Public Speaking - As Listeners Like It!
Richard C. BordenThe following paragraphs are a summary of the first section of Mr. Borden's book.
Professor Borden has formulated principles that work to help you give a speech or sermon that will hold your audience's attention from beginning to end.
Chapter 1 of the book lays out the fundamentals of speech organization. Speeches should have purpose and form. For your sermon you will focus on the principles used in the section, "How To Organize A Formal Platform Speech That Listeners Like." There are four basic steps to the process and they are summarized below.
Step One: Ho Hum!
In the first section of your speech—start a fire! In order for your speech to be well organized you must grab the attention of your audience in the first sentence.
Step Two: Why Bring That Up?
In the second section of your speech—build a bridge! Make sure your listener understands exactly why you are bringing up this subject and how it relates to her or him. The bridge is critical for your lead-in to the body of speech.
Step Three: For Instance!
In the third section of your speech—get down to cases! The body of your speech will begin with some purposive general assertion about your chosen subject, but once that assertion is made avoid putting the idea "in other words." Instead give concrete "for instances" to your claims.
Step Four: So What?
In the concluding section of your formal speech—ask for action! The end of your speech should have a point. It must answer your audience's question "so what." At the end of your speech ask the audience for some specific action. Join! Contribute! Vote! Write! Fax! Buy! Boycott! Investigate! Acquit! Convict!
Last updated on Monday, May 21, 2007.
