Chapter 22 memorize the speech until the speech is out of the script

This approach has several advantages.If you have the time and energy, you can iterate and rewrite your idea until you can express it clearly and concisely.Pope would sometimes spend a whole day revising a two-line poem.Gibbon spent twenty years collecting information, and finally rewrote "The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire".Although you can't do so much painstaking preparation on your speech, you should make the effort to remove redundant words, compress entire paragraphs into one sentence, and choose appropriate examples.A good speech, like a play, is not written but rewritten.The National Cash Register Company has the following scheme in their most effective sales system: They ask the salesman to recite a sales conversation verbatim.They always believed that there was one best way to do sales promotion, and they insisted that every salesman use this best way and not use any inappropriate words that came to mind at the time.

Many eminent orators have used this method of writing and reciting manuscripts, Julius Caesar, Robert Ingersoll, and on some occasions Wendell Phillips are notable examples.Of course, the wonderful performances of famous actors come from speaking the memorized lines.But this method is difficult and laborious, and inexperienced speakers must be careful when trying it. It takes a lot of skill to make this approach work.Memorized speeches by young speakers often sound off-putting.If you want to hear a demonstration, go to a department store and listen to the product demonstration performer keep repeating what she has memorized, the latest furniture polish or breakfast food.It takes some practice to make a recited speech sound fresh, and unless you yourself are naturally gifted with a good memory, in any case, a perfect work requires hard work.If you forget part of your speech or miss words, you're likely to get so confused that you'll have to repeat it all over again, just like Mark Twain's guide to Rome.

On the other hand, you may be obsessed with recalling what you wrote instead of allowing your emotions to follow the focus of your speech, and your speech will feel unnatural, which is crucial to a successful speech. But don't let these difficulties deter you.If memory works best for you, go for it with confidence.Don't be held back by obstacles, avoid it with constant practice.One of the best ways to overcome these difficulties is to do what Dr. Wallace Radcliffe used to do: to memorize speeches without writing them, to do all the preparation in your head, without writing—it is a very laborious method. But effective, can develop brain and memory at the same time.You will find that memorizing the examples of speeches in this volume, and delivering them impassionedly with the principles we have stated earlier in mind, is a good exercise both for memory and for speech.William Channing, himself a great orator, said this a few years ago about practicing speeches:

"Is there not some useful pastime connected with the theater that we can introduce? I mean, recitation. There is sheer great satisfaction in having a man of good taste, passion, and force of speech recite the classics sense. If this art had previously been cultivated and encouraged, there may now be a large number of people who are indifferent to the classics who would realize their charm and power."