Imagine yourself speaking at the World Championship of Public Speaking. You’ve written a speech from your heart, and you deliver the best performance of your life. When the winner is announced, it’s you!

Possible? Yes.
You can win.

That which separates those who win from those who do not win is not lifetime speaking experience nor contest experience. Not gestures. Not vocal variety. Not rhetorical devices. Not overall delivery skills.

The most critical discriminator between those who win and those who do not is preparation.

Believing You Can Win

Henry Ford observed:

Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.

If you believe you can win a Toastmasters Speech Contest, then you can win. Believing you can win will motivate you to give it the proverbial 110% (even though that is a mathematical absurdity).

There are no shortcuts. The lessons contained in the previous nine articles of the Speech Preparation Series apply to speeches of all types, including Toastmasters speech contests. So, a necessary first step to preparing a great contest speech is to prepare a great speech. Period.

However, a Toastmaster speech contest is a unique speaking situation, just as pitching a business proposal to angel investors is a unique speaking situation. Both require additional preparation steps which are customized to the situation.

Toastmasters Speech Contest Criteria

To see what makes a Toastmasters speech contest unique, look no further than the Judging Guide set forth by Toastmasters International.

The Judging Guide consists of seven categories totalling 100 points as follows:

• Content (50 total)
  • 20 points: Speech Development
  • 15 points: Speech Effectiveness
  • 15 points: Speech Value
• Delivery (30 total)
  • 10 points: Physical
  • 10 points: Voice
  • 10 points: Manner
• Language (20 total)
  • 10 points: Appropriateness
  • 10 points: Correctness

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that your goal is to attain maximum points in as many categories as you can. Study these criteria and check them against your speech iteratively.

10 Tips for Winning a Toastmasters Speech Contest

Here are the top ten lessons I learned through years of competing in Toastmaster speech contests.

1. Craft Compelling Content

Content counts for one half of the judging points. i.e. content is king. Still, many inexperienced speech contestants sacrifice content in the pursuit of perfect delivery. Don’t make this mistake. Delivery is important, but content is more important.

2. Make it Universal

Once you move beyond the club level, your audience in general (and the judges in particular) almost certainly comprise a broad demographic cross-section. Highly technical topics or those which appeal to only a subset of the audience must be avoided. Winning topics are those which have universal appeal.
e.g. life lessons, love, family, personal development, beating the odds, adherence to a code of conduct

3. Include Humor

You won’t see humor anywhere on the judge’s guide (there is a separate Toastmasters Humorous Speech Contest). Nonetheless, humor is an essential element. Humorous anecdotes or phrases should be used to support your core message.

4. Ask Probing Questions

Because you know your topic so well, it can be difficult for you to analyze speech development and speech effectiveness from the perspective of your audience. When you rehearse, ask your practice audience specific probing questions such as:

• What was the key message? If they respond with something that doesn’t match the message you intended, you have a problem.
• Was the message clear?
• Were there any confusing words, phrases, or parts?
• Did it connect with you? [There is no speech which will connect with every person, but if your test audience is bored, then there's a good chance your real audience will be as well.]

5. Avoid Forcing Unnatural Gestures

With a full ten points for gestures (i.e. “Physical”), it is tempting to force gestures into a speech where they might not belong. To avoid doing this, practice the speech out loud before you deliberately script any gestures. Notice the gestures your body naturally makes, and then work on perfecting the delivery of those gestures.

6. Avoid Forcing Unnatural Vocal Variety

Don’t write a speech, and then say “I need to insert loud elements, soft elements, high pitch, low pitch, fast pace, and slow pace using the words I’ve written.” Rather, apply vocal variety naturally to enhance the words. If the resulting speech is still vocally flat, then perhaps you need to rewrite sections.

7. Improve at Every Level

As you progress up through the Toastmasters speech contest levels, competition becomes increasingly stronger. While good speeches may win at the club level, they may not win at area or division. Don’t relax and think that your victory at one level will earn you victory at the next. Solicit feedback and improve your speech at every level.

8. Seek Magic Moments

Assuming your competition is as prepared as you are, the judges will be faced with a difficult decision: how to distinguish between two comparable speeches? The best way to distinguish yourself is to incorporate at least one utterly unforgettable moment. It might be a prop. It might be a gesture. You might sing. You might have a particularly effective method of interacting with the audience. Your speech needs some quality that no other competing speech has.

It may not be enough for you to leave the impression “That was a great speech.” Instead, your goal should be to have the judges thinking “Wow, did you see that?”

9. End Positive and End Strong

You can take your audience for a ride on an emotional trampoline, but always end with a positive emotion or a feeling of hope. Judges are human. Humans like to feel good. The last impression you leave before the judge marks the ballot should put them in a positive frame of mind.

Your conclusion is always an important speech element, but its importance is heightened in speech contests because it is the last thing spoken before the judges switch their attention to the score sheet. Equally important, a strong conclusion will increase applause from the audience. In turn, this will have a positive effect on judges.

10. Don’t “Try” to Win

As you stand ready to deliver your first words, the right frame of mind is critical. For example:

• “I have seven minutes to deliver an important message to the audience.” The focus is on the audience and the message.
• “I have seven minutes to impress the judges and win the contest.” The focus is on you and your ego.

Adopt the former frame of mind. Your passionate performance will propel you to victory.

Conclusion of the Speech Preparation Series

This concludes the Speech Preparation Series. I hope you found it interesting and valuable. I welcome any feedback you have on individual articles, or on the series as a whole. Please share your own advice for speech preparation.

Remember: Proper preparation prevents presentation predicaments!

Prepare well. Speak well.

Similar Articles You May Like... Speech Analysis #5: Toastmasters Evaluation Contests Interview with LaShunda Rundles: 2008 World Champion of Public Speaking The Olympics of Oratory: World Championship of Public Speaking Lessons I Learned from Toastmasters Speech Contests Speech Analysis #4: Evaluation Forms, Tools, and Resources Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety

Have a Question? Contact me anytime, or find me on Twitter: @6minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

This article focuses on the sixth step: critiquing your speech so you can learn from your strengths and weaknesses. Thus, a self-critique is really the first step in preparation for your next speech.

Why Critique Your Presentation Skills?

Great speakers realize that presentation skills are not easily mastered in one or two or ten speeches. Speaking skills are improved incrementally one speech at a time.

To realize these incremental improvements, it is essential to periodically review your skills. Some people prefer to do this review once a week or once a month; I recommend that you review your skills after every speech, especially if you are a novice speaker just dipping your toes into the public speaking pool.

Critiquing Your Own Speech

It only takes a few minutes to review a speech, and the best time to do it is the same day that you delivered it. Your delivery is still fresh in your mind, as is your preparation for the speech.

When critiquing your own speech, you can apply many of the same criteria that you would when critiquing someone else’s speech. You will find an extensive list of these criteria in a previous Six Minutes article about speech analysis.

Those criteria are a great start, but you can also ask yourself many other questions too.

• Overall, were you satisfied with your final speech? If not, why not?
• Did you achieve your objective? Was your core message received by the audience?
• Were you confident during your delivery? Were you more nervous or less nervous than previous speeches?
• What audience feedback did you receive during or after delivery of the speech? What strengths were mentioned? What weaknesses were revealed?
• What did you think of your delivery?
• Did you have any stumbles? Were they caused by nervousness, or was there another cause?
• How long did you speak? Was this shorter or longer than you had planned? If you were under time, this may be an indication that your speaking rate was a bit fast. If you were over time, this may be an indication that you should have cut more material.
• Did you try any new techniques, either in the preparation phase or in your delivery? If so, what did you think? What lessons can you extract?

