3 ORGANIZE

The structure of any speech is critical to how it will be received by those listening whether the object is to toast a bride and groom or celebrate the conclusion of the school year. Your goal in structuring your speech should be to deliver the most impressive-sounding remarks as early as possible so as to convey to your audience your eloquence and perspicacity while they are still paying attention and their patience has not yet been exhausted. Back-load the running time with filler material too vague to be criticized or even remembered at all the very moment after the words leave your lips. Finish, if possible, with the sort of poetic emphasis that suggests you have at last come full circle and have left the less perceptive members of the crowd unable to apprehend the ingenuity and meticulousness of your overarching design. Relate personal anecdotes that could be mistaken for parables. Begin a sentence “to paraphrase a great mind” and proceed to recite any quote you are certain no one present could hope to identify.