Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [53]
Set goals regarding the main points you want your listeners to remember. You will refer to these points again and again. Once these key points have been identified and written down, the rest of the speech will fall into place quickly.
Will you be given a warning if your speech is running overtime? What if you are not willing to take questions from the audience? Find out the answers to these questions in advance.
Find out who will be in your audience and their degree of familiarity with your subject. Decide just how technical you should get. Remember: Nothing is worse than a speech that talks down to the audience or is completely over its head.
Collect the material for your speech, research it, and check the accuracy of your information, particularly of figures, quotations, dates, and proper names and their pronunciations. Consult other experts and sources as necessary. Put your thoughts together in logical sequence, and organize your material around the necessary points you intend to make. Once you have all of the facts, put them into the proper order. Put these notes aside, and later review the order of your main points to see if you need to change them.
Stick to the subject matter and keep the presentation as brief as possible. Express your ideas in simple words and short phrases so that your writing is lucid, concise, and relevant. Remember, much of our daily conversation is composed of one-syllable words. Make your speech personal, using the pronouns “I,” “we,” “you,” and “us.”
Remember, too, that when writing for speaking, your sentences cannot be too long and convoluted. Since your material is meant to be said aloud, it must be simplified—brief and to the point. Material that is to be read with the eye (such as newspaper copy, press releases, or editorials) can go into greater detail with more qualifying phrases. Writing for speaking is more like writing a telegram, with just the bare-bones information given.
As you write your speech, try out phrases and sentences by saying them aloud to hear how they sound. Take out anything that sounds too stilted or contrived.
You should pay careful attention to your use of correct grammar and pronunciation of proper names, foreign words, and otherwise difficult words.
After you have polished several speeches, perfect one or two of the ones that you feel good about. Such speeches can later be used if you are asked to give a speech on short notice. Subsequent speeches can always be adapted to different audiences and/or lengths.
Organizing Your Speech
Get to the point of your speech as quickly as possible. Assemble everything on the same subject in one place. Do not move from one idea to another until you have exhausted all of the relevant material. If you discover you have omitted a necessary item or thought or illustration, move it to the category in which it belongs.
Organize your ideas into a logical sequence with each point leading to the next and giving emphasis to the whole. Let the ideas flow logically from one to another. Clarify your material to simplify it into easily understood terms. Keep your listeners’ interest in mind. Throw out material that does not relate to this particular audience. Always try to say something meaningful and individualized to your listeners.
Once you have achieved momentum, keep it going with positive ideas. Use specific information—facts, statistics, research, anecdotes, or quotes—to support your statements.
Divide your speech into three parts: the opening, the body, and the close. In order of importance, the opening ranks first, the close ranks second, and the body of your speech ranks third.
The Opening
As the most important part of your speech, the opening sets the tone for the entire presentation and gives the audience a preview of what they are about to experience. Your opening must immediately establish a positive bond between you and your audience.
State the central idea of your entire presentation. Emphasize your main premise in such a way that the audience (1) immediately