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How To Write A TED Talk Outline From Scratch

Whether you’re reading this as an aspiring speaker or having just booked your first TED appearance, it’s no secret that TED Talks can be a huge boost for a professional speaker. According to past TED speakers, in fact, giving one can be game-changing in terms of both reputation and speaking fees. That said, prepping for a TED talk isn’t just gratefulness and excitement. It can also be a source of nerves, due to their unique format and the prestige of the TED Organization . Fortunately, mastering how to write a TED Talk outline doesn’t have to be painful. In this guide, we’re going to cover all the steps to knocking one out in no time. 

Before we get into detail, please note that this guide focuses on the technical aspects of writing TED Talk outlines. In other words, while we at SpeakerFlow have no trouble compiling resources, none of us have given a TED Talk. In light of that, I highly recommend also reaching out to other TED or TEDx speakers in your network to learn about their experience and how they recommend preparing for a TED event. That way, when the event itself comes, you’ll be fully prepared and ready to dazzle your audience. ✨

Choose the main idea of your TED Talk.

First, before you begin writing your TED Talk outline, identify the main idea of your talk. Although you may not explicitly state it until the end, this idea will serve as the foundation for your presentation. As such, it should build off your experience as an industry expert while fitting the theme of the TED event. 

One way to approach this is to review past TED Talks to see where they overlap with your primary discipline. One of the most popular, for example, is “ The Danger of a Single Story ” by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In her talk, Adichie mentions that “Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize”. Although she is presenting this idea as it relates to books, the same argument can also be applied to political conversations, social media – any field in which exploring new ideas is key. Likewise, looking at your own field, compare how it lines up with other TED Talks. It may be the source of inspiration you’re looking for. 

Alternatively, another way to approach your main idea is by asking the following questions from TED: “Is my idea new?,” “Is it interesting?” and “Is it factual and realistic?” Ideally, your main idea should check each of these boxes while also corresponding with your area of expertise. That way, you not only share a great idea. You also ensure that you have the greatest possible chance of connecting with your audience. After all, the purpose of TED Talks is sharing “ideas worth spreading” and, consequently, “chang[ing] attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world”. Your TED Talk outline and its main idea should aim to do the same. 

Choose a personal experience that relates to your idea.

Next, after choosing your main idea, ask yourself how it relates to your personal and professional life. What led you to your conclusion about your main idea? Who have you met that’s shaped this idea? How has your stance regarding your main idea changed over time? All of these questions are starting points, but the goal is to take your main idea and summarize how it relates to you, not as a speaker but as a human being. 

Within the TED Talk archive, a great example of this is Monica Lewinsky’s 2015 TED Talk, “ The Price of Shame “. In this lecture, Lewinsky outlines some of the long-term negative effects of public shaming including anxiety, depression, and, in extreme cases, suicide. However, she also opens up about her own all-too-famous scandal with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in the 1990s and how the public shaming that followed made her life painful for decades after. In this way, she not only shows her audience the subject of public shaming from her point of view. She also successfully connects with them, reinforcing her primary argument that those targeted by public shaming are still human and even virtual shaming can have detrimental effects. 

In your own TED Talk outline, sharing your experience will accomplish the same thing. Standing on stage, it can be tempting to assume that because you’re in the spotlight, your audience will listen. Yet, any member of your audience (and on the TED team) will tell you that simply isn’t true. As a result, keep in mind that connection comes first from emotional investment. Be yourself and be vulnerable and your main idea will immediately become more intriguing for those watching you, guaranteed. 

Break your idea into manageable pieces or steps.

At this point, it’s time to break your main idea into easily digestible pieces of information. These pieces will make up the sections of your TED Talk outline, ultimately making your talk, as a whole, easier for the audience to understand and remember. It will also make it easier for you to memorize, as it’s generally recommended that you not use notecards during your presentation. 

One common structure is the argumentative approach. In this case, the term “argumentative” doesn’t mean “antagonistic.” Instead, it refers to typical discussion structure, like an argument in a professional debate. In a TED Talk setting, this generally includes three sections. First, introduce your main idea and any background information. Second, present evidence for the main idea, so as to prove your point. Lastly, give your conclusion, based on the evidence provided. In essence, this takes your audience through your thought process, ideally leading them to your conclusion in the process. This structure works well if you have a controversial idea for which you know you’ll have audience pushback or doubt.

Alternatively, for easy-to-accept ideas, another common structure is the step-by-step approach. Here, the main idea and benefits of accepting it are clear. However, after your introduction, the audience is still left asking, “How can I make that happen?” In this case, your TED Talk outline would have sections devoted to each step of the process that answers this question. In this situation, your audience enters your TED Talk interested but apprehensive and leaves confident that they can accomplish the goal your main idea describes.

Again, with these or any structure, your main goals are to (a) bring your audience to your point of view and (b) give them the tools to turn your words into action after they leave the TED auditorium. 

Write your outline using your experience as the intro and your steps as the body section. 

