How to give a speech to 75,000 people

One man giving a speech in front of 75,000 people. Yes he can.

Photo by alex de carvalho. (License: Creative Commons Attribution)

Barack Obama is about to give one of the most important speeches of his career for a live audience of 75,000 people and millions of people at home. He is a gifted speaker but will nevertheless rely on certain techniques to achieve the maximum effect. Let's put content aside for a moment and look strictly at form. Here is how he's going to do it.

Anaphoras

One of the favorite tools of Barack Obama must be the use of anaphoras. An anaphora is the repetition of a phrase at the beginning of sentences, used for emphasis (thanks, Wikipedia!).
In his speech in Berlin on July 24th Obama Barack repeatedly used the phrases Look at Berlin, The walls and This is the moment to drive his points home. You can do a quick search in the transcript of that speech and probably find more examples of this kind of repetition.
What makes an anaphora a strong weapon is the fact that you can swoop up an audience to follow the rhythm of your words and even make them repeat them with you, effectively turning a crowd into a chorus.
Tonight, Obama will certainly rely on anaphoras to get his audience in a frenzy or send chills down their spines (in a good way) as he did in Berlin.

The Rule of Three

The rule of three is a principle in English writing that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things (thanks again, Wikipedia!). Mostly known for its use in comedy, the rule of three can also be used in speeches to great effect. How long will Hillary Clinton's recent words no way, no how, no McCain resound? No doubt Obama will use this rule to make some memorable comments of his own.

Balancing timing and applause

One of the greatest challenges in speaking for a large crowd is to get your timing exactly right. Every political speech is built on moments where you are certain to extract applause from the audience, but each time you have to decide in the spur of the moment to build in a pause or to continue talking (in a louder voice). If a thousand people start clapping in the stadium it may make a big noise on site, but chances are the television audience only hears a faint clatter and watches a vain man halting his speech for the littlest signs of enthusiasm. So Obama will do well if he manages to continue to talk louder on pivotal points in his speech until he is absolutely drowned out by applause, and not a moment before.
It's also not recommendable to drain the audience of all their applause halfway through the speech. Obama will -to keep momentum and ensure the tension in the audience is rising- continue to talk at the exact moment the loudest applause is over. This way, he will not only convey the message that the words are more important than the man speaking them, he will also achieve that the final applause, after all that rising tension without an outlet, will be climactic and memorable.

Trevor Fitzright is well known for his incomprehensible presentations standing with his back to his audience reading out loud badly formatted powerpoint slides to bored co-workers.

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