As a member of Penn’s illustrious Parliamentary Debate Society
I have been exposed to some of the country’s best debaters at work and at play. Penn Parli prides itself on teaching its members how to craft the perfect speech, margarita or pick-up line, and as such, people often solicit my advice on when they need to get their rhetoric on.

President Bush “exuding emotion” during his State of the Union address. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

So, you see, I’m not just an idle observer when I watch our nation’s most eloquent cowboy at work. The State of the Union address last night inspired me so much, I felt compelled to share the do’s and don’ts of public speaking.

Speaking in Public

1. Get excited about your speech. Whether you’re pontificating about Lindsay Lohan’s trip to rehab or eliminating the flat tax, exude some emotion. Even if you’re confronted with an entire room of people determined to bring you down (let’s say you’re a College student in a Finance class, or George Bush in a room of Dems), don’t let their attitudes get to you. Be confident: even if your approval ratings are in the 2 percent range, you can still go out with a bang.

2. Do not avoid the elephant in the room. If there’s a huge issue that you fail to address (say, Iraq), people will notice. It’s better to bring it up and spend a little bit of time defending your actions and outlining a proper plan than to step gingerly around it the entire evening. Chances are, your audience has already decided what they feel about the issue anyway, so not talking about isn’t going to get anyone on your side.

3. Do not present two options as if they’re the only ones possible. If you’re separating people into “with us” or “against us,” that’s what’S known as a false dichotomy If you refer to a group of people (say, terrorists) 22 times in your speech, the distinction you’re trying to make is pretty clear- and blatantly wrong.

Just because someone doesn’t support your plan to address the issue doesn’t make them an enemy.

4. Lastly, pay off people before the evening to cheer for you. No, seriously. It looks pretty bad if your own supporters can barely muster a “hoo-rah” from time to time.

Follow these tricks, and I can guarantee the state of your union will be much “stonger” than ours.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 4:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.