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Should you memorize every word of a speech?

Exact wording, flexible delivery, and recovery after losing your place are different rehearsal goals. Memorizing a script may serve one better than another. Communication teacher Matt Abrahams argues from his own experience against memorizing everything, but the useful comparison begins with what this particular speech needs the speaker to do.

3–7 min

Questions you could explore

  • Which passages need precise wording, and which could be explained in several ways?
  • How would you judge a rehearsal method’s effect on recovery?

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Communication

Why can the same pause mean different things?

A pause after a difficult question can sound thoughtful. A pause after a joke can feel like rejection. Silence has no words, yet we interpret it against the response we expected and the relationship we think we have.

4–6 min

Why can the same pause mean different things?

Communication4–6 minA pause after a difficult question can sound thoughtful. A pause after a joke can feel like rejection. Silence has no words, yet we interpret it against the response we expected and the relationship we think we have.

Communication

A warning for readers 10,000 years from now

Buried radioactive waste can remain hazardous far beyond the lifespan of today's institutions and languages. A warning intended to last 10,000 years must survive, attract attention, and communicate danger to unfamiliar readers. Explore which assumptions about future people a marker design can safely make.

3–7 min

A warning for readers 10,000 years from now

Communication3–7 minBuried radioactive waste can remain hazardous far beyond the lifespan of today's institutions and languages. A warning intended to last 10,000 years must survive, attract attention, and communicate danger to unfamiliar readers. Explore which assumptions about future people a marker design can safely make.

Gestures can supply information missing from a sentence

Communication3–7 minGestures can convey ideas that differ from the accompanying words. In one study of children explaining math problems, researchers examined what adults did with those additional clues.

Should you memorize every word of a speech? | Speech Topic | speaking.app