Oprah Winfrey delivered a commencement speech at Stanford University in 2008. She stressed the importance of pursuing your passions and not regretting things left undone. She attempted to identify with the audience by sharing personal stories and lessons learned. Her speech was engaging, receiving applause and a standing ovation, due to her strong rapport with the audience through body language, eye contact and playing with her voice.

1. Purpose
Oprah Winfrey's 2008 Stanford
Commencement Address
By-
Praveen Sidola

2. Opening
• Interactive
(connect with the student)

3. Stress Main point
• Significant voice modulation
(‘fine tune’ “pitch and tone”)

4. Information Delivery
• Do whatever you want to do ,you will
regret only for those thing which you
did not do.

5. Thought flow and sentence transition
• Attempts to identify with the audience.
• This helps in getting the attention of the
audience.
• Presents herself as a down to earth person,
irrespective of her wealth and achievements.
• Sentence transitions are smooth and do not
seem out of place or odd.

6. Repetition of key points
• In her speech at Stanford in 2008, she keeps
repeating various important parts of her
speech such as her goddaughter, Kirby, the
lessons of life she’s learnt and how just
studying in an ivy league school doesn’t make
you a successful person.
• Anything repeated long enough by a strong
willed personality can be assimilated by the
masses, even if it is untrue.

7. Impact
• Engaging audiences at their level means she can gauge their
interest/disinterest.
• Her speech at stanford was interrupted by applause
frequently, and she received a standing ovation at the end of
it, we can therefore say she had a strong impact on the crowd.
• Her talk shows also introduce pressing real life issues such as
hurrican katrina, drug abuse and the 9/11 attacks,
unemployment.
• Discussions pertaining real life issues increase audience
participation and interest.
• Pictures, video, real life stories and documentaries also leave
indelible impacts on the collective psyche of her audience.

8. Power of the pause
• An endless stream of words exhausts/bores an
audience.
• Oprah’s pausing is flexible and not rhythmic.
• Through this, she can speak TO her audience,
not AT them.
• It again helps her in identifying with her
audience and capturing her attention.

9. Rapport Establishment Play with Voice
• Being "in sync" with, or • Good & Polite voice.
being "on the same
wavelength“ as the person • Oprah creates a sense of
with whom you are talking excitement in the listeners
by playing with her voice .
• Oprah Winfrey’s Speech • Pitch Variation and proper
- Body Language Word Emphasis
- Eye Contact
- Listener’s Interest

10. Delivery, Diction & Word Flow
• Delivery – Oprah uses clear speech, good enunciation and
volume variations.
• Diction – Use of appropriate words and expressions.
• Word Flow – Oprah uses short and context appropriate words,
and some words like feeling, failures etc. that
makes the listeners understand the morality she
desires .

11. Sentence Construction
The structure of a sentence includes the use of
nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc.
There are four types of sentences depending on
the structure. They are:
• Simple
• Compound
• Complex

12. Oprah uses a mixture of simple and complex
sentences.
• “ Black and bald sitting on TV.” Contains a
subject and a verb.
• “TV can be more than just a playground but a
platform for service.” Contains two
independent (main) clauses joined by a
coordinator. It may or may not have a
subordinate clause.

13. Personality and Presence
• People-oriented and fun-loving.
• Warm and enthusiastic.
• Good motivator and communicator.
• Tends to exaggerate.

14. Simplicity
• She uses graceful lines in an elegant and balanced
form.
• Her voice was intelligible, unobstructed and distinct.
Directness
• She gains and holds the attention of the listener.
• Creates precisely the desired impression by
conveying to the audience, importance and sincerity
of her utterances.