How to turn an essay into a speech
The purpose of a persuasive speech is to convince your audience to agree with an idea or opinion that you present. First, you'll need to choose a side on a controversial topic, then you will write a speech to explain your position, and convince the audience to agree with you. You can produce an effective persuasive speech if you structure your argument as a solution to a problem. Your first job as a speaker is to convince your audience that a particular problem is important to them, and then you must convince them that you have the solution to make things better.
If You Want to Write a Great Speech, Here’s How to Do It
This handout will help you create an effective speech by establishing the purpose of your speech and making it easily understandable. It will also help you to analyze your audience and keep the audience interested. But the conditions for public speaking favor some writing qualities over others. When you write a speech, your audience is made up of listeners. They have only one chance to comprehend the information as you read it, so your speech must be well-organized and easily understood.
In addition, the content of the speech and your delivery must fit the audience. People have gathered to hear you speak on a specific issue, and they expect to get something out of it immediately. And you, the speaker, hope to have an immediate effect on your audience. The purpose of your speech is to get the response you want. Most speeches invite audiences to react in one of three ways: feeling, thinking, or acting.
For example, eulogies encourage emotional response from the audience; college lectures stimulate listeners to think about a topic from a different perspective; protest speeches in the Pit recommend actions the audience can take. If you can identify ways to connect with your listeners, you can make your speech interesting and useful. For more help, see our handout on audience.
Think about how you can relate to these listeners and get them to relate to you or your topic. Appealing to your audience on a personal level captures their attention and concern, increasing the chances of a successful speech.
Other methods include presenting shocking statistics, asking direct questions of the audience, or enlisting audience participation. Explain why your topic is important. Consider your purpose and how you came to speak to this audience. You may also want to connect the material to related or larger issues as well, especially those that may be important to your audience.
Tell your listeners your thesis right away and explain how you will support it. Moving from the intro into the body of the speech quickly will help keep your audience interested.
You may be tempted to create suspense by keeping the audience guessing about your thesis until the end, then springing the implications of your discussion on them. But if you do so, they will most likely become bored or confused. For more help, see our handout on introductions. For example, you could link an earlier main point or key term as you transition into or wrap up a new point. You could also address the relationship between earlier points and new points through discussion within a body paragraph.
Using buzzwords or key terms throughout your paper is also a good idea. These kinds of verbal cues permit the people in the audience to put together the pieces of your speech without thinking too hard, so they can spend more time paying attention to its content. If you set up a counterargument in one paragraph so you can demolish it in the next, begin the demolition by saying something like,.
Avoid using too many subordinate clauses, and place subjects and verbs close together. Be specific by using a key noun instead of unclear pronouns. Reality TV? Human nature? When arguing a point, using ethos, pathos, and logos can help convince your audience to believe you and make your argument stronger. Ethos refers to an appeal to your audience by establishing your authenticity and trustworthiness as a speaker.
Using logos includes the support of hard facts, statistics, and logical argumentation. The most effective speeches usually present a combination these rhetorical strategies. Otherwise, you run the risk of overwhelming your listeners with too much information. Be careful not to talk over the heads of your audience. And as for grabbing their attention, yelling, cursing, using inappropriate humor, or brandishing a potentially offensive prop say, autopsy photos will only make the audience tune you out.
Speeches often close with an appeal to the audience to take action based on their new knowledge or understanding. If you do this, be sure the action you recommend is specific and realistic. For example, although your audience may not be able to affect foreign policy directly, they can vote or work for candidates whose foreign policy views they support. We consulted these works while writing this handout. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using.
For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.
Boone, Louis E. Kurtz, and Judy R. Contemporary Business Communication. Prentice-Hall, Lamb, Sandra. You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Remember, your argument is much more convincing when the members of the audience are engaged and follow the ideas in your speech. 1. Make a copy of. While it may be tempting to read straight from your paper for any public speaking situation, your paper was written for reading, not for public.
You need to know your audience, the required length, and the purpose or topic. This is true whether your speech is for a business conference, a wedding, a school project, or any other scenario. The people sitting in front of you could lose interest, start talking, doze off, or even wander out of the room. Of course, a poor speech is not the end of the world. You can give plenty of crummy speeches and live to tell the tale.
When figuring out how to write a speech, the essay form can offer a good foundation for the process. Just like essays, all speeches have three main sections: the introduction, the body, and the conclusion.
Reading an essay to an audience can bore them to tears. Unfortunately, what he delivered was not a speech but an essay. This renowned academic had mastered the written form but mistakenly presumed that the same style could be used at a podium in the context of an hour-long public address.
A Speech Is Not an Essay
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How to convert an essay into a speech
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This handout will help you create an effective speech by establishing the purpose of your speech and making it easily understandable.
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Turning your ESSAY into a SPEECH
Research shows that people remember very little from speeches, so just give them one or two ideas to hang onto. Remember, you only have one minute for your speech! Write Like You Talk Remember that you're writing a speech, not an essay. People will hear the speech, not read it. The more conversational you can make it sound, the better. So try these tips:. Use Concrete Words and Examples Concrete details keep people interested. For instance, which is more effective? A vague sentence like " Open play spaces for children's sports are in short supply. Get Your Facts Together You want people to believe that you know what you're talking about! So you'll need to do some research.
