Shape

1. Shape • All great speeches, and even some not so great, require shape. "Tell them what you will tell them; tell them; then tell them what you told them."

2. Shake hands with the audience • You have something worthy of being said. Former Ambassador Robert Strauss used to begin his addresses like this: "Before I begin this speech, I have something to say." This passage was always composed in a style that enabled him to reclaim a powerful tone for the instructive portion of his remarks. Put on your smile; calm your nerves, then get to work. You may want to start with a smashing one-liner.

3. Rise to the occasion. • In other words, feel passionately about your topic. Even ordinary folks can deliver great moments of oratory if they rise to the occasion. Make sure the audience feels how important the topic is to you, so that they begin to think about why they should care.

4. Segues • Build clear and sensible transitions from one thought to the next. The biggest mistake speakers and writers make is to assume people will follow their leaps of logic. Spell out to the audience when you are taking a turn in your thoughts with phrases like: "As an example of this" or "This brings us to the larger problem of," and so forth.

5. Focus • A "great” speech does not need to start out great and stay great to the finish. It engages the listeners. It makes allowances for a dip in interest in the middle. Then, it gathers anticipation for its key moment. John Stuart Mill, the political economist, defined the orator's art this way: "Everything important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to receive it."

6. Add purpose • A speech should be made for a good reason. To inspire, to instruct, to rally, and to lead are noble purposes. To sound off, to feed a speaker's ego, to flatter, or to intimidate are not.

7. Know your theme • Be able to answer the question "what do you want to say?" in a single, declarative sentence.

8. Sense of audience • Write with one particular person in mind, someone you actually know. This helps you to keep the message real and personable. This helps you anticipate reactions and keep your language down to earth.

9. Deliver the goods • Delivery is the essence of eloquence. It requires practice, discipline, drill, and timing. Be your own trainer. As you develop self-confidence, you put the audience at ease, or make them sit up. Your eye is in contact with the people, not the page. Your professional passion is contagious. Use gestures to emphasize points, and make sure your tone of voice and facial expressions are appropriate for the topic.

10. A sense of completion • Bring them back to the beginning, but with a louder spirit. This can be done by starting the last paragraph with a quiet, declarative sentence; it should build in a series of semicolons; it should employ the puissance of parallelism; it should reach to the farthest rafter and reverberate with the action and passion of our time, and, forgetting all else, it should connect with, no, grab each listener by his or her lapels and shout to their hearts and souls to say, "This is the end of the best speech you will ever have the good fortune to experience!"

11. Step One • Decide on a focus. If you are well-known for something specific, your audience will, no doubt, expect your speech to be about that topic.

12. Step Two • Put yourself in your audience's moccasins as you write. You want to connect.

13. Step Three • Keep the speech to two or three major points.

14. Step Four • Find your voice - perhaps warm and conversational, sober and profound, vigorously controversial, or wise and understanding.

15. Step Five • Write an outline with your topic statement and the critical points as headings.

16. Step Six • Fill in your transition spaces with anecdotes, quotes, even relevant jokes to ensure your speech will be unique, interesting and audience-aware.

17. Step Seven • Draft your closing remarks.

18. Step Eight • Write a completed speech as tight or loose as fits your style.

19. Step Nine • Practice reading the speech first for time.

20. Step Ten • Practice again for cadence and delivery.

21. Step Eleven • Read aloud with any hand motions or movements you intend to incorporate.

22. Step Twelve • Create notecards or the full speech, double-spaced and typed.

23. Step Thirteen • Try your speech out on a person, especially one similar to the folks in your audience.

24. Step Fourteen • Relax. You'll be great.

25. Writing a Thank You Speech • Make a list of all the people you would like to thank, as well as those who you need to thank (just because you need to thank them doesn't mean you'd like to). You can write the list down on a sheet of paper and leave a few lines of space between each person. Better yet, list them in a word processing document so that you can add to your entries and rearrange them.

26. Who • Write down why you are thanking each person on your list. Just jot down a quick keyword next to each person's name, i.e. catering, inspiration, support, or donations.

27. VIPs • Separate the most important people. Determine importance in reference to why you are thanking them. Typically God, your parents, your friends, or teachers. Once you get past the top few it may be quite difficult to rank people's importance, and you don't need to. Just make sure that the most important people will be at the top of the speech so that there is no chance they'll get left out if your speech starts to get a bit too long. If you have your people entered in a spreadsheet or word processing document it will be easy to assign a rank and rearrange people.

