. These speeches require you to provide steps that will help your audience understand how to accomplish a specific task or process.

However, "how to" speeches can be tricky in that there are rarely universally agreed upon (i.e. irrefutable) ways to do anything. If your professor asked the students in his or her public speaking class to each bring in a recipe for baking chocolate chip cookies, would all of them be the exact same recipe? Probably not, but they would all be similar and, most importantly, they would all give you chocolate chip cookies as the end result. Students giving a demonstration speech will want to avoid saying “You should bake the cookies for 12 minutes” since that is not how everyone does it. Instead, the student should say something like:

“You can bake the cookies for 10 minutes.”

“One option is to bake the cookies for 10 minutes.”

“This particular recipe calls for the cookies to be baked for 10 minutes.”

Each of the previous three statements is absolutely a fact that no one can argue or disagree with. While some people may say 12 minutes is too long or too short (depending on how soft or hard they like their cookies), no one can reasonably argue that these statements are not true.

A Demonstrative Speech is one in which you will demonstrate to your audience how to do something. It is easiest to decide on a topic if you start with a verb, such as:

• How to Do something
• How to Make something
• How to Fix something
• How something Works

Other tips:

• Think of anything that you are good at or have a lot of practice with, as it will be easier to break down the steps when you are very familiar with your actions.
• You will also want to consider the limitations of your location, your audience, and your time. For example, it would not be possible to cook a meal for your classmates as you would not have access to a kitchen or enough time.
• It would, however, be possible to demonstrate decorating cookies as you would not need a kitchen and you can take as much or as little time as you are allowed.