By Gloria Hildebrandt

Speeches are meant to be heard with the ear, not read with the eye. That’s the single most important thing to remember about writing a speech. And not paying enough attention to that difference is the most common problem with most speeches.

A speech should be conversational. That doesn’t mean casual or informal. It means it should sound natural but compelling, as if someone with interesting things to say is talking.

So keep the sentences short. And direct. Nobody likes to listen to someone speaking in long, complicated, compound sentences. Listeners tend to hold their breath while someone speaks. Give them a break, so they can breathe with you!

Make sentence breaks where there’s a conversational break. Grammar ain’t as important as effect in a speech. Write like you talk. Don’t worry about technical errors if you want the audience to focus on your information.

Use facts and figures sparingly. Numbers are hard to follow for most people. Use only a few to make the greatest impact. Give real examples of people. Don’t give abstract principles. Tell anecdotes and stories. Make your speech personal.

People tend to remember the last thing they heard. For this reason, put the most important point at the end of each sentence, and definitely at the end of each paragraph.

A speech is not a formal report or a magazine article. The listener can’t go back over something to understand it better. The listener won’t find it easy to see the structure of your speech unless you give clear guidelines to where you are. That’s why you often hear “By way of introduction, let me start by…” and “Here’s a brief overview of the company’s history” and “To summarize…” These are oral signs that tell the audience of your progress through the speech.

If you’ve got a number of key points you want to communicate, say so. “The three most important things to remember are…” Notice how things tend to come in threes? For some reason, it’s natural for us to think in terms of three. There’s a pleasing rhythm to lists of three. And we can remember three things more easily than say, eight, or 17.

So as you move through your list of points, remind the audience where you are. “My second point is…” and “Finally, the last thing to remember is…”

When structuring a speech, it’s not a bad idea to say what you’re going to say, then actually say everything, and then review the main points of what you said. This is not a sophisticated way to shape a report or an article, but it works for speeches because the audience has only one chance to understand you. Help them follow your train of thought. They have to follow what you’re saying before they can be moved, inspired or motivated by your speech. To get the response you want, give them a speech they’ll want to hear.

Gloria Hildebrandt is a writer, researcher, editor and communications consultant. Contact her to discuss your publicity goals.