Depending on the context of the speech, a few other questions include:

• Was your pre-speech audience analysis accurate? If not, what did you learn about this audience that you could apply to the speech to make it better?
• If you led a Q&A session during the presentation, how did it go? From the types of questions asked, did it seem like your audience “got” the message?
• If you obtained an audio recording, what did you learn from listening to it? Was your voice clear throughout? Did you have any distracting habits? (e.g. um’s, ah’s, trailing off at the end of sentences)
• If you obtained a video recording, what did you learn from watching it? How was your posture and eye contact? Were your gestures varied and timed well? Did you have any distracting habits?

And, one final question:

• If you were going to deliver the same speech to the same audience, what would you do differently?

Remember that the aim of the self-critique is not to beat yourself up over any slips or mistakes you might have made. Instead, the true aim is to celebrate your successes and look ahead to see how you can improve for your next speech.

Self-Critique Example — Face the Wind

Overall, I’m very happy with my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind. I won the club, area, and division contests, and presented on the “big stage” at the district conference.

Unfortunately, I didn’t achieve the goal I had set for myself — winning the District 21 Speech Contest. I felt that I could have won, but the field of ten contestants was very strong.

Here’s my self-assessment, aided by the fact that I have an excellent video of my performance!

Speech Self-Critique: Strengths

• I did my best. I honestly felt that I delivered the best possible speech that my skills allowed at that given time. As I was walking off the stage, I wanted to give someone a high-five because I knew the delivery was my best.
• Gestures and Staging. I felt my choreography was second to none. I received numerous compliments on this aspect of the speech. This made me quite happy because I had spent a great deal of time working on gestures and staging.
• I got laughter from the audience in most places where I was aiming for it.
• Several audience members suggested that I have the skill set to be a full-time motivational speaker.
• I had lots of fun through the whole process! I received such positive encouragement from so many people. The organizers of the district speech contest treated the contestants like royalty!

Speech Self-Critique: Weaknesses

• I felt that some body movements were a little rigid at times, particularly during the speech opening. Was this the result of too much preparation (robotic), or not enough preparation to make the movements more fluid?
  • In the future, I should videotape my rehearsal sessions to see if I can pick up on this trait.
• I think my timing and pauses could have been a little better in my delivery of humor punchlines.
  • In the future, I need to work on writing so I have better punchlines and punch words.
• In a few instances, when I lowered the volume of my voice, I think I went too quiet. It may not have been loud enough for everyone to hear.
  • In the future, I need to keep my voice strong even during “quiet” lines.
• Some feedback I received hinted that the core message could have been stronger by eliminating the entire Maximus story, and instead using the time for a stronger (and lengthier) call-to-action. Personally, I thought I needed this story to make a human connection. However, I concede that I’m probably a little too close to the story (i.e. my nephew!) to be entirely objective.
  • In the future, I need to solicit more feedback specifically about the core message and what might be done to strengthen it. Perhaps I need to devote a little more time to speech writing, and less to delivery techniques.

A question for you, my esteemed readers… How could I have improved the speech?

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The last article in the Speech Preparation Series examines Toastmasters Speech Contests and the preparation necessary to be successful.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Speech Preparation #8: How to Practice Your Presentation
• How can you inspire your audience? Ask 10-year-old Dalton Sherman.
• 5 Presentation Lessons from Randy Pausch in The Last Lecture
• Speech Preparation #10: Prepare to Win a Toastmasters Speech Contest
• Speech Preparation #7: Choreograph Your Speech with Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety
• Speech Preparation #6: Add Impact with Rhetorical Devices

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Have you heard this claim?
“Practicing makes me robotic. My speeches are better and more natural if I just work from my outline.”

This may be acceptable for scenarios where you don’t care about the result, but in all other cases, it’s hogwash.

The eighth in the Speech Preparation Series, this article provides practical ideas for maximizing the benefit from your practice time.

Why Practice? Does Practice Make Perfect?

Practicing your speech is essential, but I’d be foolish to suggest that practice alone will result in a “that was the best speech I’ve ever heard” response from your audience. For this, you need to master essential public speaking skills and build up experience doing so.

So, while practice you won’t necessarily make you perfect, you will reap significant benefits by practicing your speech at least a couple times:

• Discover awkward phrases and tongue-twisters that you did not notice when writing and editing. Speaking the words out loud exposes flaws that reading does not.
• Gauge your energy level. Does delivering this speech fire you up? Or are you bored with it?
• Gauge your timing. Once you get more experienced, you will learn how many words can fit in a 10-minute time slot. Until then, however, practicing the complete speech is the best way to know if you are under or over time.
• Reduce nervousness. Rehearsing even one time will improve your confidence in your material.

How to Rehearse Your Speech

You might practice for 60 hours. You might practice for 60 minutes. Either way, here are a few tips that will help you achieve maximum benefit from time spent rehearsing:

• Re-create the speech setting
  Reading your speech at a desk (or from your computer screen) is not optimal unless you are preparing for a webcast. Try to duplicate the speech setting as much as you can.
  • Practice in the room where you’ll be speaking, if you can.
  • Stand up. You get more realistic voice projection.
  • Rehearse with props and visual aids.
  • Arrange an audience. Practicing with an audience is better than practicing without one… even if it is not your target audience.
  • Consider what you will wear when your speech will be delivered. Will it add complications? Inhibit gestures or movement in any way?
• Take notes
  Don’t hesitate to stop yourself in the middle of your rehearsal to jot down ideas as they come to you. Capture internal feelings immediately.
• Experiment
  Try out different voices, gestures, or staging. This is especially important for your opening, conclusion, and any other key points. Give yourself confidence knowing that these lines will be delivered precisely as you intended.
• Time yourself
  You can easily do this yourself, but it helps if someone else can time you. Insert planned pauses, and insert delays when you expect laughter or some other audience response. This may feel funny, but an accurate timing estimate will tell you if you need to do more editing.
• Use all that you learn to edit your speech and make it better.

Soliciting Feedback

Practicing your speech is good.
Practicing your speech with an audience is better.
Practicing your speech with someone who will give you honest feedback is best.

Practicing with an audience gives you valuable feedback:

• Is your humor drawing smiles and laughs or is it missing completely?
• Are you keeping the audience’s attention throughout?
• Are you receiving positive feedback in the form of nodding heads and smiles, or is a blank stare the most common expression?

After the rehearsal, actively solicit feedback. Make it clear that you want honest opinions about what could be improved. A dozen “Good speech!” comments may boost your ego, but it won’t boost the quality of your speech. To reap feedback that will improve your speech, ask open-ended questions like these:

• What was your favorite element in the speech? Why?
• What would you like to see improved?
• How can I improve my speech for next time?

This is far better than asking yes/no questions such as “Did you like it?”

If the presentation is important to you, and you don’t have a test audience that provides you with valuable feedback, hire a coach! Hire me or one of thousands of speech coaches.

Audio Recordings

Audio recordings help you gauge many delivery qualities, including speaking pace, pitch, and pauses.

• Assess which phrases sound “good” and which are awkward to listen to.
• Listen for um’s, ah’s, and other filler words.
• Notice if and when you stumbled.
• Time the overall speech (which would be easy to do with a watch), as well as individual segments of the speech (which you cannot do unless you stop and start numerous times).

I recently acquired the inexpensive Olympus WS-311M digital voice recorder for speech rehearsals. It is small (easy to carry) and has all the features I need for recording and playing back speeches. I encourage you to check it out along with competing products.