By now, you have all of the necessary components of your presentation in mind. Now, it’s time to build them into a cohesive TED Talk outline. Your outline, as a whole, should begin with a strong introduction, expand into a concise but thorough explanation of your main idea, and end with a reminder of how and why acting on your main idea is necessary. Combined, this invisible structure is a proven way to attract and retain your audience’s attention, as demonstrated by many past TED speakers. Luckily, many of these speakers have also shared their insights, so you can follow their lead and give an equally stellar performance of your own. Below are a few of their most valuable tips and tricks.  

Crafting the Introduction of Your TED Talk Outline

First, begin your TED Talk outline with a powerful introduction. This component of your speech is arguably the most important, as the more easily you can capture your audience’s attention initially, the more likely they are to stay engaged. It’s also important that your introduction provides a clear and easy-to-understand explanation of your main idea. Although the bulk of your explanation will take place in the next section of your TED Talk, the body, giving a simple explanation at the beginning of your Talk doesn’t just lay the groundwork for the rest of your evidence. It also demonstrates, to your audience, that your idea isn’t daunting. That way, they’re able to listen to your later call(s) to action (or your field as a whole) and think, “I guess this isn’t too complicated for me to take an interest in.”

To accomplish these goals, many speakers recommend building your introduction around the personal experience you chose back in Step #2. This allows you to relate more closely to your audience, lead up to the introduction of your main idea, and grab your audience’s attention all in one swift motion. In the event that your main idea is a heavy topic, beginning with a humorous story can also help lighten the tone of your Talk, making it easier for you to be frank with your audience without being depressing. In short, your introduction should be interesting but not overkill, honest but not harsh, and explanatory but not wordy. Remember, it’s only the prelude to the bulk of your TED Talk outline. 

TED’s Introduction Tips

• Be quick and concise (i.e. don’t dance around your main idea).
• Focus on the audience, not yourself.
• Avoid stereotypical openings to presentations (dictionary definition, list of statistics, etc).
• For a well-known main idea, start by clearly stating it.
• For a lesser-known main idea or an idea in a lesser-known field, start by explaining a related topic or idea that is well-known. Then, link that back to your main idea.
• For emotional or heavy topics, start by candidly stating it. Avoid being candid to the point of being harsh, and avoid anything that suggests you’re trying to force an emotional reaction. 

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Building the Body of Your TED Talk Outline

After constructing the introduction, it’s time to draft the body of your TED Talk outline. For this part of your Talk, the focus should be on retaining your audience’s attention and providing sufficient evidence to support your main idea. Here, it’s important to again provide balance, showcasing necessary information for your thesis but not so much that your audience loses interest or gets confused. In addition, the body of your outline should build upon your introduction and provide next steps for your audience to take with them, once your TED Talk is over. That way, your main idea lives beyond the room and the audience is guaranteed a more impactful presentation. 

To meet these objectives, the best TED speakers use the “manageable pieces” we covered back in Step #3 to build a sort of story or handbook. For the former, each piece is a different event that leads into the conclusion, or the happy or sad ending of your story. This is especially useful if you’re focusing on an emotional topic or lacing your personal experience throughout the content of your presentation. For the later, each piece is more evidence-oriented with each piece acting as support for your main claim. Contrary to the “story” layout, this structure is used largely in science-oriented presentations, where strong empirical evidence is mandatory. 

In essence, regardless of the route you choose, each “piece” is a different subsection of this section of your Talk. This allows you to build on top of each individual piece of information and, in doing so, bring your audience to understand and accept your conclusion. 

TED’s Body Paragraph(s) Tips

• Build a list of the evidence you want to cite in your presentation, keeping in mind that you will need more evidence surrounding things you need to convince your audience of. Then, with the help of a friend or daily member (not a colleague), remove any evidence that isn’t absolutely essential to your argument. 
• Focus on new information. If you must include basic information, for the sake of introducing more advanced information, keep it brief.
• Use empirical evidence, not anecdotal evidence.
• Keep your verbiage simple. If you must use complex terminology, leave time to briefly explain it. 
• Acknowledge and politely address any contradictions to your main idea. These include, according to TED speakers, “controversies in your claims, legitimate counterarguments, reasons you might be wrong, or doubts your audience might have about your idea.”
• Use slides to help explain complex or pivotal points in your presentation. For slides with citations, be sure to keep your citation confined to a corner of the screen, so that it doesn’t detract from the primary content of the slide.

Forming the Conclusion of Your TED Talk Outline

Lastly, every good TED Talk ends with a killer conclusion. As mentioned a few times in this guide, there are two things that your conclusion should be above all else: positive and compelling. While the body paragraphs of your TED Talk outline are all about explaining your main idea, your conclusion should drive home why it’s important. It should also communicate this in a positive way. Even for tough topics and uncomfortable situations, the purpose of TED Talks is to showcase problems and propose solutions. That way, members of the audience can approach them not only with well-rounded knowledge about the issue at hand but also with an “I can handle this” attitude. 

