Remembering Your Speech

Unless the other departments of it be

Held together by memory as an

Animating principle.

Quintilian

VII There are two ways of viewing memory as it relates to the giving of a speech: (1) the committing to memory of a speech word by word; and (2) the storing if knowledge and evidence for the speech. The “memory” we are discussing here is not the simple matter of rote memorized. Few, if any, situation would necessitate a memorized speech instead of an extemporaneous speech or a manuscript speech. Rather, memory is the storing and recall of the materials and proofs of the speech, both the individual pieces of evidence and the relationships they bear to each other. Thus, memory os inextricably associated with the learning process itself.

            Cicero told the story of Simonides who “invited” the art of memory and it is worth recalling for it has many useful implications. Once, at a banquet, Simonides was called from the room to receive an urgent message. While he was gone, the roof of the banquet hall collapsed and crushed all the guest beyond identification. However when Simonides the guest beyond identification. However when Simonides returned, he could identify each guest for burial because he could remember where each person sat at the table. Cicero comment that this led to the discovery that memory is assisted by the impression of “places” or “localities” on a person’s mind. Thus, the ancients taught memory though the concept of place.

            There are at least five major reasons why people have trouble with memory during the giving of a speech. Let us explore each of these reason briefly :

1.      The invention process has not been handled adequately

2.      The speaker has failed to prepare a clear, well-organized outline of his materials.

3.      Speaker are often general, rather than specific.

4.      Speaker sometimes fail to select concrete, descriptive language which vividly expresses their ideas.

5.      Delivery assumes too much importance to speaker and in his “stage fright” he cannot concentrate properly on the materials of his speech.

Relation to Invention

            The interdependence of an idea and its recall cannot be over-emphasized. If the speaker’s idea are strong, if they are vital, they can be remembered more easily. If the art of invention has been is easy to remember the ideas which interest us, which we know about, which we can relate directly to ourselves and the other things we know. That is why we stressed in the beginning, the selection of the proper topic. If the speaker chooses a topic he is familiar with and has considered at length, he is relaxed and can recall it more easily.

            A second aspect of invention is especially closely related to memory. The speaker should take extra care to omit non pertinent materials. All proofs selected should have a definite relationship to one another. On the other hand, the speaker must include all pertinent material necessary to the full and clear explanation of each of his points.

            When ideas are sharply defined, when they have been carefully developed and well explained, they are easier to remember because they are no longer “fuzzy” in the mind, but sharp and clear. The speaker has, in effect, explained his ideas, examined them, explored them until he is familiar with them; that is, until he knows them thoroughly.

            A speaker should dwell on each idea when preparing a speech to get a very definite impression of it so that it becomes distinct from all other ideas. Principal and subordinate ideas should then be distinguished so that it is obvious how one idea support another. The speaker must consider each specific support to determine how his evidence operates to prove the principal idea or ideas.

 Relation to Arrangement

            If the act of arrangement has also been performed efficiently, memory will be still easier. As the famous Roman schoolmaster Quintilian observed, order and arrangement are strong adjuncts to memory : “… if your structure be what it should, the artistic sequences will serve to quide  the memory.

            In building a brick house, the wall supports the roof, the foundation supports them both: the roof makes the top wall of the enclosure and serves to keep out sun and rain. The windows of the house let in air and light. All components have a definite purpose and that purpose is clearly conceived as the house is built. Each part of the house is in relation to, or, indeed, in many relations to every other part; each has a definite and planned place in the whole and serves the whole.

            Every building is erected for a purpose; to serve as a home, a gas station, an office building, and so on. Sometimes a building doubles as both home and grocery but predominantly it fulfills one major purpose. Just so, the speech is concentrate on a definite purpose. All materials in the speech are unified around the purpose and serve to activate it.

            To create a speech, one takes a few elements from many and creates a unified, organic whole, centered around a single idea. The whole and all its parts are devoted to the function of developing and presenting that one idea.

            Through reading about a speech topic, a conscious awareness should be formed of the associated between ideas and perceived patterns of organization. Read the following statements : the close the text and try writing the points down.

(1)            Many advantages are to be gained from increasing federal support to higher education.

(2)            Loan funds that exist for students often charge a high rate of interest

(3)            The total of above-average students kept from college by a lack of finances is about 150,000 per year

(4)            Corporations, although extending their gifts to higher education, are not increasing them rapidly enough and their gifts are often highly restrictive.

(5)            About half of the top 24 per cent of high school graduates do not enter college

(6)            Current scholarship are often to small and many times are restrictive. Moreover, a small percentage of colleges offers the bulk of scholarship funds.

(7)            Only the federal government can provide a stable financial base

(8)            The states themselves do not have adequate finances to handle his problem.

(9)            Of those who do not have adequate finances to handle this problem

(10)        Alumni gifts, although increasing, represent only a small portion of the sum needed.

Could you remember most of them? Probably not. Now, try reading the ideas in this order :

(1)            About half of the top 24 per cent of high school graduates do not enter college.

(2)            Of those who do not enter college, most give financial problems as the reason.

(3)            The total of above-average students kept from college by the lack of finances is about 150,000 per year.

(4)            Current scholarship are often too small and many times are restrictive. A small percentage of college offers the bulk of scholarship funds.

(5)            Loan funds that exist for students often charge a high rate of interest and have other restrictions.

(6)            The states themselves do not have adequate finances to handle this problem.

(7)            Corporation, although extending their gifts to higher education, are not increasing them rapidly enough and their gifts are often highly restrictive.

(8)            Alumni gifts, although increasing, represent only a small portion of the sum needed.

