So, if you're manuscripting out your comments,
you want to set yourself up for success.
So what are some things to keep in mind?
Well, I would start by saying, plan on writing about 150 words for
each minute of delivery.
But that's just a ballpark figure.
Speech rate varies.
And remember, there's a difference between articulation rate,
how fast you say an individual word, and speech rate, how much you say in a minute.
Speech rate includes stuff like pauses and the like.
Your occasion will dictate a lot of this speed, okay?
Right now in these videos, I'm probably speaking at about 200 words a minute,
that's a guess.
If I was doing a eulogy, that would be much slower,
probably about 130 words per minute.
And you're probably going to go slower if English isn't your first language.
And in fact, theoretician Steven Lucas notes the speech
rate variance in great American speeches and speakers.
So President Franklin Roosevelt spoke at about 110 words per minute, but
John F Kennedy spoke at about 180 words a minute.
Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream starts at 92 words per minute and
ends at 145, okay?
So there's a lot that happens there, but for manuscripting,
you want to have a target.
And I would say 150 words per minute can at least help you start planning
stuff out.
So if you've got a three minute introductory speech,
aim to get at around 450 words, and then start refining the manuscript, right?
If you've got 350 words for your minute long toast,
that's probably going to be too long, okay?
So let's say you've written out your manuscript,
then you can start breaking up the paragraphs into performance chunks.
So these are bits or spots where the performance shifts.
So a paragraph is a very useful composition unit.
It not only holds a single concept or idea, but it's a visual unit.
Now, on performance, we want to think more in terms of delivery chunks.
So let me show you an example of this.
So this is a paragraph from Michael Chang's 2008 speech for
his induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.