Depending on your personal style, there are many ways you can accomplish these goals and end on a high note. Some speakers opt for a joke, others an inspirational quote, and still others a straightforward reminder of why the audience should care. Keeping those options in mind, below are the most commonly-cited conclusion tips from past TED speakers. 

TED’s Conclusion Tips

• End on a high note. Your audience should, ideally, leave with a sense of positivity towards you and your main idea. 
• End, if appropriate, with a call to action and a reminder of why your main idea is worth implementing in their lives.
• Avoid ending with transactional language or anything sales-related (book cover, company logo, etc.). The goal of the talk is to share ideas, not promote a specific individual, business, product, or service. 

Support your TED Talk outline with visual aids.

The next step in preparing for your TED Talk is adding visual aids. For many presentations, visual aids are immensely helpful both for the audience and the presenter. If you’re explaining a complex process, for example, a visual diagram can make it easier to understand. Likewise, if you’re describing a story, including images of the people involved can help your audience better follow along. In short, while you shouldn’t rely on visual aids to communicate your message on their own, they should act as supporting characters in your presentation. 

One example of this is the 2012 TED Talk, “ Strange Answers To The Psychopath Test ” from British writer and documentarian Jon Ronson. In this Talk, Ronson tells the story of his experience with a criminal who faked psychopathy in order to avoid prison time. Although it’s not a complicated story, Ronson’s slides provide a visual for the audience to follow as he explains his conversations with Tony, the aforementioned criminal. First and foremost, this makes it effortless to follow along with his story, despite any tangents or jokes that may otherwise distract from the “plot”. Secondarily, each slide also allows Ronson to add an extra “punch” to the comedic twists of his story. This makes his TED Talk, as a whole, not only engaging but also memorable, as the audience leaves with both visual and audible memories of the experience. 

To sum things up, although visual aids aren’t always necessary, they can provide support for your main idea and make it more notable for the members of your audience. Keep this in mind, as your write your TED Talk outline. Then, consider simple explanatory slides where your outline could use some reinforcement.

Practice reading your TED Talk outline aloud (to be sure it’s not too long).

Next, after your outline and visual aids are prepared, it’s time to practice. It goes without saying that more practice only leads to a better presentation in the end. However, in the case of a TED Talk, practice is equally important when it comes to staying beneath the 18-minute time limit. According to the TED Organization, this limit is non-negotiable, regardless of the speaker or the complexity of their chosen topic. This is for two reasons, the first of which is the audience’s attention span. As TED puts it , “We’ve found that a carefully prepared presentation of this length can have an astonishing impact.” In other words, 18 minutes allows the speaker enough time to share their idea without risking the attention of the crowd. The second reason is simply to create a level playing field. That way, no speaker is given preference based on their idea or their reputation. 

That said, depending on the setting, the length of a TED-affiliated presentation can range from fewer than six minutes to the maximum 18-minute limit. Part of this depends on the platform in which your Talk takes place. If you’re speaking at a TEDx event , it may be shorter. If you’re speaking at the annual, five-day TED Conference , it may be longe. For virtual speakers, it may even be extended to allow for additional audience engagement, such as a post-talk Q&A session. 

Essentially, the length of your TED Talk and, by extension, your TED Talk outline, is contingent on the setting, size, and budget of the event hosting you although it should be around 18 minutes. To be sure you’re under the limit, verify your limit with the event organizer. Then, practice performing your outline, cutting it down as needed to meet that limit. 

Practice and refine your outline until you’re 100% confident in it.

Finally, once you have your outline prepared to meet the time limit, there’s only one thing left to do: practice. As any professional speaker will tell you, nothing bad comes of over-preparing for an event. Likewise, when preparing for a TED Talk, the most beneficial thing you can do is rehearse as much as possible. 

In fact, the following excerpt sums up the recommendations of TED event organizers and TED speakers better than I could:

“We can’t stress this enough. Rehearse until you’re completely comfortable in front of other people: different groups of people, people you love, people you fear, small groups, large groups, peers, people who aren’t experts in your field. Listen to the criticisms and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. If someone says you sound ‘over-rehearsed,’ this actually means you sound stilted and unnatural. Keep rehearsing, and focus on talking like you’re speaking to just one person in a spontaneous one-way conversation.”

To summarize, if you want to write a solid TED Talk outline, the greatest thing you can do, besides preparing your main idea and personal experience, is practice as much as you can. That way, whether you’re nervous on stage or just nervous about the TED stage in particular, you’ll be able to confidently deliver your Talk and meet the TED goal of “chang[ing] attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world” head-on.

For more detailed information about the TED Organization and its events, check out our previous blog, “ What Is A TED Talk? The Fundamentals of TED Explained “. Additionally, for TED Talk outline tips and tricks straight from the TED team, see their TEDx Speaker Guide or their Illustrated Guide for TEDx Speakers . 👍

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How to Create Your TED Talk: An 8-Step Process

by Jezra on March 9, 2017

First, A Little Background on TED

The TED conference (which stands for  technology, entertainment, design ) began life in 1984 as a yearly and very expensive conference where industry leaders and creative types gathered to exchange “Ideas Worth Spreading.”

