Speeches

The speeches today varied greatly from person to person, but each one had its own aspects, which lent itself to the argument the person was making. In Katie Griffin’s speech, her use of another person’s personal story helped to draw the audience in by creating an emotional connection to the charity. Other speeches, such as the one done by Josh Matthew’s, helped to pull the audience in by expressing many shocking statistics that were meant to win over the audience with shock value. Of both these kinds of speeches, I found the personal stories to be much more influential because of the deep emotional connection it created, rather than the credibility offered by simple statistics. One of the more memorable speeches was done by Steve Dobbs, who helped support his charity by questioning the definition of success and saying that his charity helped fulfill a different version of happiness and success. Perhaps Breanna Elzer, who not only hooked the audience with an initial personal story from a different person, but also “rehooked” the audience by telling her own person story, did the best speech. All speeches, however, had their own pros and cons.