Speeches: Ancient Rhetoric & Ghosts in the Modern World

 Diana Nyad speaks of swimming from Cuba to Florida--famous swimmer does the "impossible."

Read for Nov. 11, 2024: Arguably, formal public communication as we know it, in our culture, dates back to the time of the ancient Greeks. (There are older traditions than that, especially oral storytelling, but I’m writing specifically about formal rhetorical traditions that are relevant to Public Relations and to this week’s writing).

The Greeks, in Athens in particular, began to use proto-democratic forms of government, and that made public discourse, the oral exchange of ideas, important to them. And today, in a sometimes post-literate world, the ability of a person to speak on behalf of an organization is still a key to getting important messages to key publics.

Dr. Todd Olson, president of Mount Mercy University, speaks Aug. 15, 2023 at an all-employee start-of-year training day.

And social media, where video can spread both poignant and unfortunate remarks globally in the blink of an eye, only makes how we speak in public even more important from a PR perspective.

Those of you students who had me in CO 101, Oral Communication, will recognize much of what follows as a very brief summary of information from that class. Still, it’s speech basics that every PR writer needs to understand.

Besides knowing how to use those speech basics, it’s also important to recognize that a PR writer is sometimes the spokesperson—that is, you may be writing a speech script that you will deliver—but probably more often is a ghost writer. Your job is to put words in someone else’s mouth.

We’re culturally aware of that as something that happens at the highest level of government. Presidents, at least competent ones, have speech writers and pay careful attention to what they say in public because presidential words matter. That’s true on that macro cultural level, but also true “at home.” I don’t know if anybody at MMU is helping Dr. Todd Olson write his speech scripts—but it would be normal for MarComm (remember that is MMU slang for our PR office) to be involved in writing such speeches. In fact, I had a colleague who, at the end of his career, got a job that was mainly ghost writing speeches for the president of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake.

 

Dr. Todd Olson short PR presentation after he had been named MMU president.

Ghost writing can be devious and deceiving when hidden and not acknowledged, but done correctly and ethically, it contributes important ideas in the public sphere, the marketplace of ideas. Like all PR, I think the key is that you believe in the person you’re writing for and their cause, so you don’t sell your soul. It’s never worth it.

Anyway, back to speeches. As your text notes, there are mainly three kinds:

• Informative speeches that seek to impart information.

• Persuasive speeches that seek to change opinion and/or actions.

• Special-occasion speeches which mark important events and shared experiences.

Dr. Richard Barrett, chair of the MMU faculty and associate professor of political science, delivers the keynote speech at the 2023 Convocation, marking the start of the 2023-24 school year. A special-occasion speech that had a persuasive message for new students, too.

As a PR writer, keep in mind that these distinctions are both valid but a bit vague. The kinds of speeches almost always overlap. You may, at a special occasion, for example, have some informative announcements that needs to be embedded in the speech. Persuasion usually involves some information. And even a straight-up informative speech should be consistent with an organization’s PR message, and needs to sell the credibility of the information—thus, it is by nature, partly persuasive.

So let’s get into the writing. To me, one of the keys of speech writing is to understand the research that needs to go into it. As a potential ghost writer, you need to understand the speaker as well as the occasion, and give each due attention before you start to write.

Make sure you have the best data you can on:

• The audience. Who are they, why are they gathered, what do they know about your topic, how do they currently feel about the proposition you’re going to try to sell them, what motivates them, how large are they, how are they experiencing the speech?

• The message. Each speech needs a clear one-sentence summary that crystallizes its key message. In speech class, we talk about a “purpose statement” that is used to plan the speech, and the "thesis," which is the sentence in the speech that expresses the main point of the speaker. If you can’t summarize a main point in one sentence, your speech is too vague.
  

• The speaker. How do they talk? What is their normal mode of expression? What kind of vocabulary do they usually use? If the audience is familiar to the speaker, what shared experience or knowledge can the speaker use to show common ground? Can they tell a joke? Are they stiff and formal? Fluid and conversational? Is public speaking one of their strengths or a challenge they must meet? Do they have a natural sense of drama—can they easily take an audience on a journey? Do they ad lib or stick to scripts?

In researching the speaker, early in the process you must have some contact with them to clarify their goal for the speech, especially if you are ghost writing on their behalf.

Liz and Rich Robertson, two artists, speak to a group gathered at an art reception for their pottery exhibit at MMU, Nov. 9, 2023.

John-Thomas Richard, director of the art gallery at MMU, introduces the Robertsons.

In writing a speech, keep in mind that the general rules may be different for a special speech under special circumstances, and you as a writer need to understand the circumstance.

A speech has a fairly simple structure. It has an introduction, a body and a conclusion.

The introduction of the speech has to grab the audience’s attention, orient them to the speaker if they don’t know the speaker or there was limited introduction, and foreshadow what will come in the speech. Like a video script, a speech may begin a bit indirectly, with the speaker using the opening line to state their name and get the audience’s attention. On the other hand, if there is an introduction given for the speaker, they can probably launch into the attention grabber.

