We’ve all been there: in a general assembly committee, about to give a speech and feeling woefully underprepared – but this doesn’t have to be the case!
Prewriting speeches is one of the best ways to ensure you’ll always sound prepared. This can go a long way to establish yourself as a strong and informed delegate in the eyes of a chair. If you sound like you know what you’re talking about, others will believe it. Pauses in speeches, stumbling over words, or sounding unsure of what you’re going to say can undermine your argument — but prewriting speeches helps avoid this!
How to Prewrite a Speech
At least for me, the most challenging part of prewriting speeches is that you don’t know what exactly you’ll be asked to speak about beyond your first speech. However, you’ll have a relatively good idea of the types of things that might be debated based on the committee topic, background guide, and your research on the topic. It’s a good idea to make a list of these — it will be useful later. But since you’ll never know the precise topic, it’s important to prewrite speeches in a way that enables you to quickly modify them as needed.
This means that instead of only writing full speeches, it’s often better to compile parts of speeches and organize them so you can quickly pull out a few and put it together to make a speech. This way, you can customize it to the particular speech topic while still sounding prepared (because you are!). Here are some techniques that can help you next time you’re nervous thinking about getting up on that podium:
The Anatomy of a Speech
Let’s start by discussing what makes a good speech. While every speech is different and everyone has a unique speaking style, there are many common things in Model UN delegates’ speeches. The average speech has a clearly identifiable thesis and facts about the topic. Many contain a case study. Most aim to call attention to the delegate’s clauses or directive. Yet, many fail to effectively do this — often because they were not prewritten.
The key to an impactful speech is for it to engage the listener. To do this, its beginning needs to make a splash and its ending must be memorable. It’s much easier to achieve this when prewriting speeches than when speaking impromptu. Making a bullet point list of relevant and attention-grabbing statistics that you could use in a speech’s first sentence is helpful later on when you’re struggling to come up with an opening in just a few seconds.
Similarly, if you write out clever speech lines beforehand or think of a particularly compelling way to summarize your country’s goals, write it out in a section for concluding speech lines. A shaky conclusion to a speech can negate the rest of it, and it’s very useful to have a quick sentence or two you can fall back on for a confident ending.
Clauses and Facts
The middle of the speech is just as important as its beginning and conclusion. This is where you really can discuss your argument, your clauses, and your directive. This is also a good place to include facts or case studies — so make an easily accessible list of them so you don’t have to frantically scroll back and forth through dozens of pages in a Google document looking for them!
I suggest having several lists: one for facts and case studies, one of short sentences summarizing your clauses, and one of short sentences about your country’s position on issues. Then, when it comes time to give a speech, you can quickly navigate to each section and copy paste from each into your speech to use as a guide.
Being prepared to speak about your clauses is especially important. It’s a good idea to spend some extra time thinking of funny sentences to use clause acronyms in, puns and jokes, and other memorable ways to communicate their content. This way, you can persuasively and clearly explain things and use your time during committee to focus on your speech’s rhetorical strength rather than on finding facts or writing a bullet point outline from scratch.
Timing
Good timing is crucial when giving a speech, and it’s just as crucial a factor when prewriting them. There are few things that can ruin an otherwise strong speech as quickly as having it be cut short mid-sentence, or realizing you have 15 seconds of time left at the end and scrambling to fill it. This happens when you don’t know exactly how much time you’ll have until just minutes before. I suggest prewriting with this in mind; For each speech, I write in a few sentences that can easily be skipped over if necessary without sounding awkward. That way, if I notice I won’t have enough time to finish the speech, I already know a way to make it shorter.
Prewriting speeches is invaluable in preparing for a Model UN conference or simulation. From facts to jokes to shorter-than-expected speech times, you’ll be prepared for it all. And next time when you have 15 seconds before giving a speech, you’ll know what to do.
