‘When the content’s right, the confidence will follow’
“THE ART of Speeches and Presentations by Philip CollinsJohn Wiley & Sons, 2012
What is important—the content or delivery of a speech? Perhaps, this article will end a seemingly unending debate.
One book author on speeches said: “Have a good time speaking, and the audience will have a good time listening.” Not that fast! Definitely not, said two renowned speechwriters.
Peggy Noonan, American speechwriter, declared in her book which I reviewed earlier in the Inquirer: “A speech, without a policy, will perish.”
Noonan is a famous speechwriter who wrote the major and more memorable speeches of two former US Presidents—Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr.
Interestingly, this piece of advice on speech content, is also underscored by Philip Collins. He is the speechwriter of another head of state, this time the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair.
Featured in Executive Read this issue is his book “The Art of Speeches and Presentations, Collins, where he declares: “When the content’s right, the confidence will follow.”
Collins and Noonan agree on one important thing in writing and delivering speeches: Focus first on writing the speech. “State the argument,” says Collins.
Collins calls it the argument, the thesis of the speech. Noonan identifies it as policy. Try this one when listening to a speech. If there is no policy or argument enunciated in a piece of oratory, that piece is a mere piece of literary or rhetorical flourish. Nothing more.
Will listeners have a good time listening? No, instead, they will squirm in their seats and rue the day they spent time for a 20- or 30-minute empty rhetoric.
In fact, by practice or by instinct, journalists are trained to spot a policy, an argument in a speech of public official or a top corporate executive, as material for their news story. Journalists or no journalists, they know their listening time is well spent if they hear a speech which informs, persuades or inspires.
“The speech is a remarkable event,” Collins points out, “probably a unique event in your life, in that you will be expected to speak, uninterrupted for at least 30 minutes.” The speaker stands at the lectern alone, proving that he has something to say.
Certainly a great writer, Collins dishes out this piece of advice: “Don’t waste the opportunity of speaking in public by not being clear what you want to achieve from it.”
This is precisely the main thesis of this book—which makes the book a very important part of the library of government and corporate executives who must know whether their speechwriters are just “winging it”— passing off empty rhetoric—or being worthy of the time the audience gives the speaker.
The book glistens with great advice on every page—and is consistent in making this very important advice stick: Stick to the detail.
Collins is emphatic: “A speech which is comprised of lofty abstractions, all joined up, is boring and meaningless. Referring to things in general terms leaves a speech curiously empty.”
He introduces a mnemonic—Detail—as a way to make an organized presentation of the six basics in preparing a speech or a presentation: Delivery, Expectations, Topic, Audience, Individual, and Language.
Delivery: The speech is “written to be spoken.” My mentor in writing, Pete A. Padre, once Managing Editor of Philippines Herald, said: “Writing a speech is different from writing an essay. Imagine the speaker delivering a speech. Collins says the same thing: “This is not an essay; it’s a performance.”
Expectations: What does the audience expect from you, the speaker? What do you want people to do once they have heard your speech? Advertising experts say the same thing: What is your “call to action”?
Topic: What is your speech essentially about? What is the policy, Noonan would ask. What’s your argument, Collins would test you. “If you can’t state your topic in a single sentence, you are not ready to do a speech,” Collins is ruthlessly straightforward.
Audience: Who is your audience and what is their view of the topic? Are the members of the audience “favorable or hostile” to your possible position on a topic? This should be a product of research.
Individual: The speech must present “the best possible version of you.” “This is subtly different from the hopeless advice to ’be yourself,’ says Collins. Being your foolish or unprepared self would be a disaster, I think.
Language: “Use simple terms and say nothing that an intelligent layman would not understand,” Collins advises. There must be truth in this piece of advice; else why is it the prescription of every notable speechwriter?
Every chapter discusses Collins’s six prescriptions—written in an engaging and witty style.
On Expectations, for example, Collins advises that you, the speaker, will have to ask (better than imagine) what the audience expects from you. The three basic functions of the speech remain the same: To inform, to persuade or to inspire. “It may well have traces of all three functions, but one of them will be the dominant strain,” he says.
Language, in speech, is the “act of composition,” Collins clarifies. Once you know your topic, the actual writing will be much easier than you might have feared, Collins reassures us all. In the chapter on Language, Collins waxes eloquent, “you will be taken through the process of building a resilient structure for a speech and then working on effective openings, main sections and closings.”
The same chapter, he adds, will also introduce some of the “tricks of the rhetorical trade, many of which you will already be using.” Fellow speech writers, once you have instinctively used these rhetorical devices. This time, Collins spells them out for you and me. Read the entire chapter on Language, then jump to the last part titled: “Glossary—The Main Rhetorical Terms.”
Some samples: “Anaphora is regularly repeating the first word of a sentence. My example is Winston Churchill who said, “We will fight in the beaches … We will fight in the trenches …”
“Antithesis” is weighing an argument by considering its opposite. My example is John F. Kennedy’s Berlin speech: “There are those who say Communism is the wave of the future … Let them come to Berlin!”
“Chiasmus” swaps a sentence round, and Collins volunteers Kennedy’s famous lines in his inaugural speech: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”
And, yes, there is one “dialysis,” but not the kind for an ailing kidney. “Dialysis” is the opposition of two points: You are either with us or against us. My example is Joshua’s declaration in the Scriptures: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
This is one book a speech writer worth his craft of profession must have. Else, they should not have the gall or kidney to write a speech of note for a notable official or executive. [email protected]