• As I’m writing this article, it is selling for $79 US [$49 off the list price]. That’s much less than I paid. That’s life.

Video Recordings

A video recording of yourself speaking is an incredibly powerful tool. All of your habits — both good and bad — are captured. In addition to the audio assessments mentioned in the previous section, you can also learn:

• Are your gestures working?
• Are your gestures synchronized well with your words?
• Are your gestures varied, or are they monotonous?
• Are you smiling?
• Are you fidgeting, or displaying any other distracting mannerisms?
• Does your body sway from side to side?
• Eye contact is difficult to assess if the recording was made without a full audience, but you should be able to tell at least if your eyes are up, or down at your toes.
• If you are using visual aids, are your transitions smooth?
• If you are using a prop, was it handled smoothly?

I own an older model Sony DCR-TRV33 which records digitally on MiniDV tapes, but I’m sure any modern video camera is sufficient. The one luxury upgrade I wish I had is a lavalier microphone to capture better sound quality than the camera’s built-in microphone.

Practical Example — Face the Wind

I practiced my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind more than any other speech I’ve ever delivered. Here are the most valuable lessons I learned:

• The speech (in various iterations) was delivered formally four times at the club, area, division, and district speech contests.
• I rehearsed over 100 times. I rehearsed the speech in the car driving to/from work every day for about six weeks. I rehearsed in front of my wife and daughter. I rehearsed in the hotel room before the district contest. I rehearsed every chance I could.
• In the car, I obviously couldn’t do the gestures or staging, but I experimented heavily with different vocal variety, and then jotted down my observations when I reached my destination.
• After each of the first three contests, I sought feedback from audience members. In all cases, I received wonderful suggestions which made the speech better. Significant editing was performed after each contest.
• I sat down with a trusted fellow speaker and walked through the entire speech, line by line. This detailed review helped me perform some tough editing. It is easier to cut lines you love when someone looks you in the eye and tells you that they aren’t working.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

You are ready to deliver your speech. Good luck! You will be awesome.

Immediately after the speech, the time is ripe for preparing for the next one. Productive self-critiquing is the focus of the next article in the Speech Preparation Series.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Speech Preparation #9: Prepare Now for Your Next Speech
• 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them
• How to Deliver Group Presentations: The Unified Team Approach
• How to Deliver the Talk of Your Life
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking
• How can you inspire your audience? Ask 10-year-old Dalton Sherman.

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Wrong. You only have words on paper, and your audience doesn’t want to read your speech.

Your audience wants to see and hear your presentation. You will dazzle them by complementing your speech with staging, gestures, and vocal variety.

This article shows you how.

Vocal Variety: The Four P’s

Monotone delivery puts your audience to sleep, no matter how riveting your content. On the other hand, an energetic and varied voice will be music to their ears.

Vocal variety covers the 4 P’s:

1. Power (or volume)
2. Pitch
3. Pace
4. Pauses

Power

Power refers to the volume you project. At a minimum, be sure that your entire audience can easily hear you without straining.

• Turning your voice volume up or down adds interest. Use both variations when they match the emotion you want to convey. For example, speaking loud might be used to convey excitement. Speaking soft might convey sadness.
• Use a microphone to amplify your voice in large rooms.
• Eliminate outside noises, if you can. If you can’t, consider moving the audience closer to you, or moving into the audience.

Pitch

Pitch is the frequency of the sound you emit. To some extent, you are born with your voice pitch, whether it be soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, or baritone. However, if your speech contains dialogue for several characters, varying your pitch is an excellent way to distinguish between them.

Pace

Pace is your speaking rate, and varying it throughout the speech adds great interest. There are many effects that a variable pace can generate, but the most basic are:

• Speed up to heighten the emotion in a dramatic story.
• Slow down when delivering key phrases.

The most common pace problem is speaking too fast for the audience to absorb the material. There are two underlying reasons for this:

• Lack of editing leaves too much content and too little time. The resulting pace is far too fast for the audience to absorb.
• Nervousness also contributes to a rapid speaking rate.

For an example of rapid speaking rate, see Majora Carter in Greening the Ghetto.

Pauses

Pauses are magical. On the lips of master speakers, pauses can be used for a multitude of purposes.

• Short pauses can signal the end of a clause or sentence. Your audience needs these because they can’t read the punctuation in your text.
• Longer pauses signal the transition between major points or stories. Experienced speakers will often take a drink of water, ready a prop, or consult notes at these times.
• Pauses before and after key points are wonderful buffers. The preceding pause signals to the audience that you are about to say something important. The following pause gives the audience time to reflect on what you just said and internalize it.
• Pauses can also be used to enhance audience interaction (e.g. ask a rhetorical question, and then wait).

Example: Steve Jobs demonstrates a powerful pause in his Stanford Commencement speech.

Gestures / Body Language

Hundreds of gestures are available to help complement your words. Gestures throughout your speech make you interesting to watch. If you are interesting to watch, then your audience will be more attentive to your message. Failure to use gestures will lead your audience to watch the inside of their eyeballs.

Rather than attempting to itemize hundreds of different gestures, I’ll highlight a few general principles:

• Your body will naturally want to move as you speak. Don’t inhibit these natural gestures as they convey a sense that you are comfortable and confident in your message.
• Mix in deliberate gestures to coincide with key points. Mimic the actions of your speech (e.g. throwing a ball), or convey concepts through recognizable symbols (e.g. convey “censorship” by covering your mouth).
• Use a variety of gestures. Don’t use the same one over and over and over again.
• Increase the size of your gestures to match the size of the room. When presenting to three of your co-workers at a table, your gestures can be small (e.g. hand gestures that start at the wrist). When presenting to a packed auditorium, your gestures should be large (e.g. full-body gestures originating from the shoulders)
• Don’t neglect the power of facial gestures. Your audience will feed off the facial gestures you make.

For an outstanding demonstration of gestures which complement a speech, see J.A. Gamache deliver Being a Mr. G.

Staging

Staging your speech means utilizing the 3-dimensional space around you in the most effective way possible.

• Novice speakers will chain themselves to the lectern or stand in one spot on the middle of the stage.
• Intermediate speakers will meander randomly around the speaking area. Body movement appeals to the audience and keeps attention.
• Great speakers move around the speaking area with purpose. Every time they take a few steps, they are doing so with a distinct purpose in mind.

Like gestures, there are innumerable ways to stage your speech, but here are a few general principles:

• The simplest act of staging is to prepare the speaking area before you begin. Move the lectern to the side. Move obstacles away, or at least be aware of them. Make sure every person in the audience has a clear sight line to you (or your slides). Simple acts like this show the audience that you’ve thought of everything, and that you want no barriers between you and them.
• If you are using props or other visual aids, plan where they will be before and after you use them. When they are not being used, you want them out of sight.
• Just as long pauses can signal the transition between major points, so can considerable movement within the speaking area.
• You can map specific locations in the speaking area to be virtual locations for certain stories of your speech. Then, when you refer back to these stories, a simple gesture back to that area of the speaking area is valuable to help the audience make the connection.
• In very large rooms, be sure to balance your position on the left, center, and right of the speaking area.
• Not every speech allows for it, but don’t forget about the forward/backward direction as well as up/down. If you can meaningfully bring in these directions, it will make a powerful statement. For example, consider what climbing on a chair might allow you to do within your speech.

Example of Staging, Gestures, and Vocal Variety — Face the Wind

As I have done with previous articles in this series, I will use my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind to illustrate the use of staging, gestures, and vocal variety.

