Speech Analysis: Speech Organisation

I'm going to analyse the Speech "The Train's Still Rolling" given by Mr. David Ross in 1991 in the World Championship of Public Speaking. Well it's going to be a different type of analysis because I'm only going to evaluate the speech in terms of the organisation of the speech.  First, we're going look into the opening of the speech.

To understand the value of the opening, I'd need to:

•  compare the opening with alternative opening options and
•   evaluate how the opening fits with the speech outline 

The opening grabs the audience's attention immediately and guides the audience into a mental state. The core topic was "how to find the path towards success" and for this reason the most suitable outline would be the spatial (direction) outline as chosen in this case.  Secondly,  about grabbing attention, I should talk briefly about Learning Styles.  Each listener has a unique learning style that can be classified.  Some perceive the world mostly through what they hear (auditory), some by their eyes (very visual), some notice the bodily sensations coming out from the words (kinesthetic) and etc.  Whereas the average speaker would read out a memorised opening from a written text like a news reporter, the speaker uses the following the appeal to the large number of audience with different learning styles:

1. Impersonation:  he shouts "all aboard!" to immediately get the audience thinking about train conductors and the environment of a train station.  His body language appeals to the visual learners and his low pitch, high voice volume appeals to the auditory learners.  
2. Metaphor:  with a mixture of voice modulation, emphasis on certain words, and the example of the metaphysical train, the speaker easily transfers his core message to you.

Next, let's see how the speaker manages transitioning into the the main body of his speech.
  

As he says "..we all are, or we all were, when we were children...." he also links children with the supporting sub-point and support material that when he saw how his son learnt to walk, it was evident that he had no doubt about being able to walk one day.  So, he moves to the speech body taking the word children and gives an example about his son's childhood that directly connects to his sub-point that we only need to look into our childhoods to see that we are born winners !  Let's compare how it would look like he used a rhetorical question to manage the transition.  If he said " have you ever overcame a challenge in your childhood? The answer is we all have. I have.  Here's my story", that would be the clownish equivalent of strategy number 6 (asking a question, answering yourself that the audience may be thinking)  in the article I've linked to below.  The reason why I'd give myself less points for doing this dramma before telling my own story is that it would make the speech less concise.  Plus, the answer to a rhetorical question should be your vital point.  Secondly, compare a speech with a politician talking with a mike.  He starts to talk about how his opponent is annoying him and spends most of the time talking what his arch-enemy has done - very funny !  So, for the following 2 reasons using a rhetorical question would be unnecessary in the speech:

1. Maintaining speech tempo (speed)
2. Maintaining the flow (perhaps the same as tempo)  
3. Transitioning to a new paragraph or a speech segment only to explain a supporting story is not essential.  That would require a pause before and after and since the story would be standing out alone in between pauses, it would take the focus away from the main points of the speech. 

I used to think that  a rhetorical question is excellent for openings, I would hardly see any use of it in endings, and in the middle I'd use a rhetorical question to buy time if the audience seemed to be losing attention.  In reality there are wide uses of it in the middle and also in the ending !  The question was whether we could use a rhetorical question to transit into a new point. The answer is yes of course we can. However in this specific case the speaker is maintaining the smooth flow.  He has already said that we are all born winners from our childhoods, so it's implied that we'll overcome problems.  A great article on rhetorical questions I feel privileged to link to is here.  


The main points were: 1. The metaphysical train leads us to our destiny.  We all have to board the train.   

2. Success is not me better than you, it's we making a better tomorrow.


The sub-points were:


1. We are all born to be winners and find out way to success. 

The supporting points were:

1. Watching how his son learnt to walk, made him proud as a parent.  His son also knew he was born to be a winner even when he was falling down on the floor when he was learning how to walk.  His son never doubted and thought, "...I probably can't do this!"

2.  The speaker's friend as a vocational counselor would ask students aspiring to lead a particular profession to go out in the community and find out 5 people in that profession.  The point was, success was about giving all you've got, not being "safe" and "rich". 

3.  Winston Churchill's quotation about not giving up, ever.