Back then, it was all about the live experience, and speakers were expected to bring some quirky spontaneity to the stage.

But fast forward more than 30 years, and TED has become an institution, spawning countless local “TEDx” events, putting hundreds of speeches online each year, getting millions upon millions of views, and changing the way we all think about public speaking!

So, What  IS  a TED Talk?

According to Chris Anderson, the owner and global curator of TED, every TED talk starts with an idea :

“You have something meaningful to say, and your goal is to re-create your core idea inside your audience’s minds.” —from TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking

Anderson calls this idea “the gift in every great talk.” Your idea may:

• Be common-sense (“Every kid needs a champion”) or counter-intuitive (“The way we think about charity is wrong”)
• Describe a scientific breakthrough (“How bacteria talk”) or your own experience (“I am the son of a terrorist, here’s how I chose peace”)
• Motivate people to action (“We need to talk about an injustice”) or greater self-awareness (“Your elusive creative genius”)

But in every case, your TED talk will begin with an idea.

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And whether or not your talk actually builds a model of your idea in your listeners’ brain — Anderson takes that literally, and research on “neural coupling” backs him up — your TED talk exists to communicate this idea to your listeners.

That is your talk’s one and only goal.

Other Qualities of Successful TED Talks

In TED’s secret to great public speaking (an eight-minute video that’s worth watching), Anderson offers three guidelines for creating your TED talk:

• Focus on one major idea

Ideas are complex things; you need to slash back your content so that you can focus on the single idea you’re most passionate about , and give yourself a chance to explain that one thing properly… Everything you say [should link] back to it in some way.

• Give people a reason to care

Stir your audience’s curiosity. Use intriguing, provocative questions to identify why something doesn’t make sense and needs explaining. If you can reveal a disconnection in someone’s worldview , they’ll feel the need to bridge that knowledge gap.

• Build your idea with familiar concepts

Build your idea, piece by piece, out of concepts that your audience already understands … A vivid explanation… delivers a satisfying ah-hah! moment as it snaps into place in our minds.

These are important best practices, but they don’t tell you what to  do  to create a TED talk.

For that, try this…

8-Step Process for Creating Your TED Talk

Step 1. find an idea you want to share.

To hone in on your idea worth sharing, it can be useful to ask yourself things like:

• What’s one assumption I’d like to challenge?
• What’s a belief of mine that has changed, and why?
• What does everyone miss when they think about my area of interest or expertise?

And remember, you’re looking for an idea . As Jeremey Donovan says in How to Deliver a TED Talk ,

…an idea is not a theme, a general truth, a platitude or a big goal. “Everyone wants to feel included” is not an idea, it’s a general truth. “Empowering women” is not an idea, it’s a topic.

Step 2. Develop an unexpected and/or catchy way to state your idea

If your idea can be stated in a catchy way, listeners will pay more attention and remember it more easily. Here are some examples (with more conventional versions of the same idea in parentheses):

• We can solve malnutrition now (vs. Malnutrition is a problem that is finally, in our day and age, able to be resolved by advances in science.)
• Almost dying saved my life (vs. A near death experience created the motivation for me to face and overcome problems that otherwise would have slowly killed me.)
• Never, ever give up (vs. Cultivate the ability to commit without wavering; it’s an essential component of your lifelong success.)

Step 3. Collect anything and everything that relates to your idea

To re-create your idea in the minds of your listeners, you’ll need vivid examples, illustrations, stories, facts, questions, comments, etc.

So take a few days to notice anything and everything that relates to your idea, and collect these materials by writing them down, taking photos, recording your thoughts as sound files, etc.

Examples of things you might collect include:

• a snippet of conversation
• a quote you heard in high school
• a story that relates to your idea
• a fact, or cluster of data that supports it
• a metaphor or analogy that helps explain it
• a personal moment in your relationship with the idea
• a physical object that will help your audience understand it (here, my client Erika Frenkel presents an anesthesia machine )

Basically, anything that comes to your mind at this stage should be collected.

And don’t worry yet about which materials will end up in your talk.

You can’t collect  things and evaluate  them at the same time, so just collect for now; you’ll have a chance to evaluate later.

Step 4. Start imagining how you might open and end your talk

While it’s too soon to choose your opening and close, it’s not too soon to start playing with ideas for these important parts of your talk.

An effective way to begin any speech (not just a TED talk) is to grab your audience’s attention — often with a human interest story, a surprising statistic, an unexpected observation, or a thought-provoking question.

There are probably some great attention-grabbers in the material you collected for Step 3. Pick one that you particularly like, and flag it as a possible  opening for your talk.

As for the close , you’ll probably want to end your talk in a positive, forward-looking way . This is often done by:

• calling the audience to action;
• painting a hopeful picture of the future; and/or
• “paying off” (finishing, resolving) a story or discussion that has run through your talk, so that listeners get a sense of closure.

