演講的支持材料最好是聽眾熟悉的，貼近聽眾，不僅有利於聽眾理解、接受和吸收你的信息，而且容易產生共鳴。筆者作為輔導教師參加過多次的全國英語演講比賽，在比賽中發現了一個很奇怪的現象。有很多學生舉例子或引用別人的話時，往往願意用國外的例子或國外名人說的話來支持他們的論點。學生也許有些許擔心，“如果用土生土長的例子，外國評審可能會不知道，不了解背景，會影響他們對整個演講的評判。”然而在一次比賽中，一位來自美國的演講專家在做點評時說到，“不用擔心我們會不了解，或聽不懂。問題是作為一個外國人，我們在這裡希望聽到有關你們國家的人、事、思想、文化，而不是我們國家的名人如林肯、柯林頓，他們說了什麼，幹了什麼。”他一語道破了問題的關鍵，演講者所說的要和你的聽眾拉近距離，講一些本地發生的事情，發生的事情對聽眾產生了什麼樣的影響，用當地的文化、理念來解釋你的觀點，這樣更容易在聽眾中產生共鳴。但並不是說就一定不能用國外的例子或觀點。要全方位地選擇論據，選擇恰當的材料為你的觀點服務。
在“21世紀(澳門之星杯”XX年第11屆全國英語演講比賽中復旦大學的胡懿在即興演講（should laws be fixed or flexible?）中是這樣說的，
"well, actually, very accidentally this morning, when we were sort of "imprisoned" in that preparing room, actually we had a fierce debate over law. and now i would like to share some of my thoughts with you on whether we should adopt flexible laws or fixed laws.
well, first of all, i admit that there are some cases of injustice in our society. for example, last year there was a famous case of wang bingyu, which aroused a great controversy in society. actually wang bingyu was a migrant worker, who failed for several times to get his payment from his boss. and obviously that boss treated him very badly. he didn't send him to hospital when he was ill, and he didn't treat him with very good food and also made him make, do extra work without any extra money. and out of a rage, wang killed several of the, several people in charge, out of a great rage. and that case aroused a great controversy in society. actually when i read the story, i did show some sympathy for that guy, because i think it was the fault of the boss in the first place. it was him that didn't pay him the payment that he deserved. so i feel sympathetic for him."
她講述了一個在我國曾經轟動一時的案例，台下的聽眾可能聽說過，也可能不知道這個故事，但這畢竟是發生在聽眾周圍的，貼近聽眾，這樣聽眾便會很容易理解演講者所要傳達的信息。
在一分鐘的即興演講中，你用具體的事例來仔細闡述觀點的時間可能非常受限。在這一分鐘之內，你很可能只給出主要觀點的框架，那么要想真正打動聽眾恐怕要依賴於主題和觀點到底如何。