← Chapter 6
Oral Communication · Chapter 6

The Topic Filter Bench

Good topics come out of an inventory of what you already do, argue about and explain — not out of a search engine. Pull a raw line from the inventory, ladder it with “so what?” until it touches this room, then score it on investment, audience need and supportability. Watch what decides the verdict: it is never the total.
1 · Open a column of your inventory
2 · Pull one raw line
3 · Ladder it: ask “so what?”
4 · Score the three filters
5 · Constraint check
Shortlist — ranked by lowest column, not by total
Why the lowest column rules. A topic you cannot support becomes five minutes of unsupported assertion. A topic the room has no stake in becomes a well-researched lecture delivered to people checking their phones. Neither is rescued by a 5 somewhere else — which is why two topics can tie on total and still get opposite verdicts.