Transcript Shape - Evergreen Community CS

Shape
• All great speeches, and even some not so
great, require shape. "Tell them what you will
tell them; tell them; then tell them what you
told them."
Shake hands with the audience
• You have something worthy of being said.
Former Ambassador Robert Strauss used to
begin his addresses like this: "Before I begin
this speech, I have something to say." This
passage was always composed in a style that
enabled him to reclaim a powerful tone for the
instructive portion of his remarks. Put on your
smile; calm your nerves, then get to work. You
may want to start with a smashing one-liner.
Rise to the occasion.
• In other words, feel passionately about your
topic. Even ordinary folks can deliver great
moments of oratory if they rise to the occasion.
Make sure the audience feels how important
the topic is to you, so that they begin to think
about why they should care.
Segues
• Build clear and sensible transitions from one
thought to the next. The biggest mistake
speakers and writers make is to assume people
will follow their leaps of logic. Spell out to the
audience when you are taking a turn in your
thoughts with phrases like: "As an example of
this" or "This brings us to the larger problem
of," and so forth.
Focus
• A "great” speech does not need to start out great and
stay great to the finish. It engages the listeners. It
makes allowances for a dip in interest in the middle.
Then, it gathers anticipation for its key moment. John
Stuart Mill, the political economist, defined the
orator's art this way: "Everything important to his
purpose was said at the exact moment when he had
brought the minds of his audience into the state most
fitted to receive it."
Add purpose
• A speech should be made for a good reason. To
inspire, to instruct, to rally, and to lead are
noble purposes. To sound off, to feed a
speaker's ego, to flatter, or to intimidate are
not.
Know your theme
• Be able to answer the question "what do you
want to say?" in a single, declarative sentence.
Sense of audience
• Write with one particular person in mind,
someone you actually know. This helps you to
keep the message real and personable. This
helps you anticipate reactions and keep your
language down to earth.
Deliver the goods
• Delivery is the essence of eloquence. It requires
practice, discipline, drill, and timing. Be your
own trainer. As you develop self-confidence,
you put the audience at ease, or make them sit
up. Your eye is in contact with the people, not
the page. Your professional passion is
contagious. Use gestures to emphasize points,
and make sure your tone of voice and facial
expressions are appropriate for the topic.
A sense of completion
• Bring them back to the beginning, but with a louder
spirit. This can be done by starting the last paragraph
with a quiet, declarative sentence; it should build in a
series of semicolons; it should employ the puissance
of parallelism; it should reach to the farthest rafter
and reverberate with the action and passion of our
time, and, forgetting all else, it should connect with,
no, grab each listener by his or her lapels and shout to
their hearts and souls to say, "This is the end of the
best speech you will ever have the good fortune to
experience!"
Step One
• Decide on a focus. If you are well-known for
something specific, your audience will, no
doubt, expect your speech to be about that
topic.
Step Two
• Put yourself in your audience's moccasins as
you write. You want to connect.
Step Three
• Keep the speech to two or three major points.
Step Four
• Find your voice - perhaps warm and
conversational, sober and profound, vigorously
controversial, or wise and understanding.
Step Five
• Write an outline with your topic statement and
the critical points as headings.
Step Six
• Fill in your transition spaces with anecdotes,
quotes, even relevant jokes to ensure your
speech will be unique, interesting and
audience-aware.
Step Seven
• Draft your closing remarks.
Step Eight
• Write a completed speech as tight or loose as
fits your style.
Step Nine
• Practice reading the speech first for time.
Step Ten
• Practice again for cadence and delivery.
Step Eleven
• Read aloud with any hand motions or
movements you intend to incorporate.
Step Twelve
• Create notecards or the full speech, doublespaced and typed.
Step Thirteen
• Try your speech out on a person, especially
one similar to the folks in your audience.
Step Fourteen
• Relax. You'll be great.
Writing a Thank You Speech
• Make a list of all the people you would like to
thank, as well as those who you need to thank
(just because you need to thank them doesn't
mean you'd like to). You can write the list
down on a sheet of paper and leave a few lines
of space between each person. Better yet, list
them in a word processing document so that
you can add to your entries and rearrange
them.
Who
• Write down why you are thanking each person
on your list. Just jot down a quick keyword
next to each person's name, i.e. catering,
inspiration, support, or donations.
VIPs
• Separate the most important people. Determine
importance in reference to why you are thanking
them. Typically God, your parents, your friends, or
teachers. Once you get past the top few it may be
quite difficult to rank people's importance, and you
don't need to. Just make sure that the most important
people will be at the top of the speech so that there is
no chance they'll get left out if your speech starts to
get a bit too long. If you have your people entered in
a spreadsheet or word processing document it will be
easy to assign a rank and rearrange people.
Time
• If you don't have a lot of time you may need to make
some tradeoffs. Either you can omit some people or
you can shorten the amount of detail you give for
each person. You may not have to omit people
completely. At the end of your speech you can call off
their names. '..And thanks to Michael Croon, Tommy
Lee, Jesse Heart, and if I forgot anybody else, thanks
to you, too!" If you don't have enough people, tell a
little more about them than what you jotted down.
Elaborate, but don't share more than you would want
shared about yourself.
Write an introduction
• Open up with something about why you are
thanking everyone. Was it an award, a job well
done, a meeting, a convention, a special event,
or something else? The reason should be
obvious. If you'll have plenty of time for your
speech, you may want to open with a little
story about the lead-up to the event, a brief
history of your career, an amusing anecdote, or
a quote.
