The Turner Ink blog contains rants, bloopers, observations and opinions. It also has handy tips on grammar and punctuation such as colons: semicolons; and full stops. As well as some very useful ‘how tos’. Feel free to leave comments. Be nice though.

Turner Ink

Copywriting Services London

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Of the people, by the people, for the people…

21st
Oct
by Sarah Turner

Anyone who knows me, will know how much I love a great speech. 

None more so than Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. (And yes, I really do own a copy of Lincoln’s speeches; it sits on my bookshelf next to Bart Simpson’s Guide To Life.)

On November 19th 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Edward Barrett gave a two hour speech which absolutely no-one remembers. President Lincoln stood up, spoke for 2 minutes, used 269 words, and delivered one of the most memorable speeches in American history.

So, if you’re making any sort of speech, announcement, or PowerPoint presentation: keep it short. And then make it a bit shorter. And a bit shorter still. Because if you can convey meaning and emotion in as few words as possible – your audience will love you for it.

And they may even remember what you said.


Tags: speech writing

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This entry was posted on Tuesday 21st October 2008 at 5:50pm and is filed under Business writing. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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