speech analysis

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How to Conduct a Speech Analysis and Present It Like a Pro

Who doesn't dream of delivering the perfect speech? Every person who speaks in front of a crowd wants to leave them moved. However, not everyone can do that.

Even the greatest speakers have worked for years to master the art of public speaking . Although we may not know their secret, we can learn a lot from their work. That's where speech analysis helps. Let's find out what it is and how to benefit from it.

What Is Speech Analysis?

You probably know the standard definition already – it is a process of studying a speech's good, bad, and pain points. However, what does it have to offer to you?

In essence, speech analysis means understanding the useful information in the speech and setting it aside from what isn't handy. For instance, a renowned speaker comes on stage to deliver a speech , and you have to perform a speech analysis – what will you look for?

You will observe the speaker's gestures, body language , confidence, usage of terms, sentence structure, quality of speech, proper delivery of the message, and much more.

This plethora of factors contributes to a single word called speech analysis. Now that you know what it is, let's have a comprehensive look into these factors.

How Does Speech Analysis Work?

For analyzing a speech, the first thing you need is information.

You need to know the perfect way to begin the speech , convey the message and give an immediate call to action.

You also must identify where the speaker is wrong and what was lacking in the speech.

For instance, if the targeted audience is teenagers, you should be able to tell if the humor and jokes used were appropriate. Was the speech engaging or lackluster? Did the audience understand the message?

Let's see what these aspects entail below.

Introduction of the Speech Analysis

First thing's first, add an introduction. It usually begins with a hook, something to entice the reader. Then it mentions the time and place of the speech, followed by an overview of the address.

Next, you need to mention the speaker, the topic, and the key points of the speech.

Body of the Analysis

Once done with the analysis, you need to begin crafting the body. This includes some special and some general details of the content and delivery, and writing them in a critique manner.

Usually, this begins with a certain action of the speaker, like tone, gesture , or emotion.

The description of some of the common factors is given below.

Identify the Objective of Speech

The purpose plays the most important part here as it is the deciding factor of the nature of the speech.

Is it an entertainment speech with a few jokes and funny lines here and there or an educational speech delivering quality information?

Was it a script written to motivate the audience for a bigger cause? Was it delivered in a manner to promote a product among the audience?

What is the message being conveyed? If it promotes peace and equality and focuses on making the world a better place, your analysis should consider that.

Similarly, identify if the person delivering the speech is the right person for the job. He must deliver the speech perfectly or at least achieve the purpose set.

Once you get your head around these points, making an analysis becomes easy.

Be Mindful of the Target Audience

A good speaker knows that a speaking style used for 50 cannot be used for 2000 people. Similarly, the tone or technique used with business leaders cannot be used with homemakers.

You need to see how well the topic resonates with the audience and how engaged they are.

Say a spokesperson delivers a speech about leading SEO strategies in 2022. The audience will comprise people familiar with digital marketing or those who want to learn it.

It will include related terms, anecdotes, stories , facts, and stats that will bind the audience to the topic.

For the speech analysis, you must also consider if the speech is being broadcasted to an external audience on streaming platforms.

Bring in the Juicy Part: Content of the Speech

The heading says it all.

We cannot stress enough. The content of the speech is by far the most vital part of the script. It can make or break the overall mood.

The Opening: Pay special attention to the opening of the speech. Usually, a hook, controversial statement, or question is used to garner the audience's attention.

An interactive, intuitive opening is much preferred to a dry opening, saying, "Hello everyone, thank you for having me."

The Main Body: Once you write all this down, move on to the body of the content. You need to deduce if the topic was authoritative. Did it include a particular focus on the subject matter? Did it have stories and facts that connected back to the issue?

How did the speaker transition from point to point ?

Speech analysis also requires you to check if statistics or visuals were used to support the arguments. It is better to use graphics to convey the message better, and you need to study if they did the work. You must analyze how well the speech was constructed and organized efficiently.

The Ending Words: Lastly, determine how valuable, memorable, and well defined the ending of the speech was.