28. Time • If you don't have a lot of time you may need to make some tradeoffs. Either you can omit some people or you can shorten the amount of detail you give for each person. You may not have to omit people completely. At the end of your speech you can call off their names. '..And thanks to Michael Croon, Tommy Lee, Jesse Heart, and if I forgot anybody else, thanks to you, too!" If you don't have enough people, tell a little more about them than what you jotted down. Elaborate, but don't share more than you would want shared about yourself.

29. Write an introduction • Open up with something about why you are thanking everyone. Was it an award, a job well done, a meeting, a convention, a special event, or something else? The reason should be obvious. If you'll have plenty of time for your speech, you may want to open with a little story about the lead-up to the event, a brief history of your career, an amusing anecdote, or a quote.

30. Details • Flesh out the details for each of the most important people. Start from the top of your list and add detail to the keywords you've written. Thus, if one of your entries is "John Smith--Event Coordinator," you can explain how much work John put into the event and how John has always come through for you in a clutch. For the most important people on your list, your parents, your spouse, your manager or your boss, for example, you may want to add more detail: tell a little story about the person, briefly summarize the time you've known them, or drop an inside joke.

31. Air Time • The most important people should get more air-time than those further down your list. Not only do you have more to thank them for, but you also probably have to live or work with them on a regular basis, so you want to build as much goodwill as possible.

32. Time per person • Remember that if you spend too much time on any one person, you may not be able to get to others who still really need to be thanked. Be concise, even if you have plenty of time.

33. Time your speech. • Your completed speech should begin with an introduction, proceed to the most important people, and then run through the rest of the people in categories. Read the speech at a normal pace, and use a stop watch to time yourself. If you find that your speech is too long, consider shortening or omitting some of the details about people. If you need to omit someone altogether, try to make sure it's someone who won't be there and won't see the speech. If your speech is too short, add details or add a conclusion.

34. Notes • Write your speech on note cards or on a piece of paper. You can write out your whole speech or just an outline of people and reasons for thanks, whatever helps you remember what you need to say.

35. Practice • Practice in the mirror or in front of a close friend or family member. Do it more than once and make sure you say it out loud before you actually give your speech. If you're well prepared, you'll feel far more comfortable when you actually have to get up in front of everybody.

36. How to Write a Graduation Thank You Speech • Graduation is an important event, and often, people like to use it to thank others. Here's how to write a graduation thank you speech that won't bore everyone.

37. List • Make a list of everyone you want to thank so you don't forget someone. Vagueness is often better here. Say "I would like to thank all my teachers" rather than listing them by name. This is quicker and less likely to make some feel left out.

38. Keep it brief. • One of the worst things for the audience is if you drag on and on and your speech has no relevance to them. If you want to thank someone for something in particular, just a brief mention (one sentence or less is good) or just mention their name then thank them privately after the ceremony in more detail.

39. Try not to leave anyone out • and never say "I would like to thank all my teachers/classmates/family members, except for..."

40. Write the speech then practice in front of a mirror. Memorizing the speech is good.

41. Less is often more.

42. Clean the Wax from Your Words – Sine cere!

43. Superlatives are wax. • “This is absolutely and positively essential!” vs. “This is essential!” • “This is true beyond any possible shadow of a doubt!” • If you wish to strengthen the simple assertion. “This is true!” do so by pouring concrete examples to support it, not wax to fill the cracks.

44. Trite expression are wax. • “As you can see,” • “if you will,” • “in conclusion,” • “it is indeed an honor and a privilege,” • “I would like to take a few minutes,” • “Each and every one,” • “throughout the length and breadth of the land,”

45. Groping expressions are wax. • “What I'm trying to get as is ...,” • “What I want to say is ...”

46. Repetitious expressions are wax. • “As I said before,” • “and so I again repeat,” • “let me reiterate here...”

47. “And so forth” expressions are wax. • “America has produced such inventors as Fulton, Edison, the Wright brothers — and so forth and so on.” • “Our marketing recommendations are now based on research, data, statistical analysis, etc., etc."” • “I could go on this way for hours.”

48. Weasel words are wax. • “Of course, it's only my opinion, but ... .” • “It seems to me ... .”

49. Punch-pulling • More or less... • to a greater or less degree... • or something like that

50. She who cleans her speech of waxy substance creates a lasting impression of intelligence, directness, and professionalism. Be sincere. Carve your communications without wax: you may rate a marble statue in the end.