Features of Effective Speech-Writing

For Danielle and all my wonderful fifth years, as requested. Should help you with your comprehension question “Identify and comment on four features of effective speech writing“! Remember to

  • Identify the technique – include quotes / examples
  • Comment on the effect of this technique on you – how it makes you feel, what image it creates in your mind, what it makes you think, how it changes your perception and gives you a new way of looking at the issue.

al-Gore-takes-on-nazis

  1. Welcome the audience
  2. Introduce yourself (unless you’re really really famous!)
  3. Use informal language & slang (depends on context / audience)
  4. Involve the audience (personal pronouns / ask questions / interactive)
  5. Use humour
  6. Mention celebrities & cartoon characters
  7. Include pauses & gestures
  8. Facts & statistics
  9. Varied sentence length
  10. Quotes
  11. Personal Anecdotes
  12. Strong opinions expressed – backed up with relevant and logical examples.
  13. Metaphors
  14. Rhetorical Questions
  15. Repetition of key phrases (or plant and pay-off)
  16. Lists
  17. Proper nouns
  18. Urgent references to time
  19. Contrast
  20. Emotive language / Sensationalism / Dramatics
  21. Hyperbole
  22. Vivid feckin imagery!
  23. Thank the audience at the end.

If you want a more detailed discussion of the general effect of individual techniques, look here but remember, when you discuss the effectiveness of a technique in a text, you MUST make your answer zoom in on how the technique works in this SPECIFIC EXAMPLE, not in general.

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