Are you in desperate need of some speech writing tips? Or maybe you are just looking for ways you can enhance your speech for regional level contests in a couple of weeks? Our Region I State Vice President, Addy Stuever Battel, has come up with a fantastic article about how to write a speech that will surely captivate your audience. Check it out below!
Catch Your Audience’s Attention: The Hook
There are a million and one other things your audience could be doing with their time other than listening to you. Why should they choose to spend 10 minutes listening to you blather on instead of swiping on Candy Crush? Make it an obvious choice for them by showing your audience you have something to say that is worth hearing. The attention grabber is often shorter than any other part of your speech, but arguably the most important part. An attention grabber – sometimes called a hook – can take many forms, but there are a few I like to keep in my back pocket. Those are an interesting fact or statistic, a quote by someone famous or interesting, or a captivating story.
For example, I might begin my speech titled “Pop Tarts are Ravioli” like this:
On March 15, 2019, at 11:04 p.m., Twitter user @notangmon tweeted in all caps, ‘POP TARTS ARE RAVIOLI!!! UNCRUSTABLES ARE RAVIOLI!!! EMPANADAS ARE RAVIOLI!!! CALZONES ARE RAVIOLI!!!’ Now that’s a take I can get behind, and so can you!
This sentence features a quote that grabs the listener’s attention because it is bold and to-the-point. I might have instead chosen to share a quote about how many people agree that pop tarts are ravioli or tell a story about the first time I picked up a pop tart and realized it was a ravioli. Sometimes, it is appropriate to combine each of these tools and others in an attention grabbing hook.
Tell Them What You’d Like to Tell Them: The Introduction
With our hook in place, it’s time to tell our audience just exactly why we’ve asked for their attention. At this point, you have your audience’s attention for the moment, but you have to keep working to secure continued attention. Your audience may still decide that Candy Crush is a better way to spend their time. It can be helpful to tell your audience up front the main points of the argument you will make so they can follow along in their heads while they listen. This will make them feel like they have to do less work to hear you out, and it will make them more likely to keep giving you their attention.
The next paragraph of my speech might look like this:
To analyze every single food ever given the title of ravioli is a lot to unpack, so today let’s focus on pop tarts. I’m here to tell you that pop tarts are indeed a ravioli because they feature three key characteristics that every ravioli has in common. Pop tarts have a soft filling, this filling is within a carb-based shell, and pop tarts are rectangular.
The introduction is a little longer than the hook, but still not the largest part of your speech. All you need to do in an introduction is tell your audience what to expect from the rest of your speech.
Tell Them: The Body
The body is the largest chunk of your speech, and the place you have an opportunity to make your argument. The body of your speech should feature an explanation of the three to five most important points you have to discuss to make your argument. Any more than that and you may begin to lose your audience’s attention. The actual length of your speech body will depend on how much content you need to cover under each of your points. It’s important to boil even this down to the most important things you have to say.
The body of my speech could be something like this:
Raviolis have soft fillings. A pop tart is no exception. No matter what flavor of pop tart you buy, it will have a soft filling. This is the number one reason that a pop tart is a ravioli.
A key feature of any self-respecting ravioli is its carb-rich crust. Any pop tart enthusiast knows that the crust of a pop tart is pure starchy goodness.
Last, but most certainly not least, raviolis are always vaguely rectangular. Pop tarts are rectangular enough to be used as a building material.
This speech body is much shorter than anything we would actually write for a real speech, partially because it’s just an example, but mostly because the fact that pop tarts are ravioli is abundantly clear.
There is one more important thing I should point out about writing a quality speech body. The order of the points you make should always follow the order that you said them in your introduction. If you look back, you’ll notice my introduction said, “Pop tarts have a soft filling, this filling is within a carb-based shell, and pop tarts are rectangular.” And that’s the order I presented my argument to you in my speech body. Doing this will help your audience follow your speech in their heads and make it easier for you to keep their attention.
Remind Them What You Just Told Them: The Conclusion
This is where you tie everything together with a big, beautiful bow. As we’ve discovered, people have incredibly short attention spans, so it’s important that you remind your audience of your main points. A powerful conclusion also reminds the audience of something you said in your introduction. This helps to bring your speech full-circle and make your points memorable.
I might end my speech like this:
So remember folks, pop tarts are ravioli. They have soft filling within a carb-based shell and are rectangular. Or, as Twitter used @notagmon would say *screaming* POP TARTS ARE RAVIOLI!!!
Did you notice that I followed the four steps even in this essay? My very first sentence is something that catches your attention (we all have strong feelings about whether or not a pop tart is a ravioli), the rest of the paragraph introduces the four-step model, the following paragraphs detail each of the four steps, and in this paragraph right here I’m reminding you what each of the four steps are. With these four steps in had, you’re ready to write a powerful speech your audience can’t help but listen to!
Written by Addy Stuever Battel, Region I State Vice President
