Rhetorical devices — index cards for speechwriters

Rhetoric is an essential ingredient in speeches, but missing from many. 38 common rhetorical devices to start using in your speeches.

Great speeches aren’t accidents. Behind every Gettysburg, I Have a  Dream and Tear Down This Wall there is a writer who is thinking not just about what they are going to say, but how they must say it for their audience to take it to heart.

People writing speeches often know what they want to say, but are missing the tools to make their speeches memorable. Being a good writer isn’t enough. There are people who can write a great press release in five minutes, churn out opinion pieces that make people stop and read and then turn their hand to write a lousy speech. This is evident outside the United States where speechwriting is a line in job description, not the job.

Speeches are meant to be heard. It’s something many people writing them forget. To keep an audience engaged the speaker needs to grab their attention and hold it. There are many parts to a great speech: delivery, structure, context – the list goes on. Words are also important, but not in the way you might think. There are specific techniques that you can use to make your speeches memorable.

One way is to deploy rhetorical devices. All the great speakers have understood rhetoric and used it to convince, persuade and lead. Abraham Lincoln, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Jesse Jackson, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama — they’ve all used them. Before them it was Aristotle and Quintilian. If you read their famous speeches — you will see alliteration, anaphora, enumeratio, hyperbole, parrallelism, synecdoche and more.

Some of these words you will recognise; others may be new to you. My experience is that some are easy to remember; others almost impossible. Anaphora? Easy. Hyperbole? No problem. Polysyndeton? Erm.

I was writing a speech a few weeks back and found myself trying to remember some of the more obscure rhetorical devices. I could remember the usual suspects but was forgetting others. So I took a few hours and created a set of index cards. I printed them off, caught the subway and started reading them on my way to dinner. The next day I had them with me as I began the first draft. I found them invaluable so I am sharing them with you.

Each card has an example of the device being used. To get the most out of the cards I recommend that you watch or listen to the speech referenced to understand why they work. Many of them are on YouTube and American Rhetoric has an impressive audio collection and transcripts. I also recommend familiarising yourself with other speechwriting techniques.

If speechwriting is something you seriously want to improve I strongly recommend that you read a book on the craft. Richard Dowis and Robert Lehrman have written fantastic books describing how to write speeches that work:

• Richard Dowis — The Lost Art of a Great Speech
• Robert Lehrman — The Political Speechwriter’s Companion

I hope you find the index cards useful. If you have any suggestions or feedback on this series, or have ideas for other things you would like to see let me know in the comments or via email.

Index cards – 38 rhetorical devices

Download the index cards: 38 rhetorical devices for speechwriters (PDF)

Here’s a sample:

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Download the index cards: 38 rhetorical devices for speechwriters (PDF)