STEPS I MAKING A SPEECH

1
Choose a topic or theme. Most of your speech should explore one topic, or several
related topics that follow a theme. What this theme is depends on the nature of the
speech. Graduation speeches often have a theme about memories or the future, school
election speeches convince people you'll make good decisions if elected, and class
assignment speeches usually argue a controversial point.
If you're not sure which theme to choose, write down or summarize a few stories and
statements you could include in your speech. Pick the ones you like best and see if
there's a unifying theme to tie them together.
See What to Do and What Not to Do for more advice on themes.

2
Pick a tone that makes you comfortable. If you enjoy making people
laugh, write a funny speech. If you are a serious person, create moments
that will cause reflection. Remember to end on an inspirational and uplifting
note, especially for commencement speeches.

3
Use short sentences, and avoid words your audience won't understand. Avoid
long, meandering sentences and overcomplicated arguments. Unlike when writing an
essay, you'll have difficulty explaining technical terms or referring back to your earlier
points. Keep each sentence easy to follow. If younger kids will be present, make sure to
use words and concepts they can understand.
Don't interrupt one point with a clause, or section set aside by commas or parentheses.
Instead of saying "Our tennis and basketball teams, which we all know won the regional
championships two years ago, need increased funding to compete," say "Our tennis
and basketball teams both won the regional championships two years ago. Now we
need to increase their funding to compete with other schools."
You can reference your school's slang once or twice to get a laugh, but don't overdo it,
especially if there are parents in the audience.

4
Write down original stories and messages. You can write a whole rough draft, or
come up with several separate stories and inspirational statements that fit your theme.
Stick to your own ideas and specific detail. People will enjoy and remember original and
detailed sentiments more than generic phrases such as "I will make our school proud"
or "Our class will go on to do great things."
 Find a broad message that your whole audience can connect to their own life, but still
deals with a specific idea. For instance: "Become an even better version of the hero
who inspired you." (But don't steal your "original" idea from this website!)
Your stories can be specific incidents in your life or from history, but you should connect
them to a more general idea. For instance, you could tell a story about your sibling's
hospital visit, then go on to talk about overcoming fear and hardship in general.
If you like what you're writing but it doesn't fit the theme you had planned, it's fine to
adjust your topic or switch it entirely. Switch back and forth between writing stories and
brainstorming a theme if you keep getting stuck.

5
Find a gripping way to begin your speech. Pick an engaging and on-theme story to lead with,
one that will grab your audience's attention and prepare it for the overall tone and message. Pay
extra attention to the first sentence:[1]

Surprise your audience by diving right into a tough story. "When I was ten years old, I lost my
father."
Make your audience laugh by telling a joke, especially one that everyone in the room will get.
"Hello everyone. Let's have a round of applause for the guy who installed air conditioning."
Start with a grand, thought-provoking statement. "Our galaxy contains billions of earth-like
planets, and we're only just beginning to discover them."
Most likely, someone else will introduce you, and many of your classmates know you already.
Unless you're asked specifically to introduce yourself, you can get right to the good stuff.

6
Make the theme clear. Your audience should know what your overarching theme is
before you've finished your first few sentences. State exactly what you're talking about
or at least suggest it strongly right at the beginning.
To use an example from earlier, if your theme is "Become an even better version of the
hero who inspired you," you could begin your speech with two or three sentence about
your hero, then say "You all have heroes who inspire you, but you don't have to just
follow them. You can become even greater than the people you look up to."

7
 Move from one idea to the next in a natural order. Don't jump straight from a joke to a story
about surviving a car crash. Think about what the audience is feeling and expecting after each
section. It's good to surprise them, but do it with your ideas, not by confusing them with a
completely different topic.

