HOW TO PREPARE FOR DEBATE AND SPEECH (part 4)

                       HOW FAMOUS SPEAKERS PREPARED THEIR ADDRESSES

               1. “The art of war” said Napoleon, “is a science in which nothing succeeds which has not been calculated and thought out”. That is as true of speaking as of shooting. A talk is a voyage. It must be charted. The speaker who starts with nowhere, usually gets there.

                          2.  No infallible, ironclad rules can be given for the arrangement of ideas and the construction of all talks. Each address has its own particular problems.

                   3.    The speaker should cover a point thoroughly while he is on it and then not refer it again. There should be no darting from one thing to another and then back again as aimlessly as a bat in the twilight.

                      4.   The late Dr. Conwell built many of his talks on this plan:

               a). State your facts.

               b). Argue from them.

               c). Appeal for action. 
  5.    You will probably find this plan very helpful:

               a). Show something thing that is wrong.

               b). Show how to remedy it.

               c). Appeal for action.

  6.     Here is an excellent speech plan:

                a). Secure interested attention.

                 b). Win confidence.

                 c). State your facts.

                 d). Appeal to the motives that make men act.

                          7.    All the facts on both sides of your subject must be collected, arranged, studied, and digested.  Prove them;  be sure the are facts; then think out for yourself the solution those facts compel.

                    8.  Before speaking, Lincoln thought out his conclusions with mathematical exactness. When he was forty years of age, and after he had been a member of Congress, he studiedEuclid so that he could detect sophistry and demonstrate his conclusions.

                    9. When Theodore Roosevelt was preparing a speech, he dug up all the facts, appraised them, then dictated his speech very rapidly, corrected the typewritten copy, and finally dictated  it all over again.

                         10. Notes destroy about fifty percent of the interest in your talk. Avoid them. Above all, do not read your speech. An audience can hardly be brought to endure listening to a read speech.

             11.  After you have thought out and arranged your speech, then practice it silently as you walk along the street. Also get off somewhere by yourself and go over it from beginning  to end, letting yourself go. Imagine that you are addressing a real audience. The more of this you do ,the  more comfortable you will feel when the time comes for you to make your speech.