Below is an annotated summary of key staging, gestures, and vocal variety — the choreography of the speaking performance. The summary is time-indexed e.g. [1:15] according to the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• Staging: Throughout the speech, note how most of the humor “punch lines” are delivered looking right or left. Similarly, many of the serious lines are delivered front and center. This is a technique that I was exploring in this speech for the first time.
• Gesture: Arm gesture to left, then right to match the trading of house keys for condo keys. [0:27]
• Vocal variety: “escaped … loud vacuous whoosh“. Also complemented by arm gestures to the right [0:42]
• Gesture: Facial expressions on “yard work” [0:56]
• Gesture: Arm gesture referring to audience on “a Toastmasters club officer” because many in the audience were (or have been) officers. [1:00]
• Staging: The walk around my yard looking at numerous bushes and trees [1:26]
• Gesture/Staging: Introduction of the Japanese maple tree is with arms up to indicate the height of the tree. Notice how this stage position is mapped to the tree location. [1:34]
• Vocal variety: Vocal variety: “no, not wide enough” [2:10]
• Gesture/Staging: Difficult to see this on the video, but the hole-digging sequence involves stage movement from front to back, diagonally. [2:13]
• Gesture: Arms open wide to indicate the breadth of the “moat” [2:21]
• Staging: Drop to the floor to wrestle the tree. [2:30] This position was also the setup for the “roots like tentacles, as expansive as its branches” gesture [2:50]
• Gesture: Triumphant gesture [2:34]
• Staging: Note the location of the neighbour’s monster tree is off to the right (actually above the audience). This position is mapped for future reference to the monster tree. [3:12]. For example, notice reference to monster tree at [3:51] and again at [4:12].
• Gesture: Forceful gestures to mimic the gas BBQ being lifted up [4:05]
• Gesture: Double hand gesture for “force combined with direction” [4:30]
• Gesture/Staging: Full body gestures for wind blowing and tree resisting. Notice that for these gestures, I am facing to the side so that the majority of the audience will see these gestures in profile. This is more effective than facing the audience. Note also how the contrasting wind directions are indicated [4:39 to 4:55].
• Vocal variety: Voice is quieter at the start of the miscarriage story, then gets louder with “when that wind came for them, not once but twice” [5:05]
• Gesture: holding infant Maximus [6:22]
• Gesture: incubator [6:30]
• Gesture: Notice the gestures in the “yesterday-today-tomorrow” segment [6:45] It starts on the audience’s left, then middle, then right… just as if they were viewing a standard timeline from left to right.
• Vocal variety: Lengthy pause before “We are not trees” [7:04]
• Gesture: Emphatic gestures to indicate we are not trees [7:12] and roots going through the seat [7:13]. Energy here is amplified.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

Your speech is finally ready. No… wait… you haven’t practiced it yet. The next article in the Speech Preparation Series discusses techniques to get maximum benefit from your rehearsal sessions.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Toastmasters Speech 6: Vocal Variety
• Are Your Speech Gestures Too Small, Too Big, or Just Right?
• Toastmasters Speech 5: Your Body Speaks
• Are… um… Filler Words… ah… Okay?
• Speech Preparation #10: Prepare to Win a Toastmasters Speech Contest
• Speech Preparation #9: Prepare Now for Your Next Speech

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

The previous article in the Speech Preparation Series showed you how to edit your speech for focus, clarity, and concision.

However, your speech can be focused, clear, and concise and still lack vitality.

If your speech is void of rhetorical devices, it is like a painting void of color.

On all technical points, a black and white sketch might clearly be a woman smiling, or group of men having a meal, but without color, it’s not the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper.

With many examples, this article demonstrates how you can inject rhetorical devices into your speech during the editing process.

Writing for Impact and Beauty

The study of rhetoric provides speechwriters with numerous rhetorical devices. When you use these devices, your presentations will be more impactful (easier to remember) as well as more beautiful (more pleasurable to listen to).

Of the very large number of rhetorical devices, we’ll investigate three types in this article:

1. Devices which involve sounds (often with repetition)
   e.g. alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia
2. Devices which involve repetition of words, phrases, or ideas (often with parallelism)
   e.g. anaphora
3. Devices which change the usual meaning of words
   e.g. metaphors, similes

Many other devices not discussed here are worthy of study:

• Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric
• Wikipedia: Figures of Speech

1. Rhetorical Devices: Sound

Sound-based rhetorical devices add a poetic melody to speeches. Not surprisingly, the net effect is that speeches are more pleasurable to listen to. Three of the most common forms are:

• alliteration — repetition of the same sound at the beginning of nearby words
  e.g. “what my wife wanted”, “her husband has had”
• assonance — repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words
  e.g. “how now brown cow”
• onomatopoeia — a word which imitates the sound of itself
  e.g. “buzz”, “whoosh”, “meow”

2. Rhetorical Devices: Repetition of Words or Ideas

Two common forms involve repetition in successive clauses or sentences.

• anaphora — repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses or sentences
  e.g. Winston Churchill

“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, [... many more ...] We shall never surrender.”

• epistrophe — repetition of a word or phrase a the end of successive clauses or sentences
  e.g. Emerson

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us.”

Repetition is a powerful technique used in other ways as well.

• Repetition is commonly used for emphasis.
• Repeating a word or phrase in different parts of the speech helps the audience make connections as if you were sewing your speech elements together with a thread.

3. Rhetorical Devices which change word meanings

Three common rhetorical devices by which words can take on new meanings are:

• Personification — giving human qualities to abstract ideas, inanimate objects, plants, or animals
  e.g. “The trees called out to me.”
• Metaphor — a comparison of two seemingly unlike things
  e.g. “Life is a highway.”
• Simile — same as metaphor, but using either “like” or “as”
  e.g. “Life is like a box of chocolates.”

These rhetorical devices, along with related concepts such as symbolism and analogies, are often the essence of storytelling as an effective means of communication.

Speech Critiques Showing Impact from Rhetorical Devices

Two of the speeches I previously critiqued are rich in the use of rhetorical devices:

• J.A. Gamache: Being a Mr. G. (Toastmasters, 2007)
• Steve Jobs: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish (Stanford, 2005)

Why bother? I’m not a Greek orator

It’s true that your business colleagues may look at you funny if you deliver your next project status report sounding like Martin Luther King. While you may want to limit your use of these techniques a bit, don’t discount them entirely. Rhetorical devices in a business context are powerful. For example:

• Metaphors and analogies are excellent tools for explaining new concepts or new visions for your company.
• Repetition in a set of slides can be used to emphasize key results or recommendations.
• Devices like alliteration can be employed for slogans, mantras, etc.

Rhetorical Devices Example — Face the Wind

Below is one of the final drafts of my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind. Unlike the example shown in the previous article, the words highlighted are the result of many editing iterations, not just one.

• The left column has the speech text.
• The right column has a description of rhetorical devices used in the corresponding passage.

Key to Color-Coding

In addition to comments, I have provided color-coding for a few of the more commonly used rhetorical devices.

• Red marks alliteration.
  
• Green marks local repetition.
• Blue marks references to two phrases used throughout the speech: “strong roots” and “face the wind”.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

Now that you have completed writing and editing your speech (for now), the next step is bringing it to life off the page. The next article shows you how to choreograph your speech with vocal variety, gestures, and staging.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Toastmasters Speech 4: How to Say It
• Speech Preparation #5: Six Power Principles for Speech Editing
• Speech Preparation #4: Wrestling Writer’s Block to Write the First Draft
• Speech Preparation #1: How to Prepare a Presentation
• How to Make Metaphorical Magic in Your Speech
• How to Add Power or Humor with the Rule of Three

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Conventional wisdom says the best speeches are not written; they are rewritten. Yet, most speakers present content that falls between a first draft and no preparation at all.

