speech writers

speech writers

The Art of Speechwriting: Strategies and Techniques for Crafting Compelling and Impactful Speeches

1. Introduction to the Art of Speechwriting

Speechwriting is one of the most interesting tasks a person can do. Speechwriters research anticipated audiences, create a message strategy, generate a compelling case, package and persuade the reader, produce a reformulation composing style for the spoken voice, and design supporting collateral and mechanical relations. All speeches teach, inspire, or entertain audiences. Even as the approaches which each type of speech used to are distinct from one another, every one relies on a rhetorical strategy that the speaker has followed. Everything we need in order to write a speech can be found in the communication situation surrounding the speaker, audience, and occasion. How we engage contextually with the Athenian situation can help us respond rhetorically in a way that is effective and persuasive. A speech is a distinct, independent genre in its adaptability and can be an important component in the composition student’s repertoire.

Welcome to the art of speechwriting. The primary purpose of this text is to introduce the reader to the time-intensive, yet rewarding, process of creating a speech. Through various chapters, we will explore the strategies and techniques necessary to transform raw thoughts into elegantly crafted rhetoric. We’ll dissect various types of speeches, investigate how to perform a rhetorical situation analysis, and discuss strategies used for reaching audiences with a variety of dispositions. Join us as we embark on this interdisciplinary journey and witness the ways that ancient teachings and modern technologies come together to help speakers transform their messages into compelling addresses that move both minds and hearts.

2. Understanding the Audience: Tailoring Your Message

Given that the audience for Bloomington, Indiana will itself be so diverse, a lecturer speaking on campus topics to a “Bloomington” audience would have to discern mean characteristics of their listeners based on surveys or focus groups to whom they hope to address or are likely to address. Such intimate discussion of data surrounding demographics and itself is predicated on our prayers to an audience which will also have access to numerous focus groups or surveys and even at times be addressed by the lecturer. When a speaker has a complete picture of an audience (unfeasible, really) or a significant body, they can strategically manipulate those common themes to gain credibility or at least common hearing with their thoughts, even if some areas are not agreed upon by their general public delineated.

I. Tailoring your message: It’s common knowledge that a speech needs to have a clear and compelling central message, but how does a speaker begin to formulate that idea? The next several parts walk through techniques to distill down an effective message for a given audience. As speakers begin, they need to have a clear understanding of who is listening to or reading their speech. As with creating an argument, it means taking the time to walk in someone else’s shoes and gain a sense of their perspective, using that to increase efficacy and understanding. Techniques for analyzing the audience begin with the utmost legwork of demographics and psychographics: foci, motivations, socioeconomic background, etc. How does this work now in the age of the internet, where the same speech can reach so many people with alterations of ‘legwork’? The lecture also must look at the larger cultural backgrounds of the group to whom they are speaking.

3. Structuring Your Speech: Building a Strong Framework

As you begin to organize your body content, here are two pointers to consider. First, decide on your speech’s primary thesis. What is the overriding idea, theme, feeling, message, fact, or call to action that you most want your audience to internalize as a result of having heard you speak? Make this thesis explicit—it will help you guide large units of material into the right order. Second, within the body of your speech, move from strongest evidence/hardest truth to the arguments or examples that reinforce and shore up your various ideas. Standard ways to structure body content include: from present to future, from future to present, in spatial location, in chronological order, in order of importance (a variant: from least to most important), from least to most negative, in terms of decreasing statistical evidence.

There are three key elements to any speech (or piece of persuasive writing): the introduction, body, and conclusion. The three make a concrete, non-negotiable whole—and they should be developed in such a way as to fit perfectly with each other. This chapter will focus on the body of your speech. A detailed examination of introductions and conclusions will be addressed in later chapters.

How you organize your material will have a significant effect on your overall chances of getting your audience to accept your message. Without a solid framework, audiences will not understand the hierarchy and logic of your ideas. Furthermore, without a solid structure, you might end up repeating yourself, unwittingly prioritizing ideas you did not intend to prioritize, and wasting valuable time.

4. Incorporating Persuasive Techniques and Rhetorical Devices

Ethos, logos, and pathos are broadly used to describe the impact of speech, and should be our constant companion as well. Credibility and character, underpinned by logic, mostly impart a speaker’s ethos. At the same time, the use of humor, sentiment, and charisma is rooted in pathos. By shrewdly combining persuasive strategies, a speaker should be able to seduce, educate, and move the crowd into action. Use strategies for repetition: anaphora and epistrophe. Parallel structures can also provide repetition. Alliteration creates further verbal cohesion. Use pauses: these movements manipulate the crowd’s expectations as a rhetorical tool. Pause, so as not to wear out the main point. Repetition can thus highlight different shades of meaning.

In this section, we look at specific ways to persuade the audience and make the argument more effective. First, we examine strategies to make the speech more compelling. Rhetorical devices are a collection of equal parts artful language and cognitive psychology – tools to influence thought, action, and belief, while leaving an indelible impression. These devices range from the repetition of specific sounds, words, or phrases (such as alliteration, anaphora, or parallelism), to the strategic use of euphemism, irony, or understatement. Used as tools to evoke specific emotions or modes of thinking, they can create persuasive impact or illuminate logical fallacies. By structuring our thoughts and appealing to pathos, logos, and ethos, we can also lay the building blocks of our persuasive case.

5. Editing and Revising: Polishing Your Speech to Perfection

This is the work you’re doing right now! But Dr. King also suggests that, for the time being, you might want to be wary of reading written speeches. This is some of the best and most thoughtful advice to listen to. When getting inside the political writing voice, in order to make good speeches, it is sometimes more helpful to listen to good music, or go observe or participate in some qualitative research related to the interests of your proposed audience. Do just about anything else but read a speech right now.

The editing process we describe does not occur all at once, and it should be done repeatedly. Look over your content at least twice, once specifically for content and once for the bigger picture. Also, you may find that proofreading after letting the speech sit for a day or two helps you find simple errors you previously overlooked. The key is to go over your work as many times as necessary in order to create the enabling conditions for your revision, the tuning of the quality of your writing as a speech that cannot be done when you are fretting about recycling language and topics. Writing “I Will Become a Great and Good Speaker,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. suggests that, in addition to working with moral commitment, the burgeoning orator should also read “good books on speech and subjects relating to it and listen to good speakers!”

This final chapter addresses the process of editing and revising your rough draft to prepare it for presentation. We believe thorough and conscientious editing of your speeches is vital. The clarity, coherence, and ambition of your thinking should be evident in your writing itself. To accomplish the polishing work necessary for these ends, we will guide you through a basic kind of editing, dealing with the nitty-gritty ideological content of your speech, and demonstrate, as well, how to revise more generally, attending to style and the overall sound and feel of your language.