Include phrases such as "Now I'd like to talk about..." and "But we should also remember..."
when moving on to your next idea.[2]

8
End with a memorable statement that captures your speech. A good joke or an idea
that makes people think are two good ways to end a speech, depending on the overall
mood. If you're arguing a point, summarize it briefly and end by restating your position
firmly.
Build up to a big ending, then crack a joke to wrap up a funny speech. "And I know
when you walk to the ballot box tomorrow, you'll be ready to do the right thing. Protect
the interests of yourself and your school by washing your hands afterward. Do you know
how many people touch that thing?"
If you're giving a commencement speech, leave people feeling excited or awed about
the future. This is a big moment and you have the power to help them realize it. "Years
from now, you will be the father or mother your kid looks up to. The writer who changes
the way we think. The inventor who creates new ways to live. Come up to the stage and
start becoming heroes!"

9
Edit and polish it as much as possible. Congratulations, you've finished your first
draft. Wait, the work isn't over yet! To write a good speech, you will need to work on it,
think about it, and maybe even rewrite the whole thing.
Have a teacher, family member, or trusted friend check it over for grammar mistakes
and offer feedback. Spelling isn't as important, since you'll be speaking out loud.

10
Consider visual aids. Bringing in maps, pictures, or other materials is most practical and useful
for speeches given as class assignments, since you'll have something to write on and don't
need to transport your materials outside the classroom. You won't need anything like this for a
graduation speech.

If your topic involves a lot of numbers, plan to write them on the board so your audience can
remember them.[3]
 11
Turn the speech into note cards, then practice! No one wants to listen to you read
an essay out loud. You'll need to become familiar enough with what you wrote to deliver
it confidently while looking at your audience. It is a good idea to write down notes on
small index cards to jog your memory.
Your notes are there to remind you what to say next and of important facts. "Move on to
bear wrestling story (guy's name is Paul Bunyan)" is the level of detail you need.

SPEECH IN ENGLISH

Human Rights and Dutertes

War on Drugs
Since becoming president of the Philippines in June 2016, Rodrigo
Duterte has launched a war on drugs that has resulted in the extrajudicial
deaths of thousands of alleged drug dealers and users across the country.
The Philippine president sees drug dealing and addiction as major
obstacles to the Philippines economic and social progress, says John
Gershman, an expert on Philippine politics. The drug war is a cornerstone
of Dutertes domestic policy and represents the extension of policies hed
implemented earlier in his political career as the mayor of the city of
Davao. In December 2016, the United States withheld poverty aid to the
Philippines after declaring concern over Dutertes war on drugs. How did
the Philippines war on drugs start?

When Rodrigo Duterte campaigned for president, he claimed that drug

dealing and drug addiction were major obstacles to the Philippines
economic and social progress. He promised a large-scale crackdown on
dealers and addicts, similar to the crackdown that he engaged in when he
was mayor of Davao, one of the Philippines largest cities on the southern
island of Mindanao. When Duterte became president in June, he
encouraged the public to go ahead and kill drug addicts. His rhetoric has
been widely understood as an endorsement of extrajudicial killings, as it
has created conditions for people to feel that its appropriate to kill drug
users and dealers. What have followed seem to be vigilante attacks against
alleged or suspected drug dealers and drug addicts. The police are engaged
in large-scale sweeps. The Philippine National Police also revealed a list
of high-level political officials and other influential people who were
allegedly involved in the drug trade.

The dominant drug in the Philippines is a variant of methamphetamine

called shabu. According to a 2012 United Nations report, among all the
countries in East Asia, the Philippines had the highest rate of
methamphetamine abuse. Estimates showed that about 2.2 percent of
Filipinos between the ages of sixteen and sixty-four were using
methamphetamines, and that methamphetamines and marijuana were the
primary drugs of choice. In 2015, the national drug enforcement agency
reported that one fifth of the barangays, the smallest administrative
division in the Philippines, had evidence of drug use, drug trafficking, or
drug manufacturing; in Manila, the capital, 92 percent of the barangays
had yielded such evidence.

How would you describe Dutertes leadership as the mayor of Davao?

After the collapse of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, there were high
levels of crime in Davao and Duterte cracked down on crime associated
with drugs and criminality more generally. There was early criticism of
his time as mayor by Philippine and international human rights groups
because of his de facto endorsement of extrajudicial killings, under the
auspices of the Davao Death Squad.