With your provisional opening and close in mind, you’re now ready to…

Step 5. Put the rest of your materials in a reasonable order

The middle of any speech is tricky, and a TED talk is particularly so, because TED talks can take just about any form you’d like.

So to tackle this part of your TED talk, take the materials you’ve collected and shuffle them until you find a good arrangement. To do this, you can:

• Create a high-level outline (leave out most of the detail, just arrange the big points or elements)
• Write each element (story, comment, observation, fact) on a 3 x 5 card and physically shuffle them to see different possible orders. (You can do this on a table, or digitally, by creating one slide per element and shuffling them with PowerPoint’s “slide sorter” feature)
• Use sound (speaking out loud) instead of writing to put your talk elements into different sequences (Ask: Does it sound right if I tell that story first, then give the fact? How about if I give the fact first, then tell the story?)
• Try any other method that works for you.

How will you know when the order is good?

Keep in mind that your goal is to create an understanding of your idea in the minds of your audience members , and try to arrange your explanations, comments, and stories in a way that leads to that goal. (You’ll get to test this on real people in Step 7.)

Trust your instincts: If something seems out of place to you, it probably is. Try moving it to a different part of your talk or even skipping it, and see if that works better.

And don’t expect to find the best organization for your talk the first time you try, because that almost never happens!

Step 6. Talk your way to a rough draft of your script

This is where your “speaking plan” becomes a “speech.”

Take your outline or list of ordered elements and talk about each item in turn.

When I’m writing a speech, I like to literally talk it out loud and type up what I’m saying as I’m saying it — but you can also use your computer’s voice recognition software to capture your words, or talk into the voice memo feature on your phone (this used to be called “dictating”) and type up the sound file later.

Why  record yourself talking  instead of just writing out the speech?

Because most of us get all formal and stiff when we write, and the ideal for a talk is that it sounds like you’re…  talking !

And here’s a hint:

As you do this step, pay particular attention to the way different elements (materials) that you’ve used in your talk are connected.

If, for example, you tell me that:

• The river flooded, and
• Some people moved out of the neighborhood…

I’ll want to know: Did people move  because  the river flooded? Did most people stay even though  the river flooded? Did the river flood  after  people had already moved?

When you spell things out clearly, people will form a clear picture of your point.

Step 7. Try out your Ted talk draft on a volunteer listener

The point of this step is to get feedback on how to improve the structure and clarity of your draft.

Ask someone you trust — a smart 10-year-old is perfect — to listen to your talk.

Read it to them (because you haven’t finalized, let alone memorized, it yet), and then ask them:

• Did I explain my idea clearly?
• Was there anything in my talk that you didn’t follow?
• Was there anything you didn’t understand?
• Did anything seem out of place?
• Did I lose your interest anywhere?

If your listener wants to discuss the 6,000 facts you left out, or how your talk should really be about X instead of Y, gently lead them back to these questions.

The point is not to  change  your talk. The point is to  improve  it’s effectiveness.

Step 8. Repeat the following steps as needed

• Based on your listener’s feedback, make changes that will improve your draft. But don’t get carried away editing; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! (And keep your old drafts in case you want to go back to something you did earlier; I number mine v1, v2, v3, etc.)

2. Practice delivering your new draft out loud.

3. Try out your new draft on a volunteer listener, get their feedback , and repeat these steps as often as needed until your talk has taken a satisfying shape.

And finally…

There’s no better time to start working on your talk than now. Even if your schedule is crammed, you’re better off working for a few minutes each day than leaving everything to the last minute!

And as you work this process, remember that perfection isn’t possible.

So instead of striving for perfection, prepare carefully, take your best shot, and try to  relax .

Your audience is going to love this talk — and you deserve to enjoy it, too!

Need Coaching or Speechwriting for Your TED Talk? Get in Touch!

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You May Also Want to Read...

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• TED Has Eliminated Two Things That Used to Be Said In Most Speeches: Hello and Thank You. Should You?
• Masterful Public Speaking: Daniel Kraft's TEDx Talk

How do I find transcripts for TED and TEDx talks?

Interactive transcripts are available in multiple languages for nearly all videos in our library at www.ted.com/talks.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the Read Transcript button underneath the video player.

3. If the talk has been translated into a certain language, you'll be able to view the transcript in that language by clicking the drop-down menu and selecting it from the list.

These transcripts are interactive : the words are highlighted as the speaker says them, and if you click on the text, the video will skip directly to that sentence.

If you'd like to print the transcript, follow these steps:

• Highlight the text by dragging the cursor over it
• Copy the text to your clipboard (⌘+C on Mac; CTRL+C on PC)
• Paste the text to a word or text document (⌘+V on Mac; CTRL+V on PC)
• Print the document 

Mobile devices

You can access interactive transcripts on the mobile version of TED.com in the same way as above. It's important to note that the transcript will cover the video itself, so it might be a better option to use subtitles (which are available for any video that has a transcript).

Transcripts are not currently available in the TED app for iOS or Android , though it's a feature our developers will be glad to consider. Let us know at [email protected] !

