General Information
This activity takes between Varies and Varies minutes
G Varies	Y Varies	R Varies
Difficulty	Basic Level
Format
Index of Meeting Activities

Skills Trained
Constructive Feedback Critical Thinking Listening Focus Curiosity

Structure of the Activity
Main roles for this activity			G	Y	R
1. Speech Evaluator (Required)	Explains the objectives of the project		1:00	2:00	3:00
2. Speaker (Required)	Presents the project to the club		Varies	Varies	Varies
Other roles related to this activity
Timer (Required) ,    Grammarian (Required) ,    Filler Word Counter (Required) ,    Body Language Evaluator (Optional) ,    Critical Thinking Evaluator (Optional) ,    Photographer (Optional) ,    Videographer (Optional)

A Speech Analysis Subproject is a project where you need to analyze a speech from a specific viewpoint (for example, structure, body language, etc.). Members of the club are shown a selected speech, and then the presenter delivers a commentary on the relevant parts of the speech.

Usually, Speech Analysis comes as the first part of a two-part project. For example, for body language, you first analyze a speech from that viewpoint, then you deliver one yourself.

Determining the kind of speech format you need

Ideally, you should find a video of the speech you want to analyze in order to have the full experience of members of the audience. However, many great speeches are not available in that format.

The kind of speech format you need will depend on the specific project. For some basic projects - for example, speech structure or speech development, you can use virtually any speech format - video, audio, or maybe only a transcript of the speech itself.

For some projects, however, members will need to hear or see the speech. For example, it makes no sense to analyze the body language of a speaker based solely on a transcript of his speech.  However, for vocal variety, audio recordings are good enough.

Finding a speech to analyze

There are many speech sources you can use, as well as techniques to find speeches of interest:

• Your first stop should be the links we provide in the "Collections of Speeches" area. There you will find many pointers of famous speeches by notable figures, both contemporary and historical, in a variety of formats - from text transcripts to video recordings.
• If the above resource doesn't match your needs, a good idea is to search YouTube for speeches. Usually, the combination "speech on XXX " or "top speeches on XXXX"  or "best XXXX in a speech" work well, where XXX is your subject of interest. (For example, "speech on leadership")
• Another good option is to search your favorite TV broadcaster for opinion pieces, editorials, comments, etc., especially by news anchors.
• A general search on Google also works well, especially if you combine your query term with "examples" or "top 10" or similar.

Make sure that the speech you want to use is appropriate from the viewpoint of the project. A speech by a TV news anchor can be great for structure and rhetorical devices but very poor from the viewpoint of body language, or even vocal variety, due to the medium's constraints.

The speech you select need not be a speech by a celebrity. It might be just a speech that you liked that exhibits traits that you find worthy of adopting. For example, it could be a simple graduation speech by a fellow student with great structure or that impacted you a lot.

LIMITATIONS:

• The speech to analyze may not be a speech that you have delivered in the past yourself (even if the text of the speech was written by someone else).
• If the speech is in video format, the speaker must be present in the video at all times, with at least the torso and his hands visible. It may not be an off-screen narration of a presentation or a voice-over for a generic video clip. 
• A human speaker must vocalize the speech without alterations. For example, this excludes speeches delivered by text-to-speech software or programs that alter the speaker's voice or that merely read a text.
• To avoid repetition, the speech you want to analyze must not have been used in the club in the past three months.

SUGGESTIONS:

• Try not to pick speeches on controversial subjects, or the audience's attention will be focused on the contents instead of the delivery techniques.
   
• Remember that you need to select a speech, not a theatric or movie fragment or a dialogue. You can use speeches from movies or plays as long as the speaker is the only person speaking, uninterrupted by other events or sounds.
   
• It is very recommended to use not just any speech on any subject but to search for speeches on those subjects you are passionate about, as they will also benefit you by providing role models and inspiration on how to tackle these subjects.

Important: For the benefit of the whole community, please submit a link to your selected speech to info@agoraspeakers.org

Distributing the speech

The speech to analyze should be made available to members at least a couple of days before the meeting. Talk to your VP of Education or VP of Membership on how to achieve that. Depending on whether the club has a mailing list, a web page, or a social network group, they'll either send an EMail or post the link.   To avoid wasting time during the meeting, members should watch or read the speech before the meeting itself so that during it, the focus is entirely on the analysis.

Note: Some clubs allocate special time at the meetings so that you can play the full speech at the meeting itself before proceeding to analyze it.  Check with your VPE to verify if that is the case in your club.

