Writing for the ear

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Del curso dictado por University of Washington

Speaking to Inspire: Ceremonial and Motivational Speeches

20 calificaciones

University of Washington

Speaking to Inspire: Ceremonial and Motivational Speeches

20 calificaciones

Curso 4 de 4 en SpecializationDynamic Public Speaking

The most memorable speeches inspire, entertain, and praise. By blending stories and eloquence, great speeches highlight the core values motivating an audience. You might need to do this in a keynote address, a eulogy, or simply a business meeting. Inspiring audiences is a common, but difficult writing challenge. You want a speech that elevates the topic and the audience. This course gives you a method for preparing and delivering speeches that inspire and entertain. By the end of this course, you should be able to compose and deliver moving speeches that praise core audience values through evidence, storytelling, and humor. You should be able to write eloquent passages in tones appropriate to the audience and occasion and speak fluidly from either a well-prepared manuscript or from memory. Learners will record speeches, providing and receiving peer feedback.

De la lección

Week 3. Getting it just right. Good language, tone, and writing for the delivery

You have your outline, so now let transform that into a manuscript. This week is all about style. We’ll start by thinking about what overall style is most appropriate for your speech. Then we’ll move through a bunch of stylistic devices. These are equations for eloquence. You put your value into these stylistic devices and eloquence pops out the other side. From there, we can talk more about word choice and overall tone. Once we have the basic structure down, we can look to openers and closers, basically figuring out how to get into and out of the speech. Finally, we’ll talk a little bit about writing for the ear and drafting a speech manuscript (which is different from an essay). The optional assignment this week is a draft manuscript. This is just a chance to get some feedback from others on an early draft.

Writing for the ear4:54

Preparing a manuscript4:33

Formatting a manuscript for speech delivery4:46

Speaking from a manuscript2:36

Conoce a los instructores

Dr. Matt McGarrity
Principal Lecturer
UW Department of Communication

So we've watched the Reagan and Bush speeches.

So let's go ahead and analyze them a little bit.

I would say, to begin with, there are a lot of similarities, right?

The arrangement is almost identical.

We have an opening, each President then list the names of the fallen.

They recognize the astronauts' sacrifice.

They state their dedication to continued space exploration.

And in the end, it was some type of religious sounding text.

That's true, but

for all their similarities I would say that they feel very different.

Now some of that's attributable to context.

The world of 1986 was different from the world of 2003.

But I think tone makes the biggest difference here.

It affects the emotion of the speech, the style and the delivery.

Now the most notable difference for me is that emotional tone.

So I've shown this speech to thousands of students and the consensus is

the Reagan speech feels more hopeful, the Bush speech feels more sorrowful.

Now part of that was key to who Reagan was as a President, right?

And certainly there are sections of the Reagan speech that are absent in the Bush

speech, right?

So Reagan talks about how we don't hide our space program.

We don't cover things up.

Why would he say that?

It's like Cold War, everyone gets what he's talking about there, right?

He's like some countries are secretive about space.

I'm not going to name names, but it starts with a US and it ends with an SR, right?

So that's going on there, but

I think one of the key things driving Reagan's tone is that pioneer metaphor.

So Reagan had used metaphors of the American West throughout his Presidency,

but here it is the dominant framework.

These astronauts were like pioneers of the old west.

He specifically says, the members of the Challenger crew were pioneers, right?

That key metaphor activates a cluster of words and

ideas, pioneers, explorers, discoveries, expanding man's horizons.

These astronauts are framed as pioneers that braved the frontier so

the rest of civilization can follow.

And in fact, his story about Sir Francis Drake reinforces this.

These heroes sacrificed for the common good.

And their loss, while tragic, is part of a long history of pushing frontiers.

Reagan's vocabulary reinforces that message again, and again, and again.

The future doesn't belong to the faint hearted he says, it belongs to the brave.

Those words, cumulatively,

add up to a more hopeful tone, pushing into the frontier.

In many ways, it's a speech as much about America as it is about those astronauts.

Now, Bush's speech feels different.

There isn't the same core metaphor for the astronauts.

So Bush will talk about their courage and daring and idealism, but

the astronauts aren't necessarily framed as something else.

Bush's speech includes references to bravery, but

there seems to be an overwhelming sense of loss.

And in some ways, Reagan's speech feels to me like a commemoration, and

Bush's much more like a eulogy.

Bush seems more focused on those astronauts.

But it's not just differences in emotional tone, right?

The overall tone affects other aspects of style, so

if we go back to those plain, middle, and grand styles.

Bush speaks in a much grander style, right?

He says, mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of

discovery and the longing to understand.

That's a pretty lofty sentence.

It's a long sentence with long words.

Reagan, on the other hand, blends some plain and middle style.

Sometimes painful things like this happen he says, right?

That's very conversational phrasing.

It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons.

Again, that's eloquent, but less grand.

And I would say that their closing devices, how they end their speech,

remain true to those two different styles.

Reagan ends with a religious sounding Pilot's Prayer.

Slip the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.

That's religious sounding, but modern.

Bush goes Old Testament, right?

Isaiah, okay, that's a lofty and old sounding passage and

it's pretty long, okay?

So tone here affects mood, tone affects style and

I would say tone affects delivery.

Now certainly, standing versus sitting makes a difference, right?

The camera is able to push in a little bit more,

go in closer on Reagan sitting at the desk.

But speech rate makes a big difference too.

So Reagan's script is 652 words,

that's almost twice as many as Bush's 373 words.

Yet Bush's speech is only 45 seconds shorter.

So Bush clocks in at 3 minutes and 15 seconds, Reagan's at four minutes.

Why are they so close even despite the fact that the manuscripts are different?

Well because Bush speaks at a slower rate.

And the slower rate combined with the words conveys a more sorrowful tone.

So I have shown these speeches to a lot of people, and

many differ on which they think is more appropriate.

So some love the simple eloquence of Reagan, some prefer Bush's biblical style.

And I certainly had plenty of people tell me that they find Bush's speech more

respectful of the astronauts.

They see Reagan is not spending enough time mourning the loss of those

astronauts.

Whatever your sense, it's a telling case of contrasting tone.

And it helps remind us that the individual words that you choose activate one

another, creating an overall frame of reference.

And you should build that frame deliberately.

[MUSIC]

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