You can access transcripts for TED and TEDx talks on YouTube by following these steps:

1. Open the full description of the video by clicking " ...more " (or anywhere in the lightened box beneath the video player):

2. click " Show transcript "

3. The transcript will open to the right of the video player (or if you're in "theater mode," below and to the right).​​

4. At the bottom of the transcript, you might see the text " English (auto-generated) ". YouTube will sometimes default to an auto-generated transcript, which is often not totally accurate. Click that text to open a menu of language options. If one is available, you'll be able to choose an accurate transcript that has been translated by a volunteer in our TED Translators . There may also be other languages available in this menu. 5. Keep in mind that there are more than 200,000 TEDx talks in existence, so it's not feasible for TED Translators to translate/transcribe all of them. If you find one that doesn't have a transcript in the language you need, the best way to have it translated is for you (or someone you know with translation skills) to consider joining the TED Translators effort! You can learn more at http://www.ted.com/participate/translate .

• To print this transcript, highlight the text by dragging the cursor over it

How to Write a TED Talk: 4 Key Steps

• George Close
• July 3, 2024

Table of Contents

Giving a TED talk is an incredibly rewarding experience that allows you to share your message with the world, but crafting the perfect talk can be challenging. In order to captivate your audience and present your idea in a compelling manner, you need to carefully plan every aspect of your presentation with creativity and a deep understanding of your message.

In this article, we’ll explain how to write a TED talk successfully, breaking down the major steps involved in every part of the process and providing helpful advice so your talk can be the best possible presentation of your idea worth sharing.

Step 1: Find Your Big Idea

The first and most important step in crafting compelling TED or TEDx talks is finding your big idea. If you’re wondering how to write a TED talk, you may already know what this idea is. But if not, here are some of the most important aspects of a successful TED topic:

A New Perspective

TED or TEDx talks are not like other public speaking keynotes; instead, TED is looking for speakers who want to share new ideas (or new takes on old ideas) with the world. They want to catch the next big idea before the world knows about it.

This is why, if you’re an aspiring or actual professional public speaker, your TED talk will need to be different to your normal talk. In fact, TED generally discourages public speakers simply because they want ideas that haven’t been covered before.

A good rule of thumb is that if you can find other speakers sharing the same message, it probably won’t make a good TED talk. Trying to think of something no one has thought of before can seem impossible, but you don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel. In fact, the most successful TED talks are usually fresh perspectives on popular topics.

A Concise Message

Another thing to keep in mind when developing your TED talk topic is that the structure is also very different to regular keynote talks. This is because of a particular defining feature of TED talks: brevity. TED places an absolute limit on length at 18 minutes, but this is a cap, not a goal. Most TED speakers will be old to aim for either 3, 6 or 9 minute talks.

For this reason, it’s important to make your topic as concise as possible. Don’t structure it around 3 points or 5 steps. Focus your talk on one single idea and build around that clear and concise message. Everything in your talk should be focused on that foundational premise.

An Idea Within Your Area of Expertise

Another important aspect of your idea is your relationship to it. TED is looking for speakers who are uniquely qualified to speak on the topic they propose for a talk. This may sound intimidating, especially if you don’t have any relevant educational qualification, but this doesn’t always mean having a PhD in a field.

It can just as easily be a unique perspective on your topic through personal experience. This kind of personal connection to an idea makes your talk resonate more effectively with your audience.

Something that You’re Passionate About

When choosing an idea to build a TED talk around, it’s important to select something you’re deeply passionate about. An audience can tell how passionate a speaker is about what they’re speaking on. Even if you have a fresh idea and a unique perspective on a subject, a lack of passion will make it difficult for an audience to resonate with what you’re saying. After all, why should they care more than you do?

Meeting an Unmet Need

A big part of giving a TED talk is attempting to meet an unmet need in the world. This can be related to large-scale social and cultural issues, but it can be as simple as helping people meet a goal or gain a valuable new perspective. If your area of expertise and passion is relatively niche, try to hone your idea into a more universal goal or need that people have.

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Step 2: Structure Your Talk Effectively

Developing your core idea is a good start, but you still need to develop it into a full TED talk. As you do this, there are a few key principles to keep in mind. Here are some of the ways to make sure your talk is structured effectively:

Begin With the End in Mind

Have you ever gotten to the end of speech and been left wondering, “What was the point of that?” You don’t want your audience to be left with that feeling. That’s why, before trying to build the peripheral aspects of your talk, you should have a concrete idea of the destination you want your audience to arrive at by the end of the talk. Then, throughout your preparation, you should always keep that destination in mind as you work backwards to get your audience to that point.

As Grant Baldwin explains in his book, The Successful Speaker , you should always deliver your talk with two crucial questions in mind: “So what?” and “Now what?” “So what?” asks why your audience should care about your topic and how it applies to them, and “Now what?” asks what actionable steps they should take as a result.

Tell a Story

The next important thing to do when developing a TED talk is to structure your talk around a story. Academic lectures tend to be very matter-of-fact, with the speaker telling the audience what the message is at the outset and then elaborating, but this method makes for an ineffective and boring TED talk.

