How to Make a Memorable Speech That Will Impress Your Audience? Understanding the types of speeches that exist and how to effectively convey your message.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!” – it is a fragment of Martin Luther King’s speech.
Amazing!
This speech is the most famous speech of the renowned African-American activist. It was delivered on August 28, 1963, and considered one of the most iconic moments of the civil rights movement in the United States and hailed as a masterpiece of rhetoric.
It is fair to say that without Martin Luther’s excellent speaking skills, excellently written text, the correct delivery of his words, and the powerful transgenerational message, the speech would not have been the same.
Oral and Written Speeches
It is important to mention that speech can be oral or written. Below you will learn the main differences between the two types.
Usually, an oral speech is used in massive events to excite, persuade and attract the audience. It is why the speaker must know the objective of the speech, know the subject and the audience well, and, of course, rehearse a lot.
Intellectual preparation is essential to understand how to convey the message, spread enthusiasm, and, above all, generate identification with the audience. In other words, to convince, you have to be confident.
In oral speech, we implement ideas through verbal resources such as content and non-verbal resources such as posture, and tone of voice to convince an audience.
In creating a written speech, we linguistic codes, prolixity, elaboration, and rigid criteria.
Types of Speeches
Political speech
Political speech communicates the ideological and political proposals of a person or group to convince the audience.
Argumentative speech
As its name suggests, argumentative speech attempts to persuade with arguments about something. It mustn’t impose a way of thinking or be abrupt. In the end, the audience should be left with the feeling that they have reached conclusions by their means.
Narrative discourse
Narrative discourse relates events or situations through a plot. They can be real or imaginary. We have known it since we were children because it is the type of discourse we use when telling a story to a child or an anecdote to a friend. It has the virtue that the listener gets involved in the story and wants to know its outcome.
Scientific discourse
This form of discourse is used to communicate scientific information with technical language. It is characterized by its formality, objectivity, and somewhat organized content.
Descriptive speech
The descriptive discourse shows information and characteristics of what is expressed without a personal assessment. In other words, totally opposed to argumentative speech, the latter only describes facts or situations as they are.
Literary discourse
Literary discourse is characterized by an aesthetic purpose and academic resources that express beauty in language. Although it is usually related to poetic discourse, scholarly discourse can also be developed in prose. The form of language becomes the object of communication.
Informative discourse
Informative discourse is intended to inform and therefore uses discourse restricted to facts and not opinions. It is also known as referential discourse.
Thank-you speech
The thank-you speech is used, as its name suggests, to publicly thank a group of people for the work or objectives achieved.
Motivational speech
The motivational speech is addressed to a group of people to encourage them in their day-to-day activities, work, motivations of the community to which they belong, or stimulation at an intrapersonal level.
Welcome speech
The welcoming speech is used to welcome those present at mostly solemn and well-attended events. A presenter or a well-known person almost always gives a welcome speech in the institution.
Advertising speech
Unlike other types of speeches, the advertising speech has a clear objective: to convince the audience to buy a product. It requires creativity and competitiveness since, nowadays, we are exposed to advertising everywhere.
Parts of a speech
Greeting
Greet your audience warmly. If you are someone people do not know, it is necessary to introduce yourself briefly.
Introduction
Here you outline the topic of the presentation and the structure of the production. It would be best if you were brief and concise to give others a general idea of what they will hear. It is important to capture the audience’s attention with a phrase or information that they can relate to.
Development
The topic is explained in-depth, arguing your information with facts, figures, quotes from authors, and other resources depending on the type of speech. This part is vital because it shows the knowledge you have as a speaker on the subject.
Conclusion
The end of the speech should include a summary of the whole topic. The last words that the receiver will hear and therefore you must be powerful in content and the way you express it so that the speech’s desired objective is to convince that the information received was worthwhile.
Tips For Writing a Speech
You may write your speech by yourself or get help from a speechwriter or a free essay writer. He’ll help you to write your speech well and structured. In both cases, you need to follow some rules to make your speech perfect.
A good speech conveys a concise and practical idea. Don’t talk about too many topics in an attempt to say everything. Concentrate on just one and put all your energy into it. For that, you need to be clear about your speech’s objective and what you want to achieve from your audience.
Every story is composed of a beginning, a conflict, and an end, as Aristotle said. The speech must have the same structure. It is helpful to tell a personal anecdote that empathizes with the audience and concentrates on the theme you want to convey.
Pay attention to details. A good speech has good literature, compelling descriptions, and perfectly chosen words. Whatever the subject of the speech, it will speak well of you if you perfectly know what you are conveying, and it shows in the lexicon used without being boastful.
If the speech is oral, write it as an oral speech. Think that people are not going to read it, but listen to it. Spoken language is very different from written language. A good tip is to use short sentences that are not very produced and read them aloud while writing them. You can even rehearse in front of a mirror and review facial features as you read it.
Remember to end your speech with a good time. When making a speech, consider how long you want people to read or listen to you. It should be left wanting to hear more than for auditory to get bored with the topic.
We hope these recommendations have helped you to write a speech. Don’t forget that the best thing you can do for any writing is to redo it as many times as necessary. Read it, correct it, rewrite it, and rehearse it until you are sure that your speech will be memorable and surprise your audience.