Don’t be like most speakers.

Allow yourself the time to edit for focus, clarity, concision, continuity, variety, and impact. If you do, you will give your audience a performance that will dazzle them.

The previous article in the Speech Preparation Series showed you how to write the first draft of your speech.

In this article and the next one, you will develop the skills required to improve your speech through iterative speech editing.

Editing a Speech — An Iterative Process

Once you have a first draft, you begin to see how the different elements from your outline work together to form your speech.

The next step is a highly iterative one. Just as you cannot expect the first draft to be the final draft, do not pressure yourself to get it perfect after one session of editing. Expect to make many passes through your speech, with each pass leaving the speech a little better than the previous version.

As you proceed, avoid falling in love with any particular component of the speech. Maybe you have the perfect story or a great slide, but be prepared to cut it out if your core message can be conveyed in a better way.

Use Binoculars and a Magnifying Glass

When you edit your speech, you are doing two things in parallel:

• Macro-editing
  • Ensure that your paragraphs, sections, stories, and transitions combine to produce a well-organized speech that succeeds in delivering your core message.
  • You only have one chance to deliver your message to your audience. It needs to be easy to follow to guarantee their attention throughout.
  • For this, you need binoculars.
• Micro-editing
  • Edit your words, phrases, and sentences to find the precise combination of words that invoke emotions and create images in a memorable way.
  • To make your audience remember your core message, you need to make them remember your words and the images you created in their minds.
  • For this, you need a magnifying glass.

Accomplishing both tasks simultaneously is not easy. One approach is to focus primarily on macro-editing in your initial editing passes. Then, when you are happy with how the overall speech is coming together, change your focus and begin micro-editing. This is the basic approach that I apply.

Six Power Principles for Speech Editing

1. Edit for Focus

Audience response you want to avoid:

“The presenter was all over the map. It was confusing.”

Edit mercilessly if you have written something in an earlier draft that strays from your core message. All elements of your speech — every point, every statistic, every anecdote, every story, every joke, every visual aid — must support your core message.

2. Edit for Clarity

Audience response you want to avoid:

“The talk was interesting, but I just didn’t get it.”

On a macro-level, an earlier article of this series showed you that points in your outline should be sequenced in a way which mirrors the meaningful relationship. (e.g. chronological, spatial, cause-effect) Ordering your speech logically is one of the best ways to ensure clarity. Start with one point, and build out from there, as if you were adding one lego block to another over time.

On a micro-level, clarity is also important.

• Can the sentences be clearer?
• Have you avoided any tongue-twisters?
• Is technical jargon eliminated? (Your audience analysis will guide you.)

3. Edit for Concision

Audience response you want to avoid:

“He just went on and on and on…”

Inspiration is provided by Antoine de Saint-Exupery who wrote:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

For each element of your presentation, ask yourself “Is this essential?” If the answer is no, cut it.

• Eliminate entire points or stories if the core message is conveyed without them.
• Eliminate sentences if the paragraph reads fine without them.
• Eliminate words which do not add meaning to the sentences.
• Replace long words with short words that convey the same meaning.
  e.g. use rather than utilize

4. Edit for Continuity

Audience response you want to avoid:

“She lost me after the fourth slide.”

Transition words, phrases, and sentences — bridging — are necessary to make your speech flow. Your aim is to avoid abrupt transitions where you can lose audience members. One point should feed naturally into the next. Sidebars and other diversions are the enemy.

5. Edit for Variety

Audience response you want to avoid:

“It was boring.”

Audiences like variety. It makes the speech more enjoyable, and it also helps you appeal to different types of thinkers.

Here are just a few ways to inject variety into a presentation:

• Move around the stage.
• Use a prop, slides, or other visual aids
• Break up long, serious stretches of a speech with humor.
• Engage the audience with a rhetorical question or an activity.
• Balance theory with practical statistics. Balance stories with logical arguments.

Note: Some of these are delivery techniques rather than writing techniques.

6. Edit for Impact and Beauty

Audience response you want to avoid:

“Nothing really stood out.”

There are many closely related techniques to make a speech memorable, including:

• Surprise the audience.
• Create vivid images.
• Appeal to the senses.
• Craft truly memorable lines.
• Use analogies, similes, and metaphors.
• Employ rhetorical devices throughout.

Several of these techniques are addressed in the next article of the Speech Preparation Series.

Speech Editing Example: Face the Wind

Here is an example of one editing iteration for my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind.

• The original version of the speech is in the left column.
• The revised version of the speech after editing is in the middle column.
• Comments or explanations are in the right column.

Key to Color-Coding

In addition to comments, I have provided color-coding to demonstrate the impact of the editing process.

• Old text removed
• New text added
• Text moved within a section
• Words, phrases, or sentences changed

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The next article in this series shows you how to edit your speech to bring your speech alive with rhetorical devices. You will also see a much later draft of Face the Wind that will demonstrate this in practice.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Toastmasters Speech 3: Get to the Point
• Speech Preparation #6: Add Impact with Rhetorical Devices
• Speech Preparation #4: Wrestling Writer’s Block to Write the First Draft
• Speech Preparation #1: How to Prepare a Presentation
• Toastmasters Speech 4: How to Say It
• Wrap Your Naked Statistics in a Warm Blanket of Meaning

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Writer’s block is debilitating.
Writer’s block is discouraging.
Writer’s block stops average speakers from becoming great speakers.

Don’t let it stop you!

The previous article in the Speech Preparation Series gave tips for writing a speech outline.

This article shows you how to wrestle writer’s block by transitioning from a speech outline to the first draft.

How to Write the First Draft of a Speech

First, recognize the two most common causes for writer’s block, in the context of speech writing:

1. Lack of Direction: You lack clarity about what you want to say.
2. Large Ego: You believe the first draft must be a perfect speech.

The first cause — lack of direction — is easily avoidable if you are following the steps recommended in this article series. Previous articles have covered how to how to select your speech topic and core message through audience analysis, and how to craft a high-level outline. With your core message as your target, and your outline providing a blueprint, writing the first draft is within grasp because you know which direction to head.

The second cause — large ego — manifests itself by causing you to edit every sentence the minute you’ve written it in the hopes of producing a perfect speech on the first try. Even worse, perhaps you are editing and striking sentences in your head! This slows the speechwriting process like molasses flowing on a winter’s day.

Realize that the first draft is not the final draft — it need not be perfect. You will probably hate the first draft. That’s good. Channel that hatred into aggressive editing… later. Your goal in this stage is to capture the main concepts and ideas, not to have them in deliverable form.

Tips for Writing the First Draft

Writing the first draft used to be the most painful part of speech preparation for me. You can ease the pain with these mental tricks:

• Set a deadline. If you know your core message and you have an outline, there’s no reason why you can’t produce a rough first draft in a single sitting. A deadline is motivational magic.
• Write in bullet form. Write in sentences if you can, but if sentences aren’t flowing from your mind, then start with key words or phrases in bullet form.
• Write out of sequence. You don’t need to write the blocks of your speech in the order they appear on the outline. Quite often, speakers get hung up on trying to write the perfect opening. If the opening isn’t coming to you, start with a section in the body of the speech.
• Don’t worry about transitions. If your first draft doesn’t flow from one outline point to the next, don’t worry. Those can be fixed later. Often, my first draft contains notes to myself like this: “[Whoa... need bridging between these ideas.]“
• Don’t worry about words. Just get the ideas down using whatever words first come to you. You can edit for precision and better words later.
• Don’t worry about the length. It’s okay if your first draft is way too long. (It’s also okay if it is way too short, although most people don’t tend to have this problem.) This is an issue to solve in the editing phase.