Instead, try to develop your TED talk around a story. You want your talk to captivate your audience, and humans love stories. We relate to them on an intuitive and emotional level, making this speaking strategy incredibly effective.

Some speakers wondering how to write a TED talk may be intimidated by the fact that they don’t have any relevant personal anecdotes from their life which relate to their topic, but this doesn’t have to stop you from using a story to your advantage. First, make sure you’ve tried thinking outside the box. A story may not appear to have any relevance to your topic initially, but it’s often possible to tie seemingly irrelevant stories in.

However, if you still can’t think of any way to tie your own lived experience to your topic, it’s okay to use stories about others or a case study instead. These don’t have the same emotional impact as your own story, but it’s better than not telling a story at all.

An important step in building a successful TED talk is outlining your talk. This can help you structure your talk without getting stuck in the finer details of delivery. Writing a top-level outline of your talk can also help you have a better grasp of the flow of your talk, leading to a more coherent and purposeful delivery.

Because of the time limit, don’t make your outline too extensive or ambitious. Your top 3 headings should be the introduction, body and conclusion of your talk. Under those sections, write your top points, but don’t try to be too exhaustive yet. It’s best to grasp the overall structure of the talk before trying to memorize the rest of it.

Step 3: Build Out Your Talk

Write out your material.

Now that you have a basic idea of the overall structure, it’s time to fill in your outline with specifics. Because of the brief nature of TED talks, it’s important to plan every aspect of your presentation in detail.

This isn’t a situation where some notecards and improvisation skill will suffice. You’ll need to have an exhaustive understanding of your material from the opening line to the conclusion and everything in between.

That’s why it’s recommended that you write out your material, carefully crafting your lines, transitions, jokes and stories to resonate as well as possible with your audience. However, you absolutely should not expect to read off of a written script or teleprompter when delivering your talk.

Audience members can tell when you’re reading a talk instead of delivering it, and this almost always leads them to disengage. Instead, you should memorize the entirety of your talk to the point where you can deliver your talk without referencing any notes or prompts.

Craft a Compelling Opening

A big part of delivering a successful TED talk is grabbing the audience’s attention from the moment you take the stage. The opening lines of your talk should be a carefully planned hook to accomplish this goal. Depending on your topic, this can be done in several different ways.

Some common examples include making a statement that will surprise or shock the audience, asking a question that grabs their attention by making them think or opening with a profound quote. However you choose to open your talk, it should set up the remainder of your talk and provide an overarching question or or conflict that will be resolved by your conclusion.

Use Visual Aids Sparingly

Sometimes, a TED speaker will make the mistake of attempting to have their entire presentation on visual aids such as Keynote or PowerPoint slides. In reality, visual aids should be used sparingly, if at all. After all, if your audience can simply read everything you’re telling them on your slides, why do they even need you?

Instead, you should build your talk first and then determine if slides would enhance your TED talk or merely direct audience attention elsewhere. There are instances where slides can be useful, however. For example, if you’re telling a story about your life, a well-placed picture can help put the audience in your shoes.

Slides can also be useful when representing complex data that involves numbers and statistics. When these are shown visually, such as on a graph, audiences are more likely to understand how statistics support your idea.

Write a Conclusion that Resonates

As you write the conclusion for your TED talk, make sure it ties the speech together in a satisfying way. Succinctly restate your conclusion with a key takeaway, and resolve any questions or mysteries you left hanging earlier in the talk.

As always, keep the questions “So what?” and “Now what?” at the front of your mind. Make sure the audience has a clear understanding of how your topic applies to them, and deliver a key takeaway and actionable steps they can take as a result of what you tell them.

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Step 4: Enhance Your Presentation

Rehearse your talk.

Rehearsing your TED talk will help you deliver your thoughts with confidence and effectiveness. As we’ve discussed, even the finest details of TED talks should be planned and practiced in advance. Start your rehearsal process by practicing to yourself, mostly paying attention to pacing and timing.

You should be able to give your entire presentation within the allotted time slot without rushing your delivery or dragging things out. If you can’t, you may need to either cut unnecessary material from your talk or add material to fill out the time.

Once you’ve rehearsed the talk by yourself several times and have a good feel for pacing, try giving the talk to friends and family members while asking for feedback. You should also ask if you have any noticeable verbal tics – words like “um” or “uh” that you use too often. Even some connecting phrases like “in fact” or “and then” can be distracting if used too much. It’s better to work these out in rehearsal before you take the TED stage.

By the end of the process, you should have rehearsed your talk dozens – if not hundreds – of times. You should have an intuitive and natural feel for the material, being able to effectively deliver transitions, stories and jokes in a way that feels natural. The more you practice the talk, the better your presentation will be.

Practice Your Stage Presence

While practicing the material itself is incredibly important, it’s not the only part of your TED talk you should rehearse. Body language is also a huge part of engaging your audience, and can immensely influence the way your audience perceives you. Watch other talks from TED events online and try to pick up on how the most successful of these speakers use body language to their advantage.