(9)            Only the federal government can provide a stable financial base.

(10)        Many advantages are to be gained from increasing federal support to higher education.

Relation to Detail

            Many times, in preparation, speakers are general rather than specific. Concrete specific details are often easier to remember because they call forth a particular image to mind. Compare the following lists:

A large Midwestern city à Cleveland, Ohio

A house à a red brick, two-storied house

A famous statesman à John Adams

About ten years ago à in 1954

Yellowstone National Park is very large  à Yellowstone National Park is as large as the states of Delaware and Rhode Island put together

Writers of western novels à writers of western novels such as Luke Short and Ernest Haycox

Specific names, dates, and place should be used when feasible so that both the speaker and his audience know exactly what he is talking about. Both concreteness and specificity help the speaker to “center” an idea and to clarify it. The use of an example is often helpful for the same reason. The speaker and the audience can remember the specific illustration more easily.

            Amplification of an idea, describing a point in more detail to make it vivid, enlarging upon an idea for emphasis – all tend to make the point more memorable, mainly because it forces the speaker to clarify.

            We have already used the words “memorable language” in the chapters on style. The two main qualities of easily remembered language, clarity and vividness, are achieved largely through precision. The speaker must be sure he is saying exactly what he wants to say and that, in fact, he “saying” all he can say. Every speaker, if he is earnest, is constantly learning and practicing so that his words will more and more become precise, effective tolls.

            One of the techniques a speaker can develop is the reiterative pattern. The repetitive techniques makes it easier from him to remember his speech and will tend to make it more “memorable” for his audience. The reiterative pattern can be developed in a number of ways: parallel structure, repetition of key words, alliteration, assonance and rhyme-sound repetition. One of the speeches which almost everyone remembers, has in effect “memorized”, is the “Gettysburg Address.”  Why is it so easily remembered? In large part, because Lincoln was a master of the reiterative technique. Note just this short passage from that speech :

Four score and seven  years ago our father brough forth on this continent, a new nation, conceive in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that (nation), or any (nation) so (conceived) and so (dedicated), can long endure. We are met on a (great) battle-field of that (war). We have come to (dedicate) a portion of that (field), as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that (nation) might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Key word which have been repeated are in parentheses. Examples of alliteration and assonance have been italicized. The reiterative pattern provides clarity and emphasis which aid both the speaker and the hearer.

            The reiterative pattern requires willingness to spend time on one’s speeches and patience to work carefully and painstakingly with language. It is not easily achieved, but its effectiveness is unmistakable.

            Although we will discuss effective delivery at some length in the following chapter, mention should be made here of stage fright and memory. Although the beginning speaker may have prepared adequately, he sometimes becomes so conscious of the fact that he is giving a speech that he cannot remember all he wants to say.

            Recall one of the early concepts of Chapter I – that of the speech as a dialogue. The speaker is speaker with his audience are audience are responding, sometimes by frowning when they disagree. This is exactly what happens in a conversation. The speaker and the person or persons he is talking about the same information, sharing the same ideas, trying to decide on a course of action. In short, the speaker is not alone with his materials. He is sharing them. As the beginning speaker develops this concept of “dialogue” in his own mind, as he begins to concentrate solely on the ideas he is trying to get across, stage fright diminishes. The speaker then has more time to remember what he wants to say because he is concentrating in his ideas – not on overcoming nervousness.

Summary

            From the moment the speaker selects his topic and begins his preliminary planning he has started memorizing his speech. As he seeks to clarify his ideas, draw relationships between them, and set them forth in vivid language, he is storing the facts and materials of his speech for use when it is delivered. For memory is, quite literally, the “storehouse” of knowledge. The “storehouse” is only as sturdy as the beginning speaker to remember is, in Cato’s words : “Hold to your matter and the words will come.” 

Rhetorical Exercises

(1)        Prepare a 10-minutes speech on any topic of your choice and deliver it with the aid of only one note card.

(2)        Devise outlines similar to the one given in the chapter and the test them in class to see which kinds can best be remembered.

(3)        Try to recall how you learn new materials. Compile a list of ways in a class discussion. Why are some more effective than others?

(4)        Read Cicero’s De Oratore, Book II. What is to be gained y recalling the traditional incident which supposedly prompted Simonides to “invent” the “art” of memory?

(5)        Can you find any useful corollary materials concerning learning theory? Check in your library and report on your results to the class.

(6)        Several articles have been written about the ways in which the early classical theorists conceived of memory  such as:

(a)    Bromley Smith, “Hippias and a Lost Canon of Rhetoric,” Quarterly Journal of Speech (June, 1926), pp. 129 – 45.

(b)   Wayne E. Hoogestraat, “Memory: the Lost Canon?”, QJS (April, 1960), pp. 141 – 47.

Did the ancients have anything helpful to say the beginning speaker on this topic?

(7)   Recall your last speech. Did you have trouble trying to remember it? If you did, analyze carefully your process of invention, arrangement, and style. Was part of the problem caused by a lack of planning during the early stages of preparing your speech? Or did a problem of delivery interfere with your remembering what you wanted to say? Once the source of the problem has been determined, concentrate on trying to correct it in your next speech.

(8)   After your next speech, test the audience’s recall of your subject. How much of it did they remember ? would they have liked ,ore details? More example? A clearer outline? More amplification? More sharply focused ideas? More precise choice of words?

(9)   As you listen to the speeches in class how carefully do you pay attention to what your hear? A good listener is one who gives his full and undivided attention to what he is hearing. Frequently the best listener are also the best speakers because they pay attention, they concentrate more fully on what they are doing. Are you a good listener?