What makes a great speech?

Queueing up Grace Tame’s powerful 2021 Australian of the Year acceptance speech is an excellent example of public speaking and a great place to begin your research.

In fact, Ms Tame’s brilliant display of public speaking skills showed how coherent, cohesive and succinct a speech can be, and how much can be expressed, in five short minutes.

And how indelibly one can connect with audience members by making an emotional connection and capturing people with a story. Audiences react to stories, particularly if they are woven through the speech to illustrate points.

Great rhetoric is essential but it may fall flat if you do not also have the right message for the audience, a good message overall, the right timing or speech structure.

Speechwriting Australia has broken down Ms Tame’s speech to illustrate five steps to writing a powerful speech.

Speechwriting Australia has broken down Ms Tame’s speech to illustrate the five steps to writing a powerful speech. Click here.

Why was Grace Tame named Australian of the Year?

Child sex assault survivor Grace Tame was named the Australian of the Year at a special ceremony in Canberra on 25 January, 2021.

For years, the now 26-year-old Tasmanian woman was forced to sit silenty while her abuser and former Year 9 teacher publicly defended himself. Then, in 2019, she won a legal case to be able to publicly self-identify as a rape survivor.

Then, after Ms Tame fought for years and after a prolonged media campaign by supporters and journalist Nina Funnell, in April 2020 Tasmanian officials repealed the state law preventing survivors from identifying themselves.

Since that time, Ms Tame has been speaking and has used her platform often and for good. Her advocacy and involvement in the #LetHerSpeak campaign led her to be named 2021 Australian of the Year.

And few who witnessed her impassioned and commanding acceptance speech will soon forget the power she exuded from the lectern.

What makes a great speech?

In five minutes Grace Tame hit all the measures of delivering a great speech.

She informed, educated, engaged and persuaded. Explained the problem and suggested solutions. Increased media attention and focus, and public support, on the issues.

Ms Tame grew her own authority and reputation and provided a certainty as to why she had been selected as Australian of the Year. And her body language was sublime. She connected with the audience, made perfect eye contact and her body language backed up the surety of the message.

The Australian of the Year also hit one of the most important, and hardest to hit, aims of great speechwriting. Leaving the audience wanting more.

“Well hear me now. Using my voice, amongst a growing chorus of voices that will not be silenced.

“Let’s make some noise, Australia.”

Many public speakers talk for too long, padding out to hit an arbitrary or imposed length of time to be standing.

When you start wasting words, stop writing. If that means your speech is on the shorter side, so be it.

The aim is to leave an audience wanting more, so keep your speech a bit on the shorter side.

How do you measure a great speech?

Few who have heard Ms Tame’s speech did not think about the issues, feel different emotions and, even if it is starts with a mindset, act differently.

The speech was short, sharp, ‘entertaining’ and did not waste a word.

The audience were left with an indelible memory.

Any speech can hit the benchmarks. Whether the speaker has just been named Australian of the Year, is an executive announcing organisational change management, a best man giving a toast or a relative wanting to write a great eulogy for a loved one.

The true measure of a successful speech is whether the audience thinks, feels and acts differently afterwards.

There are more than five steps to writing a powerful speech. But, courtesy of Grace Tame, here is a speech writing template that can serve as the basis for many forums and topics.

Five steps to writing a powerful speech:

1. The best openings will reveal the focus or key point for the speech and consider the audience’s needs and why they are there. Ms Tame did this in 10 words:

“All survivors of child sexual abuse, this is for us,” said Ms Tame to open the speech, after thanking her friends, family and fellow nominees.

2. Secondly, the speaker must catch the the audience’s attention and this is usually done with powerful imagery, an engaging anecdote or stark or new information:

“I lost my virginity to a paedophile. I was 15, anorexic; he was 58, he was my teacher.

“For months he groomed me and then abused me almost every day. Before school, after school, in my uniform, on the floor.

3. Holding the audience’s attention for the bulk of the length of the speech is not easy. It can be best achieved with a mix of engaging anecdotes, historical linkages, facts, data, reports and visuals. And, of course, how it all relates to the audience:

“Australia, we’ve come a long way but there’s still more work to do in a lot of areas.”

“Predators manipulate all of us.”

“Every voice matters.”

“Just as the impacts of evil are borne by all of us, so too are solutions borne of all of us.”

4. The speech begins to draw a conclusion with a potential solution to a shared problem or shared journey:.

“This year and beyond my focus is on empowering survivors and education as a primary means of prevention.

“It starts with conversation.

“We’re all welcome at this table.

“Communication breeds understanding and understanding is the foundation of progress.

“Lived experience informs structural and social change.

“When we share, we heal.”

“Together we can end child sexual abuse; survivors be proud, our voices are changing history.”

“My truth is helping to reconnect us.

5. Close with a call to action:

“I remember him saying, ‘Don’t tell anybody.’

“I remember him saying, ‘Don’t make a sound.’

“Well hear me now. Using my voice, amongst a growing chorus of voices that will not be silenced.

“Let’s make some noise, Australia.”

Pro Speech Writing Tips:

• To catch and hold the audience’s attention you must be engaging.
• To be engaging you should be speaking with passion. So, if possible, choose a topic you are passionate about. Or if the topic is predetermined you may be able to illustrate it by drawing on something that you are passionate about.
• Write and speak in your own voice. People are there to hear you.
• Personalise the words to your own experiences’ or those of the audience.
• Tell engaging anecdotes.
• Draw historical linkages.
• Use facts, data, reports and visuals to backup and hammer your points. And practice your delivery using emphasis and pauses.
• Raise and lower your voice. Use breaks and pauses.
• Seek to deliver something you would want to listen to.

These tips can also be used to assist with website, social media and blog post content creation. They were developed by Speechwriting Australia.

If you have a draft to edit or interested in professional speech writing services, contact Speechwriting Australia anytime.

A full transcript of Grace Tame’s Australian of the Year speech was published by ABC News Australia.