Duterte was also successful at negotiating with the Philippine Communist

Party. He was seen broadly as sympathetic to their concerns about
poverty, inequality, and housing, and pursued a reasonably robust anti-
poverty agenda while he was mayor. He was also interested in public
health issues, launching the first legislation against public smoking in the
Philippines, which he has claimed he will launch nationally.

What have been the outcomes of the drug war?

By early December, nearly 6,000 people had been killed: about 2,100 have
died in police operations and the remainder in what are called deaths
under investigation, which is shorthand for vigilante killings. There are
also claims that half a million to seven hundred thousand people have
surrendered themselves to the police. More than 40,000 people have been
arrested.

Although human rights organizations and political leaders have spoken out
against the crackdown, Duterte has been relatively successful at not
having the legislature engaged in any serious oversight of or investigation
into this war. Philippine Senator Leila de Lima, former chairperson of the
Philippine Commission on Human Rights and a former secretary of justice
under the previous administration, had condemned the war on drugs and
held hearings on human rights violations associated with these
extrajudicial killings. However, in August, Duterte alleged that he had
evidence of de Lima having an affair with her driver, who had been using
drugs and collecting drug protection money when de Lima was the justice
secretary. De Lima was later removed from her position chairing the
investigative committee in a 16-4 vote by elected members of the Senate
committee.

What is the public reaction to the drug war?

The war on drugs has received a high level of popular support from across
the class spectrum in the Philippines. The most recent nationwide survey
on presidential performance and trust ratings conducted from September
25 to October 1 by Pulse Asia Research showed that Dutertes approval
rating was around 86 percent. Even through some people are concerned
about these deaths, they support him as a president for his position on
other issues. For example, he has a relatively progressive economic
agenda, with a focus on economic inequality.

Duterte is also supporting a range of anti-poverty programs and policies.

The most recent World Bank quarterly report speaks positively about
Dutertes economic plans. The fact that he wants to work on issues of
social inequality and economic inequality makes people not perceive the
drug war as a war on the poor.

How is Duterte succeeding in carrying out this war on drugs?

The Philippine judicial system is very slow and perceived as corrupt,

enabling Duterte to act proactively and address the issue of drugs in a non-
constructive way with widespread violations of human rights. Moreover,
in the face of a corrupt, elite-dominated political system and a slow,
ineffective, and equally corrupt judicial system, people are willing to
tolerate this politician who promised something and is now delivering.

There are no trials, so there is no evidence that the people being killed are
in fact drug dealers or drug addicts. [This situation] shows the weakness
of human rights institutions and discourse in the face of a popular and
skilled populist leader. It is different from college students being arrested
under the Marcos regime or activists being targeted under the first Aquino
administration, when popular outcry was aroused. Drug dealers and drug
addicts are a stigmatized group, and stigmatized groups always have
difficulty gaining political support for the defense of their rights.

How has the United States reacted to the drug war and why is Duterte
challenging U.S.-Philippines relations?

Its never been a genuine partnership. Its always been a relationship

dominated by U.S. interests. Growing up in the 1960s, Duterte lived
through a period when the United States firmly supported a regime that
was even more brutal than this particular regime and was willing to not
criticize that particular government. He noticed that the United States was
willing to overlook human rights violations when these violations served
their geopolitical interests. He was unhappy about the double standards.
[Editors Note: The Obama administration has expressed concern over
reports of extrajudicial killings and encouraged Manila to abide by its
international human rights obligations.] For the first time, the United
States is facing someone who is willing to challenge this historically
imbalanced relationship. It is unclear what might happen to the
relationship under the administration of Donald J. Trump, but initial
indications are that it may not focus on human rights in the Philippines.
President-Elect Trump has reportedly endorsed the Philippine presidents
effort, allegedly saying that the country is going about the drug war "the
right way," according to Duterte.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

https://www.cfr.org/interview/human-rights-and-dutertes-war-drugs