How to Write a Speech (Oratory and Protocol) 1.4.

2 PAMPHLET

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Speech

Good day ladies and gentlemen, here you have some information on how to write a speech.

Sample SpeechesThe Very BasicsMaking It EffectiveForming Your SpeechAfter Your First Draft

There are occasions where you may find you are expected to speak at a public gathering or social event,
and being prepared will require you to plan and prepare the text for this. Here are some steps and tips
to help you plan and write a great speech.

Sample Speeches

Method 1 of 4: The Very Basics

1. 1

Choose your topic. A good speech is usually about one thing. There needs to be one message that
matches the occasion for the speech. It should reflect the interests of your audience, the feel of the
occasion, and, better yet, have something to say that is relevant.

o If the speech is for school and is completely open-ended, choose a topic that you'll find
easy to be passionate about. The best speeches have very little to do with argument and
more to do with delivery and the heart put into it by the speaker. If you can get into it,
odds are your audience can too.

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2. 2

Find your purpose or thesis. Why are you giving a speech on this topic anyway? ("My teacher told me
to!" is not a reason.)

o "Thesis" is paper talk, yes. But a good speech is like an informal paper - you still need a
point to drill home. If you are writing a speech on an event in your life, it still needs a
message. Your topic may be the near fatal death experience you had last year, but your
thesis or purpose would be advocating the use of seat belts. When you need reasoning
to back it up, "it saved my life" is pretty hard to argue with!

 A speech should be made for a good reason: To inspire, to instruct, to rally

support, or to lead to action are noble purposes -- but not to merely sound off,
to feed a speaker's ego, to flatter, to intimidate, or to shame. For the record.
 3. 3

Get organized. Remember that all great speeches (and even those not so great) require "shape": the
introduction, the stuffings (the body), and the "outro" or conclusion. A speech is not an amorphous blob
or strings of tangled spaghetti; it is not bits and pieces shoved together.

o The old saying is hard to beat for shaping your speech: "Intro -- Tell them what you will
tell them. Body -- Tell them. Conclusion -- Tell them what you told them." That's exactly
how you should think of the structure of your speech.

o For your body, come up with at least three points to support your argument. If they
build on each other, all the better. At the beginning, draft a list. You can pick out the
strongest ones later.

4. 4

Be prepared to get persuasive. You'll need to do this in any way that you can. If your points aren't
strong logically, you'll need to pad them with other reasons. If you're not persuading them to agree with
you on a topic, you need to at least get them hanging on your every word.

o Plato's appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos will come in handy here. Move your audience
to agreement by means of your credibility (ethos) or by using others' (when you think of
Hanes, do you think of quality underwear or do you think of Michael Jordan? That's
right.), by manipulating their emotions (pathos), or by simple use of logic (logos).
Neither is necessarily stronger or more effective than the others; it all depends on the
point you're trying to make.

Method 2 of 4: Making It Effective

1. 1

Choose your words wisely. If you're giving a speech to a group of 8th graders, it's important not to get
too esoteric -- in other words, use words they'll understand and appreciate. Cater your speech to your
audience -- what do they want to hear?

o That being said, what do they already know? You don't want to waste time explaining
concepts to them that they're already familiar with; or worse, assuming they know the
basics and confusing them horribly. Put yourself in their shoes as you write -- what
background knowledge do they need before you jump in to the meat of your argument?

2. 2

Grab their attention. "Shake hands" with them -- figuratively of course. Make your writing humanizing
and personalizing, hooking the members of your audience. Build agreement with your topic and a sense
of rapport with you.
 o Former Ambassador Robert Strauss used to begin his addresses like this: "Before I begin
this speech, I have something to say." What's your hook?

o Wear your sincere smile, even in your writing. Audiences will be able to tell. You may
want to begin with an amusing one-liner or thought-provoking anecdote that can be
connected to the situation.

o As you're writing, think about what you would say to a friend. The more comfortable
and open you are, the more your audience will feel drawn to you. Choose how you
express yourself as if you were having a discussion with someone you feel at ease with,
someone you're comfortable showing emotion to. A speech with "heart" is the most
moving kind.

