July 1958 — Vol. 39, No. 7 — On Preparing a Speech
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TALKING in public is not the out—of—the—way
event it used to be for the average man. Even if a person
is not asked to mount a platform, he can hardly expect in
these days to avoid being called upon to speak from the floor.
Business people are in demand to speak for their industries
and to lead campaigns for this and that good purpose. They
need to be able to address shareholders and employees, trade
associations, community chest campaigners, groups of men and
women in church and school activities, and luncheon clubs.
It is a sign of a person's growing stature when the number
of his invitations to speak in public increases.
Because of the number of occasions given a person to address
the public it is important that he should realize the significance
of the spoken word.
In all democracies history is not only written with words:
it is made with words. Most of the mighty moments affecting
the destiny of mankind have gathered strength in obscure places
from the talk of nameless men, and have been thrown into final
form and given momentum by leaders who could state in common
words the needs and hopes of men and women.
This is not an essay about deportment on the platform, the
use of gestures, and suchlike. It is concerned with the vitally
fundamental element in speech making: preparation of something
to say.
Private practice
Public speaking requires private practice: practice in vocabulary
building, practice in managing the voice, and practice in
talking on one's feet. Before all these comes practice in
orderly thinking. Whatever forcefulness or persuasiveness
you'll put into your speech must have behind it a charge of
matter prepared in advance.
This is not counsel for amateurs only. The greatest orators
in history made careful preparation. Demosthenes, revered
as a model of the eloquent speaker, would not rise in the
assembly, even though importuned by the people, unless he
had previously considered the subject under debate, and had
come prepared to speak.
The worthless speaker is the man with nothing ready to say
who nevertheless can painfully constant a half hour of an
audience's time without profit.
A speech has to be built. You need a foundation, a framework,
and the edifice they support. If you put these together well,
if what you say tells the facts relating to a problem or a
situation in such a way that the audience can follow your
build up without effort, and if the audience feels at the
end of your address the way you wish it to feel, then you
have done a good job.
Preparation of a public talk of whatever sort requires that
you procure authentic, up to date and interesting information
on your subject; put this information into logical order so
as to build toward the purpose you have in mind, and fill
in the outline with facts, figures and illustrations.
Preparation means that you will cover ail aspects of your
topic. Don't concentrate only on facts that are favourable
to your argument. Even if you don't express them, you must
know what the opposition thoughts are. Are there, perhaps,
considerations which you have left out, which tend to destroy
the power of your argument? A good speech, with a half dozen
strong points, may be demolished by an opponent who attacks
the one weak point around which the speaker was not forehanded
enough to erect defences. You may find "On Straight Thinking"
(Monthly Letter, September 1951) of use at this stage of your
planning.
Obligation to audience
You have an obligation to your audience. These people have
come to hear you give your best. They expect something to
justify their attending the meeting, They are not passively
waiting, but are reaching out eagerly for your thoughts and
judgments.
The kind of speech you make must be fitting to the occasion.
Establish the fact that your subject is important to you and
to your audience, and never get below that level of interest.
Slovenliness is the most contemptible of aesthetic sins.
What is the present general feeling of your audience toward
the proposition you intend to lay before them? Plan your speech
so as to cover everyone's interest, but lay special emphasis
on the points that will appeal to those who can be swayed
to your way of thinking.
Don't depend too greatly upon the inspiration you will draw
from your audience when you rise to give your address. Write
the inspiration into your speech so as to animate your audience.
The positive approach to avoiding danger is to come to the
audience in terms of the audience's interest vividly expressed.
The rule applies in speech—making as in all other activities
involving public relations: think, speak and act in terms
of the people's interests.
"We must try to imagine what questions the audience would
ask if we were seated across a desk or table from them, and
to answer those questions in the course of our address. This
weaving of answers into the speech as we write it is what
makes the difference between talking "with" and not "to" our
audience.
When you come to this task of preparing a speech in terms
of the experience of the audience, reconcile yourself to the
fact that you may have to leave out some of your more brilliant
passages. They may seem colourful to you, but they do not
belong in the speech unless you can truthfully say they are
important to the audience.
Have a purpose
The first requirement of speech—making is, of course,
to have something to say. This does not mean merely something
that may be said; it means something that must be said, something
that presses uncomfortably on the mind until it is uttered.
Says Ethel Cotton in Keeping Mentally Alive, a book still
readable after 27 years in print: "The great need in public
speech is not more elaborate technique, but more consideration
as to the value of the thoughts to be presented."
The speaker must know the task that has been set him and
how far it is his duty to carry the audience. The question
he needs to answer is not primarily "what am I to say?" but
"why?" Why have I been invited to speak? What special knowledge
or experience have I to pass along to these people?
You may not want to sell an article, or win a vote, or organize
a society, but unless you have set a target for yourself,
established some way in which you want your audience to react,
your speech will lack vitality.
Just as soon as you give your promissory note to the organizer
of a meeting, you place yourself under obligation to consider
all these points.
From beginning to end
There are, as a wise man said centuries ago, three parts
to a speech: beginning, middle and end. This may, seem obvious,
but really it is a principle sadly neglected.