You should try to come off as relaxed, but passionate about your topic. Standing up straight with an open posture can make you appear confident, but approachable. Eye contact is also important to an effective stage presence. Practice making eye contact with different parts of your audience. This creates a connection and makes your talk feel more personal. You should avoid staring down at all costs. Instead, focus on the audience as if you were having a conversation with them.

During your early rehearsals, you should keep the focus on your material, but as you get a better grasp of that, increasingly focus on your posture, gestures and facial expressions. Incorporate movement into your practice sessions and video your rehearsal. This can be incredibly insightful, especially when you compare your movements to other TED talks.

Walking around the stage can help your talk come off as more dynamic and engaging, but you should be careful not to overdo it to the point of causing distraction. Body language should complement your speech, not overshadow it.

As you can see, crafting a successful TED talk is an involved process that goes beyond simply having a great idea. By following the steps we’ve outlined in this article, you can build a memorable and impactful talk that will leave a lasting impression on your audience.

As you pursue this process, keep your passion for your topic at the forefront. With careful preparation and a genuine desire to share your ideas, you can deliver a TED talk that not only captivates your audience but also contributes meaningfully to the wider world.

• Last Updated: July 3, 2024

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The TED-Style Talk Guidebook: Your workbook to write a brilliant short talk

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If you’re speaking a lot, you need to make sure your presentations are engaging the audience. Otherwise, what’s the point? We have far too much information thrown at us every day to remember anything but the sharpest and most relevant information. Speakers need to become experts at creating compelling public speaking to cut through the noise.

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If your industry is generally pretty dull, then you have a serious opportunity to stand up and be remembered. Let’s just make sure you’re memorable for the right reasons! Learning how to write a TED talk or TED-style talk will help you to highlight your key messages with energy and charm.

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It’s amazing how much more confident you feel as a speaker when you know you’ve got a great talk structure behind you. Our TED-style Talk guidebook gives you proven methods to help you find and write that world-class TED talk that’s sitting inside you.

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There’s nothing more impressive than a talk that gets straight to the point, especially when that point is compelling and useful. Ginger’s TED-style Talk guidebook will show you how to write a TED-style talk. You’ll learn how to cut to the chase and create a simple, elegant talk that impresses even the most critical of audiences.

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For more than 30 years, the TED conference series has presented enlightening talks that people enjoy watching. In this article, Anderson, TED’s curator, shares five keys to great presentations:

• Frame your story (figure out where to start and where to end).
• Plan your delivery (decide whether to memorize your speech word for word or develop bullet points and then rehearse it—over and over).
• Work on stage presence (but remember that your story matters more than how you stand or whether you’re visibly nervous).
• Plan the multimedia (whatever you do, don’t read from PowerPoint slides).
• Put it together (play to your strengths and be authentic).

According to Anderson, presentations rise or fall on the quality of the idea, the narrative, and the passion of the speaker. It’s about substance—not style. In fact, it’s fairly easy to “coach out” the problems in a talk, but there’s no way to “coach in” the basic story—the presenter has to have the raw material. So if your thinking is not there yet, he advises, decline that invitation to speak. Instead, keep working until you have an idea that’s worth sharing.

A little more than a year ago, on a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, some colleagues and I met a 12-year-old Masai boy named Richard Turere, who told us a fascinating story. His family raises livestock on the edge of a vast national park, and one of the biggest challenges is protecting the animals from lions—especially at night. Richard had noticed that placing lamps in a field didn’t deter lion attacks, but when he walked the field with a torch, the lions stayed away. From a young age, he’d been interested in electronics, teaching himself by, for example, taking apart his parents’ radio. He used that experience to devise a system of lights that would turn on and off in sequence—using solar panels, a car battery, and a motorcycle indicator box—and thereby create a sense of movement that he hoped would scare off the lions. He installed the lights, and the lions stopped attacking. Soon villages elsewhere in Kenya began installing Richard’s “lion lights.”

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Computer Science > Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Title: diffted: one-shot audio-driven ted talk video generation with diffusion-based co-speech gestures.

Abstract: Audio-driven talking video generation has advanced significantly, but existing methods often depend on video-to-video translation techniques and traditional generative networks like GANs and they typically generate taking heads and co-speech gestures separately, leading to less coherent outputs. Furthermore, the gestures produced by these methods often appear overly smooth or subdued, lacking in diversity, and many gesture-centric approaches do not integrate talking head generation. To address these limitations, we introduce DiffTED, a new approach for one-shot audio-driven TED-style talking video generation from a single image. Specifically, we leverage a diffusion model to generate sequences of keypoints for a Thin-Plate Spline motion model, precisely controlling the avatar's animation while ensuring temporally coherent and diverse gestures. This innovative approach utilizes classifier-free guidance, empowering the gestures to flow naturally with the audio input without relying on pre-trained classifiers. Experiments demonstrate that DiffTED generates temporally coherent talking videos with diverse co-speech gestures.

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