Delivering a Great Speech for a Student Organization Election

On a college campus or in any organization, elections are of vital importance to many people, including the candidates running for office within an organization. It is really important that you make the best possible speech that you can make. I have taken public speech courses and consider myself an expert spokesman so I'd like to share with you my advice and tips for helping you make that speech that will put you over the top and get you the win in the election and elected to the important position that you have always wanted.

The first step before you start writing your speech is to brainstorm ideas of what you want to put into your speech. Analyze who your audience is that you are talking to. Is the organizational position that you are running for a formal audience or informal. Formal audiences like a nice elaborate speech while an informal audience like a fraternity or sorority audience should be informal, like you are talking to your friends, because in all likelihood, you will be talking to your friends.

Alright, here comes the first part which is the introduction. In the introduction, you should state what position you are running for and why the position is important to you. State your devotion to the organization.

In the body of your speech or the middle of the speech, state what you can offer your organization. What can you bring to the table that the other person or candidate cannot. Try to come up with some new ideas for your organization to increase membership or to make it better than it already is. Show the membership of your organization that you have thought long and heard about running for this position and that you care about it. In the middle of the speech, a good idea is to crack a joke, no matter what audience you are speaking amongst. Make people laugh and you will gain their support. Another great tip is make sure that you don't read from your speech. If you really cannot memorize your speech, make sure that you look up often from your speech so that you make eye contact with your audience. Eye contact is important. If you do not make eye contact with your audience, then you will quickly lose your audience's attention.

In addition, make sure that you wait until there is silence before you start your speech. If there is loud sound being played during your speech, stop and wait for the sound to die down. I witnessed an awful speech once in where a man gave a speech and in the middle of it the clock tower rang ten times to signal the new hour. He continued through his speech with the gongs going on and completely lost everyone's attention.

I still say that the best speech is one that is memorized. You do not need to memorize every word but make sure that you know the format of your speech and that you know pretty much what you are going to say.

Before the day of your big speech, have your friends and family look over the speech and give you tips to make it better. Be open to criticism.

Finally, at the end of your speech, conclude by saying that you would be a great candidate to vote for and you hope that you have their vote and their support. Usually at the end of your speech, you will get asked questions. Come prepared into the question and answer session by coming up with some practice questions that you think you will be asked. Ask your friends to ask you questions about the position you are running for to help you be prepared. Finally, during your speech, avoid using the words "um" "uh" and "you-know."