Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is arguably one of the most quoted, and one of the most famous, speeches in history. This two-minute, ten-sentence speech can teach us a lot about how to write a great speech.
- Keep it short
- Abandon the formalities
- Have purpose
- Connect to your audience’s hearts
- Speak to larger truths
- Speak to the larger audience
- Use imagery
- Recall more famous lines
- Revise, revise, revise
- End strong
These tips aren’t suitable for all talks but they’re all good tips, nonetheless.
Browsing the MIT OpenCourseWare’s Laboratory in Cognitive Science entry, I came across a paper on giving effective scientific talks.
- Prepare your material carefully and logically
- Practice your talk
- Don’t put in too much material
- Avoid equations
- Have only a few conclusion points
- Talk to the audience not to the screen
- Avoid making distracting sounds
- Polish your graphics
- Use large letters (no fonts smaller than 16 pts)
- Keep the graphic simple
- Use color
- Use cartoons
- Use humor if possible
- Be personable in taking questions
- First, repeat the question
- If you don’t know the answer then say “I don’t know, I will have to look into that”
- If the questioner disagrees with you and it looks like there will be an argument then defuse the situation
- Never insult the questioner
Quantum Physics Made Relatively Easy:
In 1999, legendary theoretical physicist Hans Bethe delivered three lectures on quantum theory to his neighbors at the Kendal of Ithaca retirement community (near Cornell University). Given by Professor Bethe at age 93, the lectures are presented here as QuickTime videos synchronized with slides of his talking points and archival material.
Freeman Dyson called Bethe the “supreme problem solver of the 20th century.” Coming from Dyson, that’s praise indeed.
American Rhetoric is a “speech bank” holding over 5,000 full text, audio and video on some of the most famous speeches, lectures, debates and interviews of all time. Recently they released a list of the top 100 speeches in American 20th century politics (complete with transcript and audio).
- Martin Luther King, Jr. - “I Have a Dream”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy - Inaugural Address
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt - First Inaugural Address
If that got you inspired, these 22 personal development videos are a great compliment.
- Jim Rohn - “Your Best Year Ever”
- Steve Jobs - Stanford Commencement Speech
- Tim Ferriss - Authors@Google with Marci Alboher