Don't delay or neglect the attention grabber with a long, indirect introduction, however. As our text says, you have a very limited time to grab the audience, and once you lose them, they're gone.

It’s all a question, like all PR, of relationship. If need be, the speaker should establish ethos, or credibility, in the introduction.

The body of the speech should be clearly arranged. If it’s a story, it will probably be chronological—arranged in time. Most speeches don’t use that structure. They can be arranged by space, logic, or topically—that is, a large idea broken into smaller parts to be more easily digested. Like a feature story, a speech body can include several references to an ongoing anecdote that may have opened the speech. Most important, the structure of the body should be clear to the audience listening. They should feel a sense of movement through the speech. Use internal summaries, verbal signposts and transitional language to accomplish that goal.

The conclusion is just as important as the introduction. In speech class, we refer to the “primacy and recency effect,” the point being that listeners remember best what they hear first and last. In TV, news packages often have what is called “the snapper,” the pithy, memorable ending. In structure, many speeches are a circle—whatever you used as the attention-grabber can come back at the end. You can start an anecdote in the introduction and complete it in the conclusion, for instance. Or if you told a whole story to start with, maybe provide an epilogue in the conclusion. Conclusions are not the place for startling new facts—use those in the intro and body—but they are a place where you want a memorable summary for the audience, plus a pleasing sense of completion and conclusion.

The script format will vary, and is mostly based on the habits and preferences of the speaker. Do they want a “broadcast” style ALL CAPS script? Honestly, probably not. But you want to double space a script and use at least 12-point type. If you were writing for an old man like Joe, you might consider 14-point type.

For your PR script this week, I’ll ask you to write it double-spaced and in 12-point type.

Kamala Harris speaks the night she clinched the job of VP-elect. Everything about her speech was planned--she has her sorority pearls on, an American flag pin and is wearing white as an homage to suffragettes of 100 years ago who used white clothes as their symbol. And I'm sure the speech was scripted. Image from NBC News.

Some speeches are delivered from an outline, but if it is an important occasion and a PR speech, you’ll probably write it verbatim. Also, the speech script itself is sometimes an added PR document—they can be sent out in advance if what the speaker is saying is newsworthy, for example. Be aware that a “transcript” is not the same as a “script,” the former is a word-for-word rendition of what a speaker actually says, while the latter is what you the PR writer planned for them to say.

Speeches use the three classical rhetorical tools (once again, thanks, Greeks) of ethos, pathos and logos. Ethos is the sense of credibility and relatability—the idea that the audience trusts the speaker and feels they are on the audience’s side. Pathos is an appeal to emotions. Logos is organization, facts and logic. None should be used alone, but the balance of the three depends on the audience, topic and occasion.

If the speaker is consoling an audience after loss, for instance, they will want to inject some note of hope, but acknowledge and empathically share grief. The speech is heavy in pathos.

If the speaker is explaining the reasons for a particular new process or rule, the speech is probably an explanatory one with facts—it’s heavy in logos.

And any speech, no matter what, should have lots of ethos, although sometimes the ethos is already understood and doesn’t need a lot of boosting.

It takes a while to get to her speech--note the speech of introduction, a scripted PR speech, as well as her speech, which is worth listening too. But then again, when is Taylor Swift not worth listening to?

Let’s get back to ghosts. As the ghost writer for another person, it’s important for you to be able to write in their voice. As the PR person, you may have to prompt the speaker to read over and give feedback. In some circumstances, that’s inevitable, and because speech writing is so personal, can be taxing, too. If you know it’s important, you may have to sell something to the speaker that they don’t particularly want to say—as the PR person, you have to tactfully inject reality into the thinking of a speaker who sometimes is higher in the organization than you and may be your boss.

You have to deliver a script on time, prompt the speaker to practice and deal with revisions. PR speeches typically have one author, but may involve a team, and certainly have to be cleared by the speaker themselves.

Another thing to manage as the PR speech writer, to the extent you can, is the environment where the speech will be delivered. Does the speaker need a podium or microphone? Water? What would make them more comfortable and effective in delivery?

Finally, like a video, a speech is a visual experience. This involves both what the speaker does and looks like, and any visuals that accompany the speech.

Photojournalist Alison Wright speaks at Blair Academy in New Jersey. Note the image behind her--one of hers, I assume, projected to go with presentation. Image posted by Blair Academy.

The most common tool for visuals is a PowerPoint slide deck, and if its necessary and expected, it becomes part of the speech scripting, too. Sometimes, in formal policy or corporate conditions, many words of explanation need to be on slides, but in general, minimize the verbiage.

Design slides so they are attractive, not wordy, and a good adjunct to the speech script.

Rachael Murtaugh, director of sustainability, speaks November 2018, using slides. Image by Joe Sheller.

Consider other visual options, too—is there a prop that the speaker could use in the context of this message?

And write for the ear. Make a speech easy to read. Read it aloud to test it. The language of a speech should be as simple as possible, and the speech only as long as necessary. Granted, a big event might require a bigger speech, but my snapper for you to remember when writing any PR speech is this:

With words in a speech script, always remember: Less is more.