Although, in theory, you can use speeches of any length, remember that members don't usually have the time to sit through a one-hour State of the Union speech (especially if your project is just one of the three speech analysis projects that happen to be on the same day). Ideally, the part of the speech that you analyze should be no more than 10 minutes.

If the speech is longer, you should try to provide members with an "abridged" version of it. You can use any open source video editing program to extract the parts that interest you, but be sure to preserve at least a few sentences before and after those parts so that the transitions in and out can be seen.  If you don't want to use a video program, you can merely write down the time marks where the segment that interests you starts and ends (again starting at least a few sentences before) and send that together with the link to the full speech.

How many examples should I use?

A great speech will usually feature many examples of body language, vocal changes, rhetorical devices, etc. Most speech analysis projects are constrained to 5-7 minutes for your presentation and analysis of the speech. This means that you won't have time to explain more than 3, or in the very best case, 4 instances. Consider that every example you will be highlighting will take at least 30 to 40 seconds (including the 5-10 seconds before and after the part of interest). Only playing the examples without any comment will take 2-3 minutes - half of your time.

How to perform the analysis

Once you have decided on a speech to use, it's time to do the analysis.

• First, read the project's description to understand the things you need to be looking for in your speech.
• Next, watch the speech once completely without interruptions.
• For the second viewing, watch the speech constantly looking for the things described in the project, writing down the time marks (e.g., "3:02") of the things that interest you, impact you or draw your attention. It's also recommended that you write a "score" for each segment, for example, from 1 to 3, to help to prioritize them.
• For the third viewing, watch only the segments that you marked down, analyzing what exactly the speaker is doing and what the transitions are into that segment. Write down next to each time mark that you wrote before your ideas, feelings, and thoughts, as they cross your mind. Don't censor or constrain yourself, nor try to give any structure or, much less, any "academic" format of your notes.
• At this point, select the top three examples from your list.
• As a next step, examine only the notes and try to expand them and give them some structure. Use no more than one or two paragraphs per each example. Write down why you think the example is relevant, what specific actions of the speaker impacted you and why.
• As the last step, give your notes the structure of a mini-speech, consisting of an up to 1-minute introduction with the project goals, then your previously written notes, then a 10-20 sec conclusion with your general summary about the speech you've chosen.

Remember that you're not evaluating the speech. You're using it as an example of good speaking practices.

Required Information

Regardless of which project from the Educational Path your analysis is for, you need to determine the following information for the speech:

• The social, economic, or historical context in which the speech was given.
• The type of speech
  • Informative
  • Persuasive
  • Entertaining
  • Ceremonial
• The audience it addresses
• The core message or goal of the speech

Project Delivery

Speech Analysis Projects are delivered as follows:

Before the Meeting

• First, EMail the speech of your choice to all club members. Ask the Club Officers for assistance in EMailing all members.  For transcripts, send the speech itself.  For audio and video recordings, send a link to where the speech is located (the complete speech, not the fragments you selected). It's always an excellent idea to provide at least two sources for the speech itself, as you might find out at the very wrong time that the website that had the speech is no longer available for whatever reason.

• If your club provides printed agendas or EMails them, the speech links should be in them. Use an URL shortener to send the speech.
   

If you're using a video or audio speech, you should have it offline, downloaded to your computer. There's nothing worse than finding at the last moment that your venue lacks internet connectivity or that the website or network is down at the time of your speech.

During the Meeting

• Provide a short (max 1 minute) explanation of the project goals.

• Explain which speech you have chosen - who is speaking and what is the context (For example: "This is a commencement speech delivered by Steve Jobs on June 12, 2005, at Stanford University")

• For Audio and Video recordings of short enough speeches, play them wholly at the club meeting.  For this, you would need either:
  • A projector. This is the ideal scenario, and all clubs should consider having one. There are many cheap options now on the market.
  • A TV set you can connect your computer to.
  • If the speech is only audio, you can just use your computer connected to an external speaker.
  • If all else fails, just use a computer to display it to members, who will sit around.

• For speeches available only as text transcripts, or when they are too long, proceed directly to the commentary section. In this section, play or read only the fragments you selected along with your comments. Usually, an excellent technique is to express first what you liked about a fragment (you can use your notes here, but try to avoid reading directly from them), and then play or read the fragment itself. Repeat this for every fragment you have chosen.

• Finally, deliver your conclusion.