3. 3

Focus on your message. For some, it's easy to get side-tracked or to try to attack too many things at
once. Your speech has one message and it is the only thing that needs to be addressed thoroughly. Don't
focus on the details or, what's worse, something completely unrelated. Your audience will be left
wondering what the heck is going on.

o Rambling will lose their attention. When you have a point addressed and taken care of,
do not be afraid to move on. You have more points that deserve the spotlight -- give
each its evenly-spread due.

4. 4

Illustrate. Make your writing graphic. Your goal is to make the main points of your writing in the speech
stick in the minds of your audience. If someone asks or compliments your speech afterwards, it'll
probably sound something like, "I enjoyed the story Tom told about his sister," or "The pie chart of this
year's earnings was helpful." They probably won't say, "Your second point in the body of your speech
was well thought-out and logical." So think visually.

o This can be taken a number of ways. If you are talking to your business team about the
year's poor numbers, painting an image of their starving families to drive them to work
harder isn't a good idea. Images should be used appropriately. If you're talking numbers,
use graphs. If you're talking emotions, paint a picture. Know your context.

5. 5

Think in pauses. The best actors are equally effective (if not more so) in between their lines. Write
pauses, or beats, when you really want a point to sink in. People will automatically take notice -- looking,
straightening up and cocking their head to the side and actually hearing the silence. Now that's
commanding a room.
 o Speeches need to be natural - not read off of a paper. And when you talk, you have
pauses. This is not slowing you down or showing your weakness, it shows that you have
this down so well, you're talking about it like an old pro.

Method 3 of 4: Forming Your Speech

1. 1

Start off with a strong introduction. Open with a big statement that will grab the attention of the
audience. Remember that engaging hook we talked about? That goes in now. Dive right in, getting
personal and showing your human side.

o Opening with important remarks or quotes will immediately establish credibility. Just
don't use Merriam Webster as your go-to expert; avoid cliches at all costs.

2. 2

Use inclusive terms for individuals. Point to "our" things -- our team, our city/state/country, or our
school, our class-year, our work, people, and product/candidate, etc. Your audience will feel more
included and a sense of belonging. If "we" feel that way, they'll feel the pressure to feel that way, too.

o In a speech by Nelson Mandela, he started off with, "Today we celebrate not the victory
of a party, but a victory for all the people of South Africa." [1] Now that's a man whose
oratorical prowess cannot be questioned.

3. 3

Build the body of the speech. This part should contain the main points of the issue and support for each
one. That list you made earlier? Narrow it down to about three. Which ones are the most convincing?

o Start off with your strongest point. You want the audience to start off seeing zero holes
through your argument. Get them on your side before they get the chance to nitpick
what you have to say.

o Put your weakest argument in the middle. You're sandwiching it here to make it the
most forgettable. And, indeed, it will be.

o End with your second strongest argument. You want to vamp it up a notch towards the
end. Reel them back in, rounding out your argument with your last piece of evidence.

4. 4

Be aware of your transitions. Build clear and sensible transitions from one thought to the next. The
biggest mistake speakers and writers make is to assume people will follow leaps of logic -- place, time or
changes of ideas. Spell out to the audience when you are taking a turn in your thoughts with phrases
like: "As an example of this, we can see..." or "This brings us back to the larger problem of...," and so
forth.

o Transitions should not only go in between points in the body, but also after the
introduction and into the conclusion. Again, your speech is one cohesive work, not a
series of points that work independently. Show your audience that by transitioning
clearly.

5. 5

End with a firm conclusion. Conclude with a powerful nail-down, summarizing what you came here to
say. Leave them with a question or thoughts of implications; leave them with something -- what do you
want that something to be?

o Repeat key ideas. Make the audience recall and get on the mainline. Be sure they leave
with the ideas you don't want them to forget.

o Give your audience a sense of completion in what you write. Bring them back to the
beginning, but with a louder spirit -- after all, they have all the knowledge necessary to
be passionate now, too. This can be done by starting the last paragraph with a strong,
declarative sentence that re-makes your point.

Method 4 of 4: After Your First Draft

1. 1

Deliver it to someone. This will be the most beneficial thing you can possibly do. Try to get someone
that's as similar to your audience as possible. If they have a similar background, there's a better chance
of them having the same impression.

o Ask them for feedback. Did they find anything confusing? Unnecessary? What questions
were they left with? Did they follow your logic and end up agreeing with you? What
impression were they left with?