You use the introduction to warm up your audience to the
purpose of your address. In the body of your speech you present
and develop the facts upon which your thesis rests. The conclusion
is the place and time to lead the audience to accept your
viewpoint and, perhaps, to act on your proposals.
What you say in your opening sentences should attract favourable
attention, arouse interest, and lead without interruption
into the main part of your speech.
Don't use the introduction to excuse or apologize. You've
heard speakers apologize for everything ( for being there,
for presuming to talk on the subject, for not being prepared
properly ). If you have nothing to say that is worth listening
to, don't speak. If you have something to say, get right
into it.
Be modest, by all means, but don't belittle your audience.
If you start by saying that you were pushed into speaking,
or were called upon because someone else didn't come, or were
shanghaied in spite of your obvious lack of competence, what
you are doing is saying that the chairman or president didn't
think the audience important enough to get a good speaker.
Body of the speech
It is not enough to make a faultless start. You are not
like royalty, to lay a corner stone and go home to lunch,
leaving others to complete the edifice.
Having caught the attention of the audience you must hold,
impress, convince and direct. Here, in the body of your speech,
is its meat.
If you are making an annual address to shareholders, a safety
talk to Boy Scouts, a booster talk at a service club, or any
other speech to any body of people, there is a principle to
guide you. You are not called upon to stampede your audience
by use of brilliant rhetoric, but to increase the understanding
and comprehension of your hearers so that they will move along
with you in the way you wish to go.
The sequence of your material should have a forward movement.
Your speech should have vivacity. You cannot secure that by
forgetting yourself and thinking only of your subject, or
by applying lessons in imitative elocution. You can do it
by building it into your address as you write it, and staying
awake every second of your appearance before your audience.
Show intense interest in your subject and what you say about
it. From this will follow animation and physical earnestness.
Vary your pace. If your style is inclined to be slow or,
as authors say of a certain manner of composition, pedestrian,
try writing an occasional paragraph made up of short sentences
and sharp words. If you tend to speak too fast for easy audience
comprehension, inject some sentences of more resonant sort
to slow you down.
Stick to the point. Any digression or needless detail will
weaken your power of conviction, besides making your talk
tiresome. The shorter the time allowed for your address, the
more ruthless you must be in cutting out attractive but unnecessary
particulars.
Conclusion of the speech
The conclusion is your great moment. Here you and your audience
reach the point for which you set out together.
Don't leave your audience in mid air; come in for a graceful
landing; make an effective stop.
The danger at this point is that a speaker will undo all
the good wrought in his address by dragging in new or irrelevant
material, or by indulging in a witless anticlimax. So often
one hears a fine speech well delivered, followed by an inane
expression of thanks for attention or a drivelling apology
for lengthiness.
If you reject these temptations that lure you into a lingering
death, you may sit down triumphant, leaving. the audience
to surmise that you could have continued on the same high
plane for another hall hour, but refrained out of modesty.
Elements of speech
In writing a speech to conform with these necessities, there
are perhaps a half dozen desirable qualities to have in mind:
simplicity, good language, brightness, accuracy and honesty.
Don't write your speech to display your scholarship. If
your audience doesn't understand what you seek to convey,
your effort is futile and you look rather foolish. Ask yourself
many times during your writing: what does that mean?
It is not the outer sparkle that is the sign of a good speech,
but the inner heat that kindles the sympathy of hearers.
Use the King's English. Dr. W. E. McNeill of Queen's University
described it as "English at its best, such as one would expect
a king to use, clear and dignified, pure and undefiled, graceful,
powerful."
Not all the tricks of oratory or flamboyancies of staging
can do as much to present a truth as tan simple statement.
Brightness cannot be given a talk by dipping into a rag—bag
of cliches and threadbare thoughts and passing them out to
an audience. Your address needs to contain clear—cut
ideas that you will impress on people's memory by your use
of appropriate language and well—timed illustration.
Plan to have at least one good fact and one good illustration
under each head of your speech. The fact may be from your
own experience or from a book: but it must be brief, clear
and pertinent. The illustration may be grave or gay, from
poetry or the daily paper, but it must be fitting.
Accuracy should not be sacrificed to figure of speech or
any other desirable accessory of your speech. Be sure that
you know all you should know about your subject. When you
analyze your subject in a competent manner you set up a safeguard
against vagueness and ambiguity, the great enemies of the
communication of ideas.
It is a good plan to be continually taking your soundings
during the writing of your speech. Test what you have written:
does it correspond with the facts?
Check what you have written against your sources. You can
make it easier to do this if you jot down in the martin of
your manuscript a note telling where you round quotations,
ideas and facts. Abbreviations are handy: for example, "CYB
126" means "I found this in Canada Year Book at page 126":
"ML Jun '58 3" means "I saw this in the Monthly Letter of
June 1958 at page 3."
On being persuasive
Persuasiveness must be built into the speech when you are
writing it. Unless the matter is there to win people's support,
the manner of presentation will largely fail. You are attempting
to reach the mind of your audience, not only its ear.