Was it concise? Did the review do justice to the speech? Did it list the good and bad parts of the speech? These points will make up for a strong conclusion influencing the reader's mind that you have a strong hold on the subject here.

These were the main three points of speech content; the opening, body, and conclusion. This is an easy approach to follow and can help you with speech analysis quickly.

Observe Style and Delivery Manner

In scripting and speaking, the delivery style and techniques are the best tools, provided you know when and how to use them.

When analyzing a speech, you must view the speech from a critic's perspective. Observe the mood and vibe of the audience during the speech.

Were people bored or engaged ? Was the session interactive? Did it teach you something you didn't know?

These questions will tell you the experience of the audience. Try putting yourself in the audience's shoes, and you will understand how useful it was for them.

Next, observe the speaker.

Was he nervous ? Did he know what he was saying? Often at such times, the body language communicates the confidence of the speaker .

You may also notice the stage area used by the speaker. Did he pace around the stage or stand in one place? All these factors determine the speaker's delivery style and make a significant portion of the analysis.

Determine Correct Usage of Visuals

Yet another critical factor of speech analysis; determining the proper use of visuals. This adds so much life and energy to the speech. The experience becomes more realistic.

According to research, more than 67% of people feel more inclined and engaged in speeches that include visuals.

This is generally true too. An average person would enjoy a speech with infographics, charts, images, short clips, and figures rather than a dull, verbal presentation.

You need to see if the speaker used sufficient visual aids and whether they were succinct in delivering the message.

Did the visuals complement the speech? Were they fun and easy to understand? Did the audience like and engage with them?

Observing these during the speech will make the analysis quick and condensed.

Consider Language and Choice of Words

Since language and words are the modes of communication for the speaker here, it is essential to know how he uses them.

Say the topic is about the best places to buy Bitcoin. You now need to see if the speaker uses the proper terms to address the topic.

Does he explain the concept of Crypto and how it works? Does he tell how Bitcoin reached fame and all its background?

That makes for the comprehensiveness of the topic.

Next, inspect the use of language. Is it appropriate for the audience? Does it use slang words, or is it too bland? Are the terms difficult to understand?

A fine point to make in your speech analysis would be the flow of the speech. In this, you can mention how fast or slow the speaker was.

His articulation of words , the length of sentences, and their ease of understanding. You can also mention the uniqueness or repetitiveness of words, sentences, ideas, or rhetorical devices in the speech .

The only way you can do justice to a speech analysis is by mentioning every good and bad point of the speaker.

Sound Experience

You might wonder why this is important – truth be told, this is an essential factor in crafting a speech analysis. How you hear something tells your mind how to perceive it.

For example, you purchase an online course.

As soon as you hear the tutor's voice, you feel annoyed and request a refund. Why?

Because the first thing your brain captured was the voice of the video playing in your mind, it might have been too sharp, distorted, or garbled for you to hear.

The same is the case with a speech; what you hear and how you hear influence your willingness to listen to the script .

So, you must include how well the speakers worked in your speech analysis. The pitch of the sound, how easy it was to hear and discern the words of the speaker.

This section in the analysis could also use the speaking pace of the reader. Additionally, talk about how the speaker paused after regular intervals to create suspense, arouse excitement, express grief, make a remark or add value to his words.

You will feel special if someone looks you in the eye while you speak – so does the audience. Being a critic and speech analyst, you must observe how the speaker makes eye contact with the audience.

Does he shy away? Does he smile while making direct contact? Or does he keep looking elsewhere, avoiding the audience?

Adding all these points to your analysis will give it leverage over the others.

Gestures also include the movements and timings of the speaker. Did he use his hand to add energy and influence to his words? Were the gestures natural or forced? Were they distracting?

This part won't take up as much space or information but can help identify the right person.

Conclusion of the Speech Analysis

The conclusion is the final part of the analysis, where you summarize the speech and write an ending note.

Say you heard a speech about a woman who lost her husband to the DEA agents. She told with extreme pain and grief how they encountered him and shot him at point blank.