Saturday, March 21, 2020

Five Tips for Writing a Great Speech

Five Tips for Writing a Great Speech Five Tips for Writing a Great Speech Five Tips for Writing a Great Speech By Guest Author As the founder of a speech writing firm, Inkwell Strategies, Ive gotten used to drawing a certain amount of interest from new friends and acquaintances when asked what Ido for a living. After working in this somewhat niche profession for a number of years, I have come to expect questions about what the job entails, and even more frequently, inquiries about how to write a strong speech. There are a lot of different ways to answer that question, but after crafting remarks for leaders in government, nonprofits, and the private sector, I’ve learned that there are essentially five rules that all writers should follow in order to write a winning speech: 1. Read your speech out loud Unlike almost all other forms of writing, speechwriting is designed for listeners. So, when reviewing your text, read it to yourself, and pay attention to how the words sound and feel. Do they flow off the tongue, or are they clunky and awkward? If your phrases make you stumble, they are guaranteed to make your boss stumble as well. Just remember that good writing is not necessarily good speech writing. 2. Simple phrases are your friend Keep your sentences short and sweet. Compound phrases with multiple clauses may look great on paper, but are likely to confuse your audience and decrease the effectiveness of your speech. Limit yourself to one or two ideas per sentence, and express them as clearly and powerfully as possible. 3. Do your research Before beginning a speech, make sure to familiarize yourself with the subject, so that you can write about it with confidence and authority. The creative aspects of speech writing are only effective when backed by a strong foundation of knowledge by acredible speaker. The audience must trust your words in order for their meaning to sink in. If you’re well-prepared, it will show. 4. Mind the time A man once said that the key to crafting a great speech is writing a good beginning and a good ending, and making the two as close together as possible. That might not always be true, but consider this: Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address,arguably the most famous speech in American history, lasted less than three minutes. Compare that to the two-hour speech given directly before Lincoln by Edward Everett. If I gave you four-score and seven guesses, could you tell me what he said? 5. Know your audience Your listeners should be a strong determining factor of the content, tone and style of your speech. Before drafting remarks, think about who you’re speaking to, the venue you’re speaking at and the timing of your speech. There’s a time and a place for every type of remarks. It’s your job to figure out when and where you are. These are just a few tips to get you started, but there is alot more to speech writing than that. If you’re interested in learning more, make sure to check out my website for commentary and analysis about the world of speech writing today. This is a guest post by David Meadvin, President of Inkwell Strategies, a professional speech writing and strategic communications firm located in Washington, DC. He was chief speech writer to the U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Senate Majority Leader. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Business Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:7 Classes and Types of PhrasesAwoken or Awakened?40 Words Beginning with "Para-"

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Hurrah for the Index Card!

Hurrah for the Index Card! Hurrah for the Index Card! Hurrah for the Index Card! By Maeve Maddox If I were to make a list of the 10 greatest inventions of human history, index cards would be right there along with the alphabet and the stuff you put on the back of your pets neck to kill fleas. I dont know how Id get along with out them. Not counting their other household applications, index cards are the mainstay of my writing projects. Writing about language I keep a stack of index cards by my chair to make notes of language peculiarities I encounter in my reading or TV watching. This is a more useful method of note-taking than my former practice of recording such notes on the backs of envelopes or even in a dedicated notebook. The cards can then be separated into categories such as grammar, vocabulary, and the like. Novel planning I hate to outline, but I have learned that writing a novel requires outliningif not at the beginning, then at some point down the line. Using index cards makes the process more pleasant. Once you have your plot in mind, deal yourself a deck of index cards equal to the number of chapters. Using one card for each chapter, write a one sentence description of what happens in the chapter. As your novel progresses, you will almost certainly want to add or to rearrange chapters. Having your outline on index cards makes rearranging easy. Another set of cards can help you keep the characters and their identifying tags straight. You dont want to give Bruce Bigpecs piercing blue eyes in Chapter One and smouldering black eyes in Chapter Twenty. Record-keeping Something I hate more than outlining is keeping track of important records. I should have known better, but when I began acquiring WordPress accounts and GoDaddy domains, and doing things on line that require usernames and passwords, I wrote the information down in a little notebook next to my computer. Now its a big deal to find a password or an ID. This stuff is going onto index cards. Plenty of computer programs exist for doing the kinds of things Ive described here, but the fact remains that some of us require tactile re-enforcement. Its a psychological delight to be able to hold the stack of chapter cards in your hand and visualize the wonderful novel that is to come of them. And when the computer program crashes or is lost, that box of cards is still going to be there. Low-tech or not, the index card belongs in every writers toolbox. NOTE: We can thank American librarian and efficiency freak Melvil Dewey for the modern cardstock index card. Christened Melville, he dropped the inefficient letters. He experimented with spelling his surname Dui, but apparently that was too exotic to be practical. Heres a writer who shares my addiction to index cards: Lela Davidsons tribute to the index card And heres a brief bio of Melvil Dewey. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Freelance Writing category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Passed vs Past"Replacement for" and "replacement of"1,462 Basic Plot Types