Details
• Flesh out the details for each of the most
important people. Start from the top of your
list and add detail to the keywords you've
written. Thus, if one of your entries is "John
Smith--Event Coordinator," you can explain
how much work John put into the event and
how John has always come through for you in
a clutch. For the most important people on
your list, your parents, your spouse, your
manager or your boss, for example, you may
Air Time
• The most important people should get more
air-time than those further down your list. Not
only do you have more to thank them for, but
you also probably have to live or work with
them on a regular basis, so you want to build
as much goodwill as possible.
Time per person
• Remember that if you spend too much time on
any one person, you may not be able to get to
others who still really need to be thanked. Be
concise, even if you have plenty of time.
Time your speech.
• Your completed speech should begin with an
introduction, proceed to the most important people,
and then run through the rest of the people in
categories. Read the speech at a normal pace, and use
a stop watch to time yourself. If you find that your
speech is too long, consider shortening or omitting
some of the details about people. If you need to omit
someone altogether, try to make sure it's someone
who won't be there and won't see the speech. If your
speech is too short, add details or add a conclusion.
Notes
• Write your speech on note cards or on a piece
of paper. You can write out your whole speech
or just an outline of people and reasons for
thanks, whatever helps you remember what
you need to say.
Practice
• Practice in the mirror or in front of a close
friend or family member. Do it more than once
and make sure you say it out loud before you
actually give your speech. If you're well
prepared, you'll feel far more comfortable
when you actually have to get up in front of
everybody.
How to Write a Graduation
Thank You Speech
• Graduation is an important event, and often,
people like to use it to thank others. Here's
how to write a graduation thank you speech
that won't bore everyone.
List
• Make a list of everyone you want to thank so
you don't forget someone. Vagueness is often
better here. Say "I would like to thank all my
teachers" rather than listing them by name.
This is quicker and less likely to make some
feel left out.
Keep it brief.
• One of the worst things for the audience is if
you drag on and on and your speech has no
relevance to them. If you want to thank
someone for something in particular, just a
brief mention (one sentence or less is good) or
just mention their name then thank them
privately after the ceremony in more detail.
Try not to leave anyone out
• and never say "I would like to thank all my
teachers/classmates/family members, except
for..."
• Write the speech then practice in front of a
mirror. Memorizing the speech is good.
Less is often more.
Clean the Wax from Your Words –
Sine cere!
Superlatives are wax.
• “This is absolutely and positively essential!”
vs. “This is essential!”
• “This is true beyond any possible shadow of a
doubt!”
• If you wish to strengthen the simple assertion.
“This is true!” do so by pouring concrete
examples to support it, not wax to fill the
cracks.
Trite expression are wax.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
“As you can see,”
“if you will,”
“in conclusion,”
“it is indeed an honor and a privilege,”
“I would like to take a few minutes,”
“Each and every one,”
“throughout the length and breadth of the
land,”
Groping expressions are wax.
• “What I'm trying to get as is ...,”
• “What I want to say is ...”
Repetitious expressions are wax.
• “As I said before,”
• “and so I again repeat,”
• “let me reiterate here...”
“And so forth” expressions are
wax.
• “America has produced such inventors as
Fulton, Edison, the Wright brothers — and so
forth and so on.”
• “Our marketing recommendations are now
based on research, data, statistical analysis,
etc., etc."”
• “I could go on this way for hours.”
Weasel words are wax.
• “Of course, it's only my opinion, but ... .”
• “It seems to me ... .”
Punch-pulling
• More or less...
• to a greater or less degree...
• or something like that
• She who cleans her speech of waxy substance
creates a lasting impression of intelligence,
directness, and professionalism. Be sincere.
Carve your communications without wax: you
may rate a marble statue in the end.
Tips & Warnings
• As always, be yourself for best results. If
you're a serious person, making jokes often
goes flat. Don't sing or write poetry if that's not
your strong point.
• There might be a lot of videotapes of your
speech around for years to come!
• Remember, while this is your special event and
you would like to thank everyone, dragging on
can embarrass the people you are talking about
and bore the others. Save the emotional
confessions of love and gratitude for
afterwards, in private.
• Have fun. Yes, you will be standing up in front
of a crowd of people thanking them, but the
important thing is that you do it, even if it
doesn't come out well.
• Don't worry about not getting to everyone, but
do try and get the more significant ones so
they don't get fussy.
• If you forget somebody, especially somebody
important, send them a thoughtful note right
away explaining that you were nervous during
the speech (or some reasonable explanation),
and that what they have done for you or your
organization is important and valuable. Let
them know that they are appreciated and that
you feel bad for leaving them out.
• Remember to try and get those last people in
there at the end! Just a quick shout-out as you
the music starts or as you leave the stage is
better than nothing.
• When giving personal comments or inside
jokes, take people's feelings into consideration.
Don't say anything to upset someone or hurt
their feelings.
• You may experience instant, sustained applause
punctuated by the occasional "Bravo" and the everpresent pundit punk who wrinkles his brow and
wonders aloud, "But what was really said?"
• 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.
• Focus your attention on one individual at a time, just
as you would in normal, everyday conversation. This
will help to relax you, and mitigate the fear of
speaking to very large crowds. Shift your focus
around the room, to different sections of your
audience. By including every area, even when you
might not be able see them individually, each person
will feel as if you are speaking directly to them, not at
them.
• 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?
• Don't read your speech. Speak it from memory.
You may miss a couple minor points (and even
a major one), but if you can't remember it long
enough to say it, why would anyone else
remember long enough to act on it?
• You can fight off stage fright and fear of
failure by knowing your subject. Having a
commanding knowledge of your topic will
show in you, just like not knowing your topic
will show-even more so.
• Practice your speech with someone else if
possible, and ask him/her for input.