Oratory with notes (or not)

Yesterday I attended a major event at which one of the key speakers discovered, as she reached the podium, that someone had removed her notes and that, therefore, she had no prepared address in front of her. I have to say she never missed a beat, and proceeded to deliver an excellent, well structured, witty and detailed address, for which she received an enthusiastic ovation. It was a great example of expert communication skills, by someone with the confidence to pull it off.

In contrast, some months ago I was at an event at which a well known speaker, on reaching the podium, found the prepared speech and proceeded to deliver it, although it became clear within the first paragraph that it wasn’t his speech at all, but the speech of the person who was to talk after him. This was obvious not least because, as he began to speak, he found himself thanking himself for the excellent speech he had in fact not yet delivered. He also didn’t hesitate and, without any pause, continued with the next speaker’s address right through to the end, not excluding references to his past life that wasn’t his past life at all. The amazing thing was that this didn’t seem to put him off in the slightest way – he was a man obviously used to others preparing his talks, and his task was to deliver them and not wonder too much about the content; or possibly not even notice. But what was the next speaker to do? Yes, you’ve guessed it, he took the notes intended for the first speaker and read them out. It was the most bizarre event I have ever attended.

As I have pointed out before, years ago I used to read out all speeches according to a verbatim script I would prepare in advance. And I swear I was truly awful at it. Believe me, terrible. Then one day I decided to try speaking with just a couple of short notes setting out the structure in front of me, but no detailed text – and I have never looked back. Please forgive the arrogance, but I believe I am a good speaker. But the quality of a speech depends on two things: the amount of thought that has gone into the content, structure and objectives of the speech; and the skill used to deliver it. Some people can do that effectively with a prepared script, but in my experience the excellence of the communication is usually enhanced by the ability of a speaker to convey a degree of commitment and passion (and wit), and all of this is much more effective if it is done with an element of spontaneity that is apparent to the audience.

So if you need to speak in public, go on, throw away those detailed notes, just work out a structure and secure the necessary facts and data, and then speak from the heart.

Developing rhetoric

As a young boy I had, I believe, a very bad stammer. I don’t really remember this – I was very young at the time – but I believe I received some treatment for it; in any case the problem was overcome and my speech was fine. However, there is a legacy: there are a few words which, if I am at all self-conscious when I am saying them, make me stutter, for example ‘theological’ and ‘logistical’. If I know I am going to say them I become self-aware as the difficult word approaches, and then I have to work to get the word out. It’s not a big deal. I keep my verbal comments about logistics to a minimum. But the other legacy for some years was that I was nervous about public speaking and would avoid it. I had no problem speaking with friends or chatting in a group, but if someone called for silence and all eyes turned to me I would become scared that I would stutter, and so I avoided such occasions.

When I was a student in Trinity College Dublin in the 1970s, I was on one occasion persuaded to participate in a debate. I was really worried about whether I could do this, and so I assembled what I thought was a clever speech, wrote it out on a typewriter, and when my turn came I read it out from the paper. I must have been dire. I was one of a team of two. We came last. When the judges pointed out that my team mate delivered by far the best speech of the evening, I realised that my speech must have been catastrophic. In my determination not to repeat that, I found the secret of success for me: if I am going to speak, I won’t speak from a prepared script. Think about it in advance by all means, and structure the speech in my head; but no script. And that has worked for me. I am occasionally told that I speak well, if you’ll forgive the arrogance of that statement.

Anyway, the point of all this is that rhetoric – the art of persuasive speaking – is such an important skill in the academic environment. Few academics are trained in it, and if we’re honest not all of them do it well. Too often we believe that the intellectual cohesion of what we say should be enough, and that our skills in communicating it are of no great importance, or possibly even a sign that the academic pedigree of the content is deficient. I have never bought that: I believe that as lecturers we must be able to inspire, impress and entertain; these rhetorical devices help to engage the student and make the subject-matter memorable.

In other professions rhetorical ability is also important, and is often neglected. For example, we all know of a small handful of politicians who can make us sit up and listen, but most political speeches are a cure for insomnia. This is not helped by the fact that, in our system, parliamentary debates chiefly consist of either handing out wild insults and engaging in boorish behaviour, or when that is done, settling down to wholly tedious (if often worthy) speeches. But as Barack Obama has shown, the ability to communicate with skilful rhetoric is a powerful way of ensuring that citizens remain committed to the democratic political process.

In this particular phase of history, good communication is vitally important. When economic and social conditions become complex, the ability to communicate effectively is vital, not only for politicians, but for anyone who has a message to send out that can promote confidence and determination. Effective communication is not a dark art, it is what allows ideas to be disseminated and to grow. We should care more about this, and should ensure that speaking and rhetoric are skills that are valued by society. And we should train more academics to deploy these skills.