Any piece of writing will go through stages. A speech is no different, except in one respect. A speech has to be spoken out loud. It will take a lot of work at first to refine your speech into a piece that is the right length and that can be read comfortably. Therefore two things to pay attention to are sentences that are too long, and the overall length of the speech. A good estimate is that 180 words will take one minute to say. That means a speech that lasts ten minutes will be 1,800 words long. As a rule of thumb keep your sentences short – 10 words or less.

Every speech is spoken out loud to an audience. To get that audience interested in what will follow it is essential that you make an ‘attention getter’. That should be a fact or statement that will grab the audience as something that is interesting or that needs their attention. That might be a startling statistic, or it might be a question to get them thinking. It might even be a humorous remark that will break the ice and encourage people to listen to what you have to tell them.

There are many types of speeches but they all have one thing in common. That is to communicate a piece of information, an opinion or a viewpoint. You might communicate what you know about tax to the people in your own department at work. You might give your opinion to the Residents Association about the new highway or you might tell the guests at a birthday party just how much your daughter means to you. It is all about communication. That means your speech needs to tell the audience something about you and how you feel about something. There is an old saying that rings true for many speeches and it is this: Tell them what you are going to say, tell them by actually saying and then tell them what you have just told them! A speech that is simple and straight to the point is far better than one that rambles on without form

In my next blog we will look at the actual message of the speech.

Check out our sample speeches