How to make my campaign speech perfect and effective

1. How to make
my campaign
speech perfect?
By: Angelo P. Ang

2. Structuring your Campaign
Speech
– Tailor your message to your audience in a specific ways.
– Before you start writing, think about the audience you are
addressing.[5] Are you addressing the entire student body? Just one grade? A
classroom?
– if you’re talking to one classroom, don’t only talk to the classroom about a
general problem the school has. Talk to the classroom about how that general
problem affects them and how you can change it.
– For example, don’t say: “The breaks in between homeroom and first
period aren’t long enough.” Say: “Everybody in homeroom has gotten at least
one demerit for being late to first period. We can’t get all the way from North
Campus to South Campus in time. Elect me as homeroom representative, and I
won’t let the administration forget it.”

3. Structuring your Campaign
Speech
– Outline your speech. All writing has a beginning, middle and end.
Outlining your thoughts first will help you stay on track as you
write the speech.[6]
– The beginning needs to catch people’s attention and raise the
questions you’re going to answer. The middle needs to provide
the answers, and the end connects the answers back to the
questions. In very simple terms: You tell them what you’re going
to tell them. Then, you tell them. Then you tell them what you
told them.[7]

4. Structuring your Campaign
Speech
– Make your point quickly. Open your campaign speech with your theme, or
main idea. You don’t stand anything to gain by beating around the bush,
because people naturally want to pay attention to themselves. You have to
convince them to listen to you. For example:
– Don’t say: “My name is Joe Blow, and I’m running for City Council. I’m a
member of…”
– Instead, get right to it. Say: “Not a single person in this city thinks the parking
situation on Main St. is adequate. No one.”
– There's a lot of ways to get this done. You can use a story, a challenge, a joke,
or just vividly describe a problem. You just need to get the audience's
attention quickly. Earn their attention, don't expect it to come to you.

5. Structuring your Campaign
Speech
– Support your theme. Once you’ve got their attention, don’t
let go. The middle of your speech needs to explain the issues
you raised in the introduction and convince people that you
can do something about them, but you need to vary the way
you tackle the issues.[9]
– You want to have a good mix of facts, feelings, and action. If
you only talk facts, your audience will get bored. Only talk
feelings, and you’ll wear them out. Only talk action, and it
invites disbelief, because you haven’t offered enough factual
and emotional support for your argument

6. Structuring your Campaign
Speech
– Raise the stakes at the end. The conclusion is just as important as the
introduction. It's the last chance you have to leave an impression, so make sure
they remember you by raising the stakes.
– To continue with the parking example, don’t end your speech talking about
the width and number of parking spaces on Main St. Make it bigger than
that—something that makes them feel weaker for not supporting you and
stronger for supporting you.
– “This isn’t just about parking spaces. The parking situation is just a symptom
of everything that’s wrong with the Council in this city. We’ve asked. We’ve
begged. We’ve done all we could. Now we have to send a message that they
can’t just ignore us.” With this kind of appeal, you put the listener in a
position where they are either a person who votes for you or a person who
lets themselves be ignored. Most people will take the first choice.

7. How am I going to deliver my
Speech?
– Speak slowly. Remember the audience is hearing the speech and not reading it.
When you write a campaign speech, it's very important to keep in mind that
how you write for listeners is going to be much different from how you would
write for readers.[1]
– A lot of people get nervous when they give a speech, and when people get nervous
they talk fast. But fast talkers seem untrustworthy. So if you get nervous, space out
your words (literally, put five spaces in between each word on the page) to keep your
speech measured.

8. How am I going to deliver my
Speech?
– Talk to the audience like you're having a conversation. Even though you're not
actually having a conversation with someone, it should sound like you are. Don't
worry about eliminating contractions, splitting infinitives, or leaving modifiers
dangling.[2][3]
– Don't go overboard with informality. You're asking to lead your peers, so they need to
trust you can do that. Most people can't lead well, so to convince them you can lead
well, your speech should also reflect that you're more capable than an average
person. You need to strike a balance. Speak at a level just above the level of a typical
conversation.

9. How am I going to deliver my
Speech?
– Keep your words simple and direct. Student audiences have especially short
attention spans and limited vocabularies. As a good rule of thumb, keep all of
your sentences at fifteen words or less.
– Instead of: "We need to address the way we schedule our lunch breaks in a
reasonable but fair way, because the way we do it now isn't fair to anyone."
– Try: "We have people eating lunch at 10:30 am. They're still serving breakfast at
Burger King at 10:30! It doesn't make sense! By the time 2:00 rolls around, the early
lunch kids are starving. There is a better way. We all know it."

10. How am I going to deliver my
Speech?
– Read it aloud to see how it sounds. People may only hear your speech once.
Read your speech aloud exactly as you want it to sound when you’re giving it.
You’ll probably find words and phrases that sound clunky to the ear or trip up
your tongue. Rephrase them.[4]
– For even more focused practice, try speaking in front of a mirror or in front of a
camera.