Let’s return once again to our speech examples. Here are ways that we might introduce each of those speeches:
Toothpaste Speech:
Good morning, and thank you for coming today.
And believe me in this: You’ll be glad you did, because today I’m going to change your life. In fact, I’m going to change your very smile—I’m going to offer you a better reason to smile!
Nice smiles are a passion of mine. When I was six years old, I managed to knock most of my teeth out by riding my bicycle into a tree. That experience taught me two things: Trees are hard, and teeth are important. Fortunately, my adult teeth came in to replace them, but I’ve spent most of my life learning how to take proper care of that set—because they can’t be replaced!
And that is just what we’ll be discussing here this morning: how to protect your smile. I’m sure you all use toothpaste every day, but are you sure
you’re using the best toothpaste? I’d like to offer you a comparison which will demonstrate that all toothpastes are not created alike; in fact, some are remarkably better than others. To that end, we’ll consider three important elements of toothpaste selection: cavity prevention, whitening effects, and cost. When we’re done, I think you’ll agree that toothpaste A outperforms all its competitors, namely toothpaste B—and this is what is going to change your life.
First, let’s consider the element of cavity protection. . . .
Painting Speech:
Good afternoon, it’s a real privilege to be invited to speak to such an illustrious group of artists! I’ve had the pleasure of seeing some of your own paint-ing projects, and I was deeply impressed by the measure of expertise and artistry in them. I was awed by the lifelike qualities in several horses, and when I got to the section of military miniatures. . . well, I was ready to surrender!
I’ve been painting miniatures since I was old enough to smear my fingerprints on my mom’s newly painted white walls, which was also around the time I learned not to eat the paint. My own specialty is in the realm of fantasy figures, since I have a real passion for anything that looks remotely medieval. I’ve brought a few of my own favorites, which I’ll have here on the table for you to check out when we’re done.
I’d like to consider some of the finer points of brushwork and paint selection this afternoon, pay-ing particular attention to how the miniature’s construction influences those decisions. We’ll start with the various types of paint, discussing more than just the basics as we consider what works best in different conditions. Then we’ll turn our atten-tion to the actual brushwork techniques we can use to accomplish different effects, and we’ll conclude by considering how different media can limit and expand our horizons. By the time we’re done, I –Start witH a bang–
think you’ll be armed to make intelligent decisions on how to paint before you paint—and this can only improve your final product.
Let’s begin with the most important decision:
which paint to use. . . .
Exercise
Use this questionnaire together with the body of your speech to outline your introduction:
n Attention grabber: How can I best keep the audience’s attention? What would I not want to draw attention to?
n Credentials: What makes me an expert on this topic? What does the audience already know?
What new information can I offer them?
n Topic: What will I prove in this speech? What aspects of my topic will I focus on?
n Sub-Points: What are my sub-points? How does each point further my thesis or topic?
n Application: Why should the audience care about listening? What is in it for them? What will they take home with them?
–Start witH a bang–
n you have the audience’s attention when you walk to the front. your job is to keep it!
n you want the audience to pay attention to your words, not your appearance.
n always dress one notch better than your audience. Consider these dress categories:
—Casual: Jeans, tennis shoes, t-shirts
—Business Casual: Khakis, slacks, casual shirts and blouses, loafers
—Business Formal: suits, dresses, dress shoes, neckties
—Formal: tuxedoes, formal gowns, matching accessories
n “tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them.”
n Give them a reason to listen—or they won’t.
tips
Start witH a bang
leSSon
t
he most common source of anxiety for those speaking publicly is the fear that they will get up front and suddenly go blank, forgetting everything they had planned to say. This fear is probably as common as dreaming that you are out in public without your pants—and it has about the same likelihood of actu-ally happening in real life.All the same, you can vastly alleviate those anxieties by the simple expedient of being well-prepared, know-ing that you will not forget your words because you have taken vigorous steps to prevent that from happenknow-ing.
The truth is that unless you are giving an impromptu speech, you will have spent vast amounts of time research-ing and preparresearch-ing your speech. The next step, then, is to decide how you will deliver it.
LESSON SUMMARY
No good speech is truly given off the cuff without some advance thought—but the best ones appear that way. In this lesson, we will consider the four major methods of speech delivery, noting the best uses of each.
That speech is most worth listening to which has been carefully prepared in private and tried on a plaster cast, or an empty chair, or any other appreciative object that will keep quiet, until the speaker has got his matter and his delivery limbered up so that they will seem impromptu to an audience.
—Mark Twain, 1835–1910