Definition_of_a_Good_Speech

Carlos M. Albuja Jijón 11th grade “B” 12-Jan-10 The Definition of a Good Speech I don´t get why people like to give speeches: there´s nothing fun about doing them. To think you must first feel the anxiety weeks before the speech doesn´t seem worth it. You know I still remember the long hours of holding a pen over an unwritten white paper (while I waited while my computer was turning on), not having any idea what to talk about. I remember the anguish I had to go through in order to write the speech for my book´s publishing ceremony. Besides the anxiety of not knowing what the heck to say to a bunch of people who might even not listen to you in the first place, there is always the nervousness that doesn´t let you even sleep. It really is awful the weeks before the speech. I remember those horrible times when I just could not sleep thinking what would happen if something went wrong. There was once when an older cousin had to give a speech in his school, and he came and said to me, “Oh Charlie it is so hard to give a speech, I just can´t sleep wondering what to talk about, and thinking what will happen if I screw up!'” And then I said, “It will not matter. People will forget about your speech in a day or two.” I knew that was not the answer he was looking for when he said, “Oh my God! You are saying people don´t care about my speech'” “No that is not true,” I answered, “I am sure they do care about your speech”. Finally he said, “In that case, what if I screw up, dude!'” This story happened to me before knew I was ever going to give a speech. Days before my speech I actually couldn´t sleep because of the same reasons. The pre-speech´s anxiety makes people stupid. A good speech is not too long (to the point of boring the audience) and not too short (to the point of making the audience wonder why it was so short). I once went to the publication of the book of one of my grandpa´s dearest friends. He was always a really elegant gentleman, six feet two, and with a considerable amount of money. I knew years before he had been a diplomat, and had been part of the United Nations Organization. When the ceremony started everyone was anxious to listen to the man’s speech, which everyone expected to be really good. Finally, when the ceremony started he stood up and walked to the podium slowly with a really solemn posture. He silently stared for about thirty seconds at the crowd. Everyone was ready to pay attention to what was said to be: THE SPEECH OF THE DECADE. He gently moved his head towards the microphone and said, “Gracias por venir. Feliz día,” and left the room. That was it! Later I would be told that the guy simply freaked out to see so many people in the audience. He shut down his brain. How embarrassing! (but kind of funny at the same time). Days before my speech I could not stop thinking that if such a gentleman freaked out, I was condemned to fail. Those days I suffered severe headaches in school, and couldn´t quite concentrate on anything else. I remember one of those days I asked my mom, “Hey mom. Is the length of my speech O.K.' Is to long' Or maybe, is it too short' How many words should it contain'” And then she answered, “It does not matter how long it is, the important thing is that your speech comes from your heart.” A good speech is a one that people can´t easily forget. It is not a perfectly written one, but a perfectly exposed one. The truth is that a good speech is not like a great essay where you have to have a rigid structure, with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusions. A good speech does not have to have a structure. It does not have a beginning or an end. It does not have any written parameters. It just depends how you say it. I remember how the week before my speech I invited some cousins home. I told them I would present them two speeches, and they would be the judges of which one is better. First, I read Martin Luther´s King Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech. I read it all over, with a slow and low tone of voice that showed I really HAD a dream: the dream I could bore my whole audience to death. Later, I improvised a speech that had no sense at all. It had no arguments, no thesis, or any type of organization of its ideas. This time though, I said it with a good voice and with the type of eye contact I had seen Obama do on every speech on YouTube. When I asked them the day after which was better, they said they did not even remember the first one, but they sure did remember the second one which they described as, “one of the greatest speech of all times”. I still remember the time when I was behind the podium, ready to give my speech in my book´s publication ceremony. I remember that was the time when I checked out my audience: over 150 people, one guy asleep, 2 gringos and of course my grandmother sending me kisses as if I were still her little baby grandson. I remember I took a time to think about what good orators like Obama or Martin Luther King Jr. would do. I remember I was not nervous as I would have expected, because I came to the conclusion that was not the hard part of the process: it was just the end. When I raised my eyes again, I found myself in front of a different audience. This time I was in the SUM ready to give my speech for the Student Council elections, with an audience of hundreds of yelling teens, some who even insulted me. I now know it does not matter your audience when you are giving a speech, it is just up to you. It is up to you to be persuasive, to talk with a good tone of voice and to have good eye contact. It is up to you to understand that in that moment the hard part is already over and you just have to enjoy finishing the deal. So then, what is a good speech' I truly don´t know right now. You only get to know if your speech was any good when you walk down the halls of the school, and months after your speech people still congratulate you and can still remember some of the things you said. You only get to know that your speech was any good when you know the anxiety beforehand was worth the feeling of success and joy after the speech. Overall, a good speech is similar to a good conversation, where you really enjoyed doing it and would like to do it again anytime. So then, why do I enjoy giving speeches' Very simple: I really like to be congratulated afterwards (especially by my grandmother).