2. 2

Monitor for clarity. Often when we write things, there's a much easier way to say the exact same thing.
Go over your work with an eye for this. Take each sentence as it stands -- could you make it more
crystal?

o If you're not clear, you could have a good point that goes unappreciated or completely
missed. Clarity is possibly the most important quality to look for in your work.

3. 3
Ensure your tone is constant and appropriate. If it sounds like three different people wrote it, it'll be
difficult to follow. What's more, if you slip into language that's condescending or simply over their
heads, you're in an equally hard place. How will the audience find your speech?

o Don't be tempted to get crass or nasty to get their attention. It'll work, but after you
stop the finger-pointing and yelling, they'll tune you out completely.

4. 4

Write out your final draft. Once you have all the content ready, get it in its final form. This is where you
may want to start employing tactics for delivery.

o Write in your pauses. Though the speech should not be directly read from, rehearsing
from it with pauses written in will help you remember when you are actually delivering
it.

o Write in body cues. Though these ultimately need to be natural and can't be scripted,
making little notes where you might want to emphasize a point with your body (be it
with your face, hand, etc.) can help jog your mind in the rehearsing process.

o Outline the speech on notecards. Since you won't be reading your speech, it's a good
idea to have a written outline of the presentation as a reference so you don't leave
something out .. like thanking the audience for their attention and the committee for
asking you to speak.

Tips

 Insist on your important points! Don't make any changes to your speech just because you think
people will judge you (stand up to peer pressure). Make changes because you want them, and
are comfortable with your edits.

 Ronald Reagan had a rule that he would always bring an extra written copy of his speech in case
something happened during the speech -- and be ready to give that to the host/hostess.

 Avoid a flat or pathetic: "Thank you" to signal that, "Yes, the speech is over". This is unnecessary.

 Start writing as if you are creating an essay or informative article. When you are comfortable
with your draft, read it aloud. Listen to a recording. But, the style should be different than a
typical essay or article. You can't have complex paragraphs that drone on. Rather than pack your
talk with boring facts and figures, give them a supporting handout (after your talk, unless you
have to present that document as such -- if so, then give it out beforehand). It's okay to repeat
or revisit important points for emphasis.

 Consider your audience's frame of reference. A simple way to do it is to think about: Who's in
the audience? Why are they here? And after hearing your speech, what's the first thing you
would like them to do or say to someone else, perhaps?
  Think hard before incorporating flip charts or a dry-erase board into your presentation.
Eventually you may find yourself talking to your flip chart and not to the audience. The audience
might be distracted by your illegible scribblings -- or watching you fumble with your exhibits.
Insecure or shy speakers like stage props because they take the focus off them. Whatever best
suits your situation is fine.

 End it: Let the final, forceful sentence be the natural ending of your speech. People remember
the last point or emphasis; so hit it strongly!

 Each person in the audience experiences your speech as an individual. Speak to them as
individuals, by using words like "you" and "your" -- instead of "all of you" or "everybody here"; it
is more direct and compelling, and will engage each member of your audience, whether it be
five or five thousand.

 Almost everyone can remember an early experience when s/he was obsessed with
memorization, and reciting and suddenly drew a blank. It can derail a speech. Be comfortable
with your subject and have the bullet points on a few numbered 3x5 cards, tied together by a
string or special ring. Relax and don't be petrified about flawless delivery; people won't hold a
slip against you.

 The type of event you are attending will determine the length of your speech. Consider that the
average speaker speaks 100 to 135 words per minute. Below are sample speech lengths:

o Standard keynote speaker: 18 - 22 minutes (est. 1800 to 2970 words)

o Motivator: 12 - 15 minutes (est. 1200 to 2025 words)

o Ceremonial speaker: 5 - 7 minutes (est. 500 to 945 words)

o News conference: 2 - 3 minutes (est. 200 to 405 words)

o Wedding toast: 2 - 3 minutes (est. 200 to 405 words)

Warnings

 Don't give a lengthy and boring speech. Otherwise people will literally fall asleep during the
speech. Always have a sense of humor to liven up the place a bit.

 Don't be a windbag. Time your speech in a few practice runs. If it goes more than five minutes
you had better be a spellbinding speaker. The typical amateur speaker will have the audience
checking their watches after about three minutes. Remember, Abe Lincoln only needed a
minute or two for the Gettysburg Address.