Speech
Carrying
out the speech although being decisive, is only one stage in the preparation
of the event (and usually not the most complicated).
When you
are preparing a speech you need to be very clear as to what the objective
is, what you are trying to do (inform, motivate, warn, etc).
In the
first place you need to define the topic of the speech. This is usually
indicated by the event organizers (although you can always give it
your own direction) or maybe you have freedom to choose it.
Once you
have the topic defined, you need to determine a key idea that you
want to transmit and on which you can focus your argument.
For example,
you are going to talk about the wine sector in Spain and you want
to transmit the idea of its lack of international projection.
Once you
have selected your key idea, you need to look for artuments to support
it. For this it is best to use your imagination freely (a spider gram)
and write down all the ideas as soon as they come to you.
This
process can talk a few days (you need to give the imagination time,
ideas occur randomly).
Once
you have a list of possible arguments you need to choose 4 or 5
of the most relevant (and no more).
You need
to be aware that the public's ability to retain knowledge is limited
and that it is difficult to remember more than 4 or 5 concepts.
Try to
support the key idea with lots of arguments which help the public
capture the main idea (the trees would not let you see the forest).
Once you
have chosen the few arguments that you are going to use, you then
need to develop them in depth. You can use concepts, data, examples,
dates, anecdotes, jokes (even if the topic you are talking about is
somewhat serious).
The speech
needs to be structured into three defined parts:
Introduction
(where you will raise the topic that you are going to talk about
and the idea that you wish to transmit).
Development
(where you will present the different arguments).
Conclusion
(where you will enhance the idea and list the arguments used).
The speech
doesn't have to be a literary piece, therefore what is essential is
that you make sure everything is clear.
As you
are being heard (and not read) the public does not have time to
analyse in depth the language used, the structure of the phrases,
etc.
Besides,
in the case that they don't understand a phrase they are not going
to have the possibility of going over it.
Therefore,
the speech should have clear and direct language, simple and short
phrases. You need to give the public time to understand.
To conclude,
point out some important aspects:
Independently
of the topic that you are going to talk about, you need to try and
make the speech attractive, new, agile, well organized, interesting
(even if the topic is quite dry like, for example, "The tax
reform during the II Republic").
You
should always try and be brief (the public will appreciate it).
Brevity does not imply that the speech has to be necessarily short,
but it should not be longer than necessary (get to the point, avoid
going round in circles as this will only confuse matters and end
up boring people).
It
is always better for your speech to be shorter than go over the
requested time.
