What Makes a Great Speech

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A great speech begins with an attention grabbing statement that draws the audience in to the realm for which the speech is being made. For instance, December 21, 2012, the world will end…however we plan on have Christmas dinner on the 25th. This statement says you might want to go ahead make preparations to be here regardless of the Mayans 2012 calendar doomsday prophecy. An opening statement should relate to your topic and it should pull your audiences’ attention and thoughts in to the direction of your speech. A great speech is able to instantly take hold of peoples’ emotions, to manipulate them with finely tuned information; and, to teach something new to the listeners. First, a great speech must be able to grab peoples’ emotions within the first few words spoken. A speaker that cannot accomplish this task will be wasting his time and the time of his audience. Getting the audiences emotions involved is critical to the success of a great speech. Thus, depending on the type of speech will dictate what type or types of emotions the audience will feel such as happy, sad, anger, or a combination of two or more of our humanly emotions. Each emotion can be drawn out from the audience in a variety of approaches by the speaker. First, the tone of the speaker can influence an audiences’ emotion, second, the speaker’s persona will also affect the audiences’ behavior and participation; and third, the authenticity of the information being shared will convince the audience of the speaker’s knowledge of the material being presented. Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous statement, “I have a dream” is an emotional grabbing statement that caused a stir in his audiences’ emotions which crossed the Terri Mayo lines of age, gender, race, creed, and color. “I have a dream” touched the heart of people all over the world and continues today to be a

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