On March 11th 2019 I participated at the speech competition at Data Science Speakers club hosted at QuantumBlack offices in central London. My talk was titled “Words that will inspire” and it was an analysis on three different famous speeches using text analytics techniques in R.
Below you will find the slides and the transcript that I used for the presentation
Slide 1:
For hundreds of years humans have used language to communicate facts, stories, feelings and emotions. And through these years some people have become icons of public speaking and their speeches resonate till now. I got three favourite speeches… lets see if you can guess the speakers:
“We choose to go to the moon in this decade not because it is easy, but because it is hard”
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out its true meaning”
“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets”
Slide 2:
As you probably guess these speeches are from John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Winston Churchill. They have inspired millions of people. They definitely have an unique style and its speeches had such an impact that have changed the world.
Today I want to share two techniques that these speeches share in common and I will give you some examples on how to use them in you next talk.
Slide 3:
The first technique is on the words that they used. I put the transcript of these speeches in my laptop and I did some coding to analyse the words that it are most used and I found that the word most used is the same across these speeches. Do you which one is it? It is WILL.
These speeches talk about something that will happen in the future, something that will change, a dream that may become true, of going to the moon, of all men are created equal, of keep on fighting.
Will is a powerful word to inspire people and to give hope
Slide 4:
The second technique that I found that these speeches share in common is a technique known as structural repetition, or also known as anaphora. This means that they use the same phrase to start a sentence that it is repeated several times across the speech. We choose to go to the moon, I have a dream, We shall fight. This technique helps to emphasise the main point and will also help to make sure that everyone will remember it. Use structural repetition for create and impact
So how can we combine these two techniques of using the word will and structural repetitions to inspire your audience in your next speech?
Here are is an example that you can apply:
Slide 5:
We will inspire people when there are difficulties in that complex project at work and they need some words to lift the spirit same as Kennedy when shooting for the moon
We will inspire people to have a more diverse and inclusive environment and to bring different points of view same as Luther King Jr did when looking for equality in men
We will inspire people when we need to share bad news and raise the morale same as Winston Churchill did to never surrender
We will inspire people when we use the word will and structural repetitions in our talks
We will inspire people, yes we will.
Data Science Speakers club is a Toastmaster club with meetings at QuantumBlack. It is a perfect place to practice data science talks and network with data scientists. If you like to know more of the club please visit the following link https://www.meetup.com/datasciencespeakers/
Cheers,
Eduardo
Speak the Data.com 