I have a fun assignment in my public speaking class. We study the greatest speeches ever made. My stack of these speeches is now a mile high, because I’m very greedy and love finding new speeches. A funny thing happens as we start to study the great techniques of the masters: the same techniques pop up over and over again. They all copy each other! For example, Abraham Lincoln’s message in the Gettysburg Address was the same message in the funeral oration at the ancient Greek leader, Pericles's funeral during the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides!So after great delight in studying these speeches, I came up with a brilliant stolen idea: “Steal like crazy until you make yourself up!” (I’m talking techniques, not plagerism!) So here are some of the techniques that appear again and again in speeches. You too can steal these ideas. They turn a speech into magic!
- Techniques to Copy from the Great Speakers:
- Use parallel sentences: Start your sentences (or paragraphs) the same way.
- Us vs. them (one or the other) (polarizing)
- The Seesaw Effect (ask not what… but what)
- Metaphors (highly successful!)
- The List (the Homeric List – Homer first made use of the list. It’s powerful!)
- Repetition, repetition, repetition
- Play on words -- Using unusual words in different contexts
- Opposites - contrast
- Comparison
- Pushing the boundaries, risk
- Use word pictures (trickling down our economy) (twilight struggle)
- Use what I call “sparkling” words.
- Story telling, and parables
- Weaving a (metaphor) theme….. throughout the speech
- Tapping into a shared myth
- Shock
- Irony
- A new twist to an old theme
- The use of asking questions (and sometimes answering them.)
- Evoke the senses
- Create a sense of community
- Conversational style
- Alliteration
- Ask Questions instead of statements (and repeat them throughout the speech.)
"Lisa-isms"
"Steal like crazy until you make yourself up!"
--Lisa
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