You can’t give the speech of your life until you first give life to your speeches.
One way to breathe life into your speeches is to craft memorable phrases that will linger on the lips of your audience, and a great tool to help you achieve this goal is chiasmus.
In this article, we define what chiasmus is, study several famous (and not-so-famous) chiasmus examples, and give some tips for crafting chiasmus into your own speeches.
[…] an iron curtain has descended across the continent.
On March 5, 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill delivered one of his most famous speeches. Though he was not the first to use the phrase “iron curtain”, this speech brought the phrase into common usage and is thought by some to mark the beginning of the Cold War.
In Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, William Safire writes:
This is a Beethoven symphony of a speech. […] this is the most Churchillian of Churchill’s speeches.
This speech analysis article examines how to use charisma tactics in speech writing. It is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.
What if your speeches were more quotable?
What if your speeches were more powerful?
What if your speeches were more memorable?
Anaphora can do this for you. In this article, we examine how strategic use of repetition can elevate your speechwriting.
This afternoon, I watched Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech again. (You can find the full speech text and video, along with an extensive Six Minutes speech analysis here.)
I was reminded of the tremendous power speeches can wield. One cannot watch Dr. King or read his words without stirring emotions, even though the speech was given over 47 years ago.
The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking: Modern Techniques for Dynamic Communication is 224 pages of practical, plain, and pure public speaking advice.
Author Dale Carnegie packs an incredible breadth of public speaking advice into a short, easy-to-read format.
Over 7 million people have completed Dale Carnegie training, following the basic wisdom contained in this book.
Speak Like Churchill, Stand Like Lincoln came to me as a great Christmas gift — a stocking stuffer which will improve my speaking skills considerably.
I was skeptical at first. I guessed that this was another stuffy book filled with speeches and anecdotes from famous speakers who lived so long ago that their speeches are part of history and their anecdotes are no longer relevant. That’s what I thought as I opened the book.
What I discovered is not really a “book full of speeches and anecdotes” (although there are many, many speech excerpts and anecdotes). Rather, I discovered a practical book of speaking techniques that will bolster the repertoire of any speaker who aims to lead.
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