Your speech should go beyond merely describing the course
of action you advocate: it should arouse desire to follow
that course. You can achieve this by expressing the purpose
positively, creatively, and with enthusiasm.
Here is a skeleton upon which you may erect an address:
(1) show that a problem exists or that a situation needs correction;
(2) explain the essential elements of the problem or the various
aspects of the situation; (3) tell about the failure of previous
attempts; (4) show why your solution is the best one; (5)
picture your solution in operation, including the benefits
it will give to others and the satisfaction it will give to
those who join in reaching it.
Don't forget to include a specific suggestion in your conclusion.
Tell in definite terms the nature, place, time and method
of the response you desire from the audience.
It goes without saying that persuasiveness should be honest.
In whatever area of business and society communication of
ideas takes place there always arises the question of truth
and validity.
From earliest times the eloquence of persuasion has tended
to turn men toward striving for victory at any price; it often
falsifies directly or by innuendo or by omission; it often
operates without reference to principles. We shall find it
worth while in the interest of wide understanding among people
to attack any speechmaking that plays fast and loose with
men's minds.
And now, to work
Some persons can dictate or write a speech without effort,
but most of us are not so fortunate: we have to work at it.
The easiest way to start is by blocking out roughly what
your thoughts are on your topic. Make notes of ideas as you
come across them. Don't wait till the subject is ripe before
you pluck it: pluck it and then ripen it.
Get something down in black and white at once. Make an outline,
if you wish, around the main headings: problem, cause, extent,
cure. You may be assisted by the three suggested outlines
you will find in "Writing a Report" (Monthly Letter of February
1952).
From that point you will find these six steps useful:
(1) Think about the subject selected. Consider the audience
and its previous knowledge. Make a list of all the qualities
that will tend to touch upon the vital interests of your audience:
profit, parental love, ambition, comfort, self—preservation,
and other motives. How can you relate these to the topic so
as to illustrate your viewpoint and strengthen your arguments?
(2) Consider what you should cover in your introduction,
in which you pinpoint your purpose; in your discussion, in
which you make your points in an orderly and progressive way;
and in your conclusion, in which you focus and re—emphasize
the important points you made and appeal for the desired action.
(3) Read widely to amplify your ideas. Read all sides of
a question: only by doing so can you be qualified to answer
in your address any objections that may arise in the minds
of your audience.
(4) Write your speech.
(5) Revise your script. Is it complete, clear and convincing?
Has it character?
(6) Practise your speech on your feet against time, and
make the necessary cuts.
About building material
Step three is most important. It is an essential condition
of a good and fine speech that the mind of the speaker be
acquainted with the truths of the matter he is discussing.
By what standards should building materials be judged, and
where are the materials to be round?
One point of judgment is accuracy. Is your material correct
technically? Is it up to date? Is it true not only in itself
but in this application of it? Is it understandable by this
audience?
When you come to the point of consulting books, pick a few
of the most promising authoritative texts, skim through them
until you find the best for your purpose, and concentrate
on that. If there are gaps between what you have at hand and
what your outline calls for, fill them in from other books
without allowing yourself to be lured into bypaths. If the
subject is a progressing one, check the latest periodicals
for developments more recent than those recorded in your books.
Writing the speech
You must put your notes into order so that as you talk your
way through them the audience will be able to follow easily.
Your speech needs composition as well as substance.
If you have jotted down facts, points and illustrations
on separate pieces of paper, all you need do is arrange these
slips in an intelligible sequence.
Then start writing. Use a free manner: get your thoughts
down on paper and leave the spit and polish until later. Write
as you would talk, for after all your written speech is merely
an advance report of the real talk.
How much you should write depends upon the speaking time
allowed you, what you have to say, the nature of your subject,
and your accustomed speed of talking. A generally accepted
good rate for platform speaking is 125 words a minute. If
you are allowed 25 minutes, and have enough pertinent material,
you can use 3,125 words ( about the length of this Monthly
Letter ).
You don't need to feel ashamed of having a script in front
of you when you are speaking. Your audience will not object,
because your thoughtfulness in preparation makes it easier
for them to follow your address.
Even Cicero, the great Roman orator, made it his custom
to prepare his speeches with care, and to deliver the important
ones from manuscript. Those who watched the political leaders
on television during this spring's election campaign saw men
thoroughly practised in public speaking using written speeches,
even though they said the same things night after night. They
know the virtue of staying on the beam, and of making sure
the right words are used to carry their meaning to their audiences.
If you are to be an effective public speaker you must prepare
your speech with the rules of speech delivery in mind. Some
of these rules are: don't speak in a monotone; never make
the audience feel inferior; give an effect of rhythmic movement
to your words; let your speech march.
How are you going to do these things unless you have built
them into your written speech as an integral part of the way
you put your words and sentences together?
The preparation of a speech is simple, when it is done in
this orderly way. Compared with the elaborate counsels of
the books on rhetoric, how trivial these hints are! But for
most men and women, not seeking to be orators but to communicate
their ideas, they are enough.
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