Why Gathering and Arranging Your Material is Essential for Your Speech

RESEARCHING MATERIAL

Having chosen a theme, the logical order is to first gather the material, second to judiciously select from it and arrange it in order, and third to fix it in the mind ready for use. The task of finding material may be slow and tedious at first, but successive efforts will bring ease and facility. The habit of completely "thinking out" a subject should be cultivated from the beginning. Thoughts should be noted down in writing as they occur and not be left to the caprice of memory. There must be ample time in which thoroughly to do this work. After exhausting the resources of his own mind, the student may next turn to books in order to confirm and strengthen his ideas and gather further new material. He will also converse with well-informed people whenever possible and closely observe things about him that bear upon the subject in hand.

To repeat, the note-book habit can not be too strongly urged here as the only safeguard against lapses of memory. References, ideas, quotations and arguments should be promptly put down in writing. At this stage of preparing a speech the student will eagerly read books, magazines and newspapers, with a view to finding further suitable material.

The advice given to preachers by Prof. Arthur S. Hoyt, applies equally to other public speakers. He says: "By all means do your own thinking. Fix your thought upon the text and subject, and try to penetrate to its vital meaning. Find the message for your own soul in it. Believe in the spirit of truth and learn to trust your own judgment as enlightened by His influence. Do not go at once to commentaries and homiletic handbooks for material, but let your own thought grow by thinking. Take stock of your own mental and spiritual resources. Be thoroughly yourself and find your own voice, for in this way only will you have that personal and individual flavor which makes the charm of true preaching."

ARRANGING MATERIAL

The second step, that of selecting what is desirable from this mass of unarranged material, requires unusual skill and judgment. Many pet ideas and phrases must be discarded. Certain portions will probably have to be rewritten many times before they are at all satisfactory. It is said of Macaulay that he would write off a whole story at a headlong pace, sketching in the outlines under the genial and audacious impulse of a first conception; but in the final writing he would not allow a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. He would recast entire paragraphs and chapters in order to secure a more lucid arrangement.

The student should carefully note the distinction between the preparation of an essay and a public address. There is a wide difference between them, inasmuch as one is intended to be spoken, while the other is intended to be read silently. Both require the highest kind of literary ability, but a speech demands a more vivid style than an essay, being designed to arouse the emotions of the hearer as well as to convince his judgment. In a speech, too, frequent repetition of thought may be indulged in, to emphasize or drive home truth, tho the phraseology in such repetitions must be changed. Aristotle speaks of this as the orator's gift of tautology.

In preparing a speech it is well to stop every little while in writing and read aloud what has been written to find whether it'' speaks'' well. If the words do not fit the mouth of the speaker there is something wrong somewhere and he should endeavor to find it out as soon as possible, otherwise he may have to prepare his entire address over again.