My Speech has Slides. What is a Good First Draft?

If you adopt the advice in Presentation Zen (my book review) or Beyond Bullet Points, then don’t worry about slides in your first draft at all. Focus on drafting the oral component of your speech first. The slides, which are complementary, can be designed later. This is the process I recommend.

However, everyone has different habits, and if yours involve working on slides early in the process, then do what works for you. Keep these tips in mind:

• Don’t get too detailed. A good first draft slide might include a few words (a “title”, or maybe a quotation) along with a sketch of a figure (or a table, or chart, or some other visual component).
• Go low-tech. You can produce your entire first draft of slides on paper, or sticky notes, or on a whiteboard. There’s no need to tempt yourself with all the whizbang features of PowerPoint or KeyNote at this stage.
• Avoid the temptation to perfect the slides. Don’t worry about detailed drawings, or colors, or font sizes, or any other design criteria. Leave that for the next iteration.
• Slides alone are not a first draft. Produce a first draft of the oral component of your speech along with the slides. Producing a parallel written speech will help you avoid the temptation to insert all those words onto slides. Audiences hate reading text-heavy slides.

First Draft Example — Face the Wind

Here is the first written draft for my 2007 contest speech Face the Wind. This draft is more polished than the first draft of most speeches I write for two reasons:

• The core message for the speech was ruminating in my mind for several months.
• Though this is the first written draft, I drafted it virtually while commuting to and from work over several days.

However, as we’ll see in later articles, this draft bears little resemblance to the final draft.

Note that the draft headings correspond with the outline elements.

Hook / Opening

Mister Contest Chair, Fellow Toastmasters and guests…

A year and a half ago, my wife and I traded our condo keys for house keys. Our floor space doubled, but there were two much larger changes. First, our mortgage jumped from something quite manageable to something which scares me considerably. Second, the few hours that I once affectionately called “free time” became known as “yard work.” Yard work is a bit like working at MDA for me. I don’t have any clue what I should be doing half the time, but somehow I always end up being terribly busy.

Japanese Maple Tree

The first big project I tackled was to take care of numerous bushes and trees that were either dead or located in places where my wife didn’t want them. Most of this involved pulling dried sticks out of the earth. The Japanese maple tree was a bit different… it had leaves! So, rather than chop it out, we decided to move it to a prominent spot in the front yard.

“The two most common causes for speechwriter’s block are lack of direction and large ego.”

The tree was only seven feet tall. I quickly estimated that I would be done in time to enjoy a mid-morning lemonade. I started digging a hole around the tree about two feet in diameter. Unfortunately, the roots seemed to extend beyond that. I extended the hole to three feet… no luck. Four feet. No luck! After a few hours of digging, I had a moat around the tree, several feet wide and deep.

I exposed all the roots that I could see, and pulled on the trunk. When the tree didn’t pop out of the hole, I tugged harder. Tugs turned to yanks… yanks turned into full-fledged wrestling. Yes, when nobody is looking, this is what I do in my back yard… wrestle trees! Eventually, the tree took pity on me and fell over. I then discovered the source of the tree’s strength… roots as expansive as its branches! Strong roots… strong tree.

Planting it in the front yard was quite a bit easier. As I gazed up, exhausted, my eye was drawn to my neighbour’s yard. Specifically, the fifty-foot monster tree in my neighbour’s yard looming over my garage. I put on my engineering cap, and walked a few houses down the street so I could get a good perspective. No doubt about it… that tree would easily crush my garage if it ever toppled over. Good thing trees have such strong roots.

Storm

Many months later, the yard work mercifully ended with the rainy season. Or, perhaps I should call it the wind storm and snow season. During the first big wind storm, I was in Quebec on a business trip. I flipped on the news, and was amazed to see footage from BC on the national news – gigantic trees falling to the ground and on buildings.

Terror flashed before me… could my neighbour’s monster tree be toppled by the wind? I called my wife. She reported that the gas BBQ had been lifted off the deck and slammed into the house. However, the monster tree stood tall, and only a few of its branches littered my yard.

Yet, the television footage was real. This hit home when my wife and I were driving through Stanley Park some weeks later. It was impossible to imagine how so many trees could be knocked over.

A theory was put forth by several arborists in Greater Vancouver. Perhaps it was not the force of the wind alone. Rather, it was the force combined with the direction. Apparently, the wind storms of 2006 came from an unusual direction. Each time the wind blows, trees become stronger as they resist it. But, since these trees had never had to face a strong wind from this particular direction, they were “side-swiped” and unable to cope.

In case you were wondering… my Japanese maple tree was hardly touched by the wind.

Maximus

The events of this past week reminded me of the importance of facing the wind head-on.

Over the past few years, my sister-in-law Michelle and her husband Lance have had a pair of pregnancies cut short by miscarriage. This was obviously heartbreaking, but Michelle and Lance have strong roots. When the wind came, not once, but twice, they faced the wind head on, and did not let it topple them or their dream.

On Sunday night, a phone call a few minutes shy of midnight announced the birth of their son, Maximus. The name is Latin for “greatest”, and he certainly is a great joy. However, Maximus was born a full month premature, and so he is confined to an incubator. It seems he still needs to face the wind a little longer… but his roots are strong, so I’m confident he won’t be toppled.

Conclusion…

Fellow Toastmasters, we can’t control when the wind comes, how powerful it is, or its direction. However, we can control our response to it. We can try to evade it, and risk being side-swiped… or we can face the wind head-on.

Mister Contest Chair…

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The next article in the Speech Preparation Series discusses six power principles for speech editing. You’ll see these principles were applied to transform Face the Wind as well.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Speech Preparation #6: Add Impact with Rhetorical Devices
• Speech Preparation #5: Six Power Principles for Speech Editing
• Speech Preparation #1: How to Prepare a Presentation
• Toastmasters Speech 4: How to Say It
• Wrap Your Naked Statistics in a Warm Blanket of Meaning
• Toastmasters Speech 3: Get to the Point

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

This article describes how to support your core message with a speech outline, and provides numerous examples. This is the second step in the six-step speech preparation process.

Writing an outline is, unfortunately, a step that many skip. The most common excuse is simply “No time.” This is unfortunate because time spent on an outline is time well spent. It is necessary to ensure that you craft a coherent and focussed presentation.

Contents

• Writing a Speech Outline
• Basic Speech Outline
• Speech Outline Variants
• Outline Writing Tips
• Speech Outline Extended Example

Writing a Speech Outline

An outline is a blueprint for your presentation.

• It highlights the key logical elements. i.e. what points are being made to logically support the core message?
• It highlights the key structural elements. e.g. introduction, body, conclusion, stories, high-level concepts
• It links these elements together in a sequence, perhaps allocating very rough timings.
• It can also map out the transitions between elements, although this may be deferred to a later stage of preparation.

Basic Speech Outlines

The basic speech outline template for structural elements is:

1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion

Similarly, the basic speech outline template for logical elements is the familiar advice:

1. Tell them what you’re going to say
2. Tell them
3. Tell them what you’ve said

Put these together, and you have the start of a generic speech outline:

1. Introduction — Establish topic and core message; list supporting points
2. Body
   1. Supporting Point One
   2. Supporting Point Two
   3. Supporting Point Three
3. Conclusion — Recap main points; summarize core message; call-to-action

It is surprising how well this simple 3-part outline template works for a wide range of speech topics. Incidentally, this same basic formula can be seen in novels, short stories, movies, plays, reports, business briefings, emails, memos, and many other forms of communication.

For many more examples, check out Why Successful Speech Outlines follow the Rule of Three.

Variants or Examples of Speech Outlines

Example: Story-based Outline

Some people believe that stories are the best building blocks for speeches. For example, in The Story Factor (Annette Simmons), the author claims that storytelling is the key to business communications.

1. Attention grabbing opening which introduces the topic and core message
2. Tell a story.
   • Make a point
3. Tell another story.
   • Make another point.
4. Tell another story.
   • Make another point
5. Memorable conclusion which ties together all three stories to support the core message.

Example: Scientific Conference Talk Outline

The outline for many scientific talks mirrors the scientific method:

1. Define the problem needing a solution
2. Describe the hypothesis which will explore one aspect of the problem
3. Describe the experiment performed to test the hypothesis
   1. Detail 1 — schematic
   2. Detail 2 — photograph
   3. Detail 3 — description
4. Show the data collected and subsequent data analysis
   1. Data analysis 1 — chart
   2. Data analysis 2 — chart
   3. Data analysis 3 — table
5. Draw conclusions relating back to the hypothesis
6. Suggest future actions

Example: Community Association Meeting Speech Outline

1. Story to introduce the symptom (e.g. vandalism)
2. Use facts and evidence to trace back to the core problem (e.g. lack of “safe” activities for youth)
   1. Statistics
   2. Reports
   3. Interviews
3. Suggest a solution
   1. Budget
   2. Volunteers
   3. Stakeholders
4. A strong call-to-action motivating the audience to join the cause

Example: Business Proposal to Investors

1. Be direct: “Invest $___ for %___ of the shares”
2. Story to illustrate the need for the product XYZ
3. Story to describe the vision of how product XYZ improves lives
4. Demo of product XYZ
   1. Benefit #1 (focus on benefits, not features)
   2. Benefit #2
   3. Benefit #3
5. Invest now and make product XYZ possible
   1. Story illustrating strength of the team
   2. Market analysis
   3. Financial projections
6. Repeat call-to-action: “Invest $___ for %___ of the shares”

Other Speech Outline Writing Tips

Note that all of these speech outline examples are appropriate for a short six to ten minute speech. Longer time windows will obviously allow for more detailed outlines.

You may be able to customize one of the generic speech outline formats for your speech; more likely, you will need to craft your own to fit your situation. A few other things to consider:

• The granularity of your outline should be roughly one outline point per minute of speaking time, perhaps less for lengthy presentations.
• For presentations which are complemented with slides, your outline might include slide concepts, but no finer details.
  • Remember that your presentation is much more than your set of slides. Your outline should reflect your speaking elements which the slides complement.
• When sequencing your outline points, try to avoid random order. Seek and extract the meaningful relationship.
  • Chronological – e.g. a biographical speech
  • Spatial – e.g. an entertaining travel speech
  • Cause-effect – e.g. speech relating crime rate to drug use
  • Low to high importance – e.g. reasons to exercise
  • Broad vision to specific details – e.g. a management speech outlining new company direction
• Your outline is not the same as cue cards, but they are related (if you use cue cards). An outline contains high-level speech elements; cue cards might additionally contain selected speech details e.g. transition phrases, key words/phrases, key numbers, or punch lines.

Speech Outline Example — Face the Wind

Here is the original outline that I put together for the Face the Wind speech. Comments follow which represent my thinking at the time of writing the outline.

1. Opening humor – connect with audience as typical home owner
2. Story #1 – Backyard tree battle
   • “Strong roots… strong tree”
   • Foreshadow: neighbour’s monster tree falling
3. Story #2 – Winter storms knock over many trees
   • National news (trees falling on houses), but our house okay
   • Arborists: “Wind came from a different direction”
   • Establish key analogy – Trees cannot face the wind.
4. Story #3 – Baby Maximus
   • Michelle and Lance have strong roots
   • Maximus is born
5. Conclusion
   • Call-to-action: “We must face our problems”

Comments on Face the Wind Outline

At the outline stage, I set up many key elements of the speech. I determined the three main stories, planned humorous opening, identified a few key phrases to incorporate, established contrast (tree/people), used a metaphor (roots of people), and concluded with a call-to-action.

Opening – I wanted to open with humor to offset the drama later in the speech. Also, I wanted to connect with the audience as a homeowner as many in the audience are also homeowners.

Story #1 – I wanted the first story to establish the “strong roots… strong tree” connection. By establishing that trees have strong roots, it makes the fact that they were toppled in the storm (story #2) more dramatic.

Story #2 – This story was essentially an expansion of the “wind came from a different direction” theory of arborists that I picked up several months prior from my friend. The fact that trees cannot face the wind is the key analogy in this speech, although the audience doesn’t know it yet.

Story #3 – This story tells about the struggles which eventually led to the birth of Maximus. The key element here is the contrast between trees and people (who can face the wind).

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The next article in this series discusses the causes of writer’s block and writing the first draft of your speech.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Why Successful Speech Outlines follow the Rule of Three
• 5 Speechwriting Lessons from Obama’s Inaugural Speech
• PowerPoint Design Wish List: 8 Modest Proposals
• Toastmasters Speech 2: Organize Your Speech
• Speech Preparation #10: Prepare to Win a Toastmasters Speech Contest
• Speech Preparation #9: Prepare Now for Your Next Speech

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Selecting a speech topic sometimes feels like shooting an arrow in a random direction and hoping that it hits a target. If this is your approach, you are probably quite frustrated.

Your topic — and, more specifically, your core message — must be selected carefully. If it isn’t, then you won’t be able to effectively deliver the speech, and your audience won’t be interested or prepared to receive your message.

This begs the question: How do you choose a great speech topic?

What is your general purpose?

There are three basic types of speeches:

1. Speeches that Educate
   e.g. a seminar about real estate investments; a course about leadership; a corporate briefing outlining the status of a pursuit
2. Speeches that Motivate
   e.g. a candidate’s election speech; a fundraising pitch; a business proposal to investors
3. Speeches that Entertain
   e.g. a story read to children; a dramatic tale; a humorous after-dinner speech

Decide which of these you want to accomplish as your general purpose. This decision will influence many decisions you make as you prepare for your speech, so it is important that you are clear on your overall motive.

What is your core message?

Your core message is the central idea of your presentation. All other speech elements should support the core message.

• Clarity: Aim to express your core message in a single sentence. If you cannot do this, you need more clarity.
• Passion: Your core message must be something you believe in.
• Knowledge: What do you know about this core message? Can you draw stories from personal experience? Have you researched the topic?

We like to believe that our entire presentation will be remembered. The reality is that the audience will retain only one or two points. Your speech should be designed to ensure that your audience remembers your core message.

How is this message related to the audience?

Your audience is not an innocent bystander who just happens to be in the room when you deliver your presentation. They are an integral part of the communication path. Great delivery by a speaker does not guarantee a successful speech; a successful speech is one where the audience receives the message.

Audience analysis is needed to determine which messages the audience is willing to receive from you:

• What are the key audience demographic?
  Are they technical or non-technical? Students? Elderly? Parents? Athletes? Business leaders? Predominantly male or female?
• How is your audience related to you?
  Is the audience filled with your peers? Subordinates? Superiors? Are you an outsider? Are you viewed as an expert? Are you unknown to them?
• How large is the audience?
  Is it small enough so that everyone will see sweat on your brow? Are you in a large theatre? Is the audience in the room, or is there a remote audience too? (Or a future video audience?)

• What message does the audience want to receive?
  This is just as important as asking what core message you want to deliver.
  • If you are passionate, but your audience doesn’t care, your presentation will fail. (They will tune out.)
  • If you deliver what the audience desires, but you don’t care, your presentation will fail. (Your delivery will be flat.)
  • If you attempt to speak on a topic where you have no expertise or experience to draw from, your presentation will fail. (Your content will be empty and shallow.)
  • However, if you find a topic where you have both expertise and passion, and the audience is interested, you will succeed.

What is the scope of your presentation?

Before you proceed, you still need to determine the scope of your presentation. The scope is naturally influenced by elements discussed earlier:

• Your general purpose
• Your core message
• The needs of your audience

There is one further key element to consider: what are the constraints on your presentation?

• How much time is allowed?
  Suppose your core message is “Live your dreams”. If you have two minutes, then the scope of your talk is probably going be one story illustrating that message. There’s no time for more. On the other hand, if you have four hours, then you may study biographical details of famous dreamers, discuss methods for aligning your life decisions with your dreams, or explore other avenues.
• What is the context of your presentation?
  There are dozens of factors that come into play which only you can know, but one of the most common is knowing whether or not others will be speaking at the same event on similar topics. If so, then your scope will generally be very narrow (and perhaps quite deep). If you are a keynote speaker and nobody else has touched on your domain, then you may choose to a broader, more shallow scope.

Example of Speech Topic Selection — Face the Wind

As we’ll do throughout the Speech Preparation articles, let’s see how these concepts were applied in a real-life speech: Face the Wind.

The genesis for this speech was a party conversation four months before the speech was written or delivered. Everyone was animated about the devastating impact of the recent wind storms on trees throughout the area. My friend relayed the theory of arborists as to why so many trees were knocked over in the storm. I was fascinated by the theory, and thought that I might someday craft a speech around that core idea.

Months later, with a speech contest on the horizon, I was searching for a speech topic. Maximus’ birth was a very recent joyous event in the family. I connected the determination of his parents with the theory of the fallen trees, and I felt that I had a core message: Face your problems head on!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Once I had that central idea, I questioned whether it would work for the contest speech:

• The only common characteristic of the audience is that they all live in British Columbia where the storm was a massive news story a few months prior. This common experience was an advantage since the audience already had vivid mental images of the storm and the trees.
• The context was the Toastmasters International speech contest. Any topic is allowed, but inspirational or motivational topics are most common. I had what I felt was a meaty topic; my general purpose was to motivate my audience.
• Not only was the core message not fluffy, but it has universal appeal. Everyone in the audience has problems, so everyone in the audience should be interested in the message.
• I believe in the core message, and I have personal experiences from which to draw speech content.
• The timing was approximately seven minutes. I judged this would be more than adequate to tell a few stories about trees, the storm, and baby Maximus, and to tie it all together.

Based on this preparation, I felt positive going forward to create an outline and write the first draft.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The next article in this series picks up where this one leaves off. Now that you’ve chosen a topic and a core message which will appeal to your audience, how do you begin the speechwriting process with a speech outline?

Similar Articles You May Like...

• 8 Faulty Speaker Assumptions and How to Fix Them
• The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking
• Best Man Speech: What’s the Key to Succeed?
• Do You Provide Great Customer Service to Your Audience?
• Book Review: Advanced Presentations by Design by Andrew Abela
• Speech Preparation #10: Prepare to Win a Toastmasters Speech Contest

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.

Speech preparation is the most important element to a successful presentation, and also the best way to reduce nervousness and combat fear.

The Speech Preparation Series is a series of articles examining each of the six steps which are necessary to properly prepare for a speech.

These steps are briefly introduced here, and investigated in more depth in later articles:

1. Select a speech topic

This may seem like an easy task, but there are infinite public speaking topics. How do you choose the right one? How do you select a topic which is a perfect fit between you and your audience?

Your topic leads to your core message — the entire presentation aims to deliver this core message to your audience.

The second article in this series focuses on selecting a speech topic.

2. Create a speech outline

Your speech needs structure. Without structure, your audience will either wonder what your core message is or they will lose interest in you entirely. Sadly, this step is often skipped to “save time.” A planned outline is vital.

The third article in this series shows how to craft a speech outline and provides several examples.

3. Write the speech

Speech writing is an iterative process which begins with your first draft. Writer’s block can handicap speakers at this stage. The fourth article in the series discusses how you can avoid that trap to write your first speech draft.

Once the first draft is created, speech writing involves iteratively massaging your speech into its most effective form. Keeping your ego in check, you are wise to edit mercilessly. The fifth article in the series shows you how to edit your speech for focus, clarity, concision, continuity, variety, and impact.

Remember that speeches should be written for the ear; adopting figures of speech will keep your speech from sounding like an essay or legal document. The sixth article in the series shows you how to add impact and beauty to your speech with rhetorical devices.

4. Apply gestures, staging, and vocal variety

At this stage, the words are ready, but that’s all you have — words. A presentation is not read by the audience; it is listened to and watched.

The seventh article in the series explains how to choreograph your speech with vocal variety, gestures (micro movements), and staging (macro movements). These elements should seamlessly complement your words and punctuate key phrases.

5. Practice and solicit feedback

Great speakers seem natural when they speak, almost as though they are speaking the words for the first time. Nothing could be more wrong. Rehearsing your speech makes you a master of the content. Soliciting feedback and acting on it gives you confidence that your presentation will be a success. The eighth article in the series explains how to achieve maximum benefits from your rehearsal time.

6. Self-Critique: Prepare for the next speech

Although listed as the final step in the process, it’s really the first step in preparing for your next speech. After you’ve delivered your speech, examine your performance objectively. This will solidify lessons learned as you prepare for your next speech challenge.

The ninth article in the series provides examples of questions to ask yourself as you critique your own speech.

The article series concludes with advice aimed at preparing to win a Toastmasters speech contest.

See the Six Steps in Action

Throughout this series of articles, I’ll be showing you how I applied these steps when preparing for one of my own speeches. My hope is that these practical examples will help you apply the techniques to your own personal presentation.

The speech I’ll reference is an inspirational speech I prepared and delivered for the Toastmasters International Speech Contest in 2007 titled Face the Wind.

Watch it now, and then read the articles to see how a short conversation with a friend months earlier led to this speech.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I would like to thank Chuck Denison for allowing me to use the Face the Wind video for this article series. Chuck has been the videographer for all recent Toastmasters District 21 contests. Videos are produced by Golden Memories Video Productions and available from him [email]. Chuck provides services to speakers who wish to produce a video to enhance their marketing strategy. On top of all that, he’s very friendly and professional.

Join the conversation. Share your experiences and describe what you do to prepare for a speech.

Next in the Speech Preparation Series

The next article examines how to select a speech topic which is the perfect fit for you and your audience.

Similar Articles You May Like...

• Toastmasters Speech 4: How to Say It
• Toastmasters Speech 3: Get to the Point
• Speech Preparation #6: Add Impact with Rhetorical Devices
• Speech Preparation #5: Six Power Principles for Speech Editing
• Speech Preparation #4: Wrestling Writer’s Block to Write the First Draft
• You are Invited to Write for Six Minutes

Andrew Dlugan is the editor and founder of Six Minutes. He teaches courses, leads seminars, coaches speakers, and strives to avoid Suicide by PowerPoint. He is an award-winning public speaker and speech evaluator. Andrew is a father and husband who resides in British Columbia, Canada.