Organizing and Outlining

To say that a good speech has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion is to say that, once again, it must be outlined the way you would orga­nize a term paper or article. The concept can be summarized by that old saw: "Tell 'em what you're going to tell them; then tell 'em; and finally, tell 'em what you told them."

 

The All-Important Introduction

"A funny thing happened to me on the way to the hotel tonight..."

Oh, yeah?

A funny thing happened to speechwriting in the past few decades:

Speakers learned that audiences don't howl anymore over jokes lifted from books like A Thousand and One Stories for Every Occasion. We get enough formula jokes and canned laughter on television. And the contemporary audience is cynical enough to doubt that the quotation from Aristotle, Will Rogers, or John F. Kennedy is really one of the speaker's favorites, rather than something the speechwriter dug up for the occasion.

 

In his guidebook for executive speakers, AT&T government relations manager Edward H. McCarthy suggests that the most effective speech is written in an oral style, meaning that the language is clear, vivid, and easy to understand, and the information is easy to retain. Specific suggestions include:

1) Use short words.

2) Use the personal pronoun I frequently.

3) Use active verbs like push, take, grab and move.

4) Use analogies that help the audience visualize.

5) Use repetition and parallel construction to develop a pattern and cadence.

6) Tell anecdotes that are memorable and illustrative.

7) Provide examples, facts, figures, data to make your points.

8) Sentence fragments are okay, if they give the speech more punch.

9) Rhetorical questions get the audience involved.

 

"The rule of thumb concerning a joke is threefold: the speaker can deliver it effectively; it flows out of the experience of the speaker; it is appropriate to the subject." If those tests can be met, then certainly a moment of levity is an effective way to gain the attention and the empa­thy of the listener. The speechwriter might draw out an anecdote from the speaker during the first interview and attempt to shape it into a lively opening remark. If it falls flat in rehearsal, or if the speaker wants to open with something ad lib that is appropriate to the moment, then the humorous story is best left out of the script.

If the speech is to be serious in tone, an ominous opening statement might be appropriate: "Central Valley may be a ghost town ten years from now..."

Intriguing, little-known facts can raise the curiosity of the listen­ers: "Every year, twenty-seven pounds of soot and dust particles fall on each of the citizens living in Central City. Fortunately, it falls a little at a time, and not all at once!"

Still another effective device is the revealing bit of personal history:

"This is the first time I've been back to Bloomington since I was gradu­ated from college, and I have to admit the circumstances are a bit happier this time. Now I'm working for the government. When I left, the govern­ment wasn't so happy with me—as a student, I ran up a small fortune in parking fines right here on Campus Drive." (If it doesn't get a big laugh from the audience, at least it may help put the speaker at ease.)

 

Songwriter, television host, and humorist Steve Allen is renowned as a toastmaster, MC, and speaker on serious subjects as well as light-hearted ones. As a humorist, he knows that jokes can fall flat, and the best humor in a speech adds a human touch, not just a bellylaugh:

Far better than a formula joke, and even better than a funny story, is humor with the ring of truth to it. If you can relate an actual incident, whether it happened to you or to someone else, and if, furthermore, your listeners realize that they are hearing a true story, the results will almost invariably be satisfactory.

The implication for public relations speechwriters is clear. Instead of pounding through old joke books or lifting witticisms from one of the newsletters that packages quips and quotes for use in speeches, sit down with your speaker and try to come up with an incident that really happened. The speaker will relish telling such a real story, and that will add to the audience's enjoyment.

 

How Much to Say?

A professional speechwriter put it succinctly: "No one will get mad at a speaker who made a twenty-minute speech when he was scheduled for twenty-five minutes." The tolerance level of the typical audience, con­ditioned by half-hour television sitcoms, is not what it used to be. Even captive audiences (employees, fellow professionals, students in class­rooms) become restless when the big hand on the clock completes a full circle. If you've narrowed your topic sufficiently, you can be complete and still be brief. If you've been commissioned to fill an hour, why not plan to devote half of it to fielding questions?

When managers are going to address a friendly and familiar audience, they probably will not ask the public relations department for help in preparing the speech. On the other hand, many managers attained their positions because they were superb engineers, planners, or economic analysts, not because they have a knack for getting an audience in the palms of their hands.

Even when the manager is a competent speaker, making an effec­tive speech is not merely a matter of turning on the charm or reaching into a bag of oratorical tricks. One of the most important contributions the PR department can make, for example, is to research the composi­tion of the audience in order to advise the speaker who the listeners are, what their interest level is, what they already know about the subject, and what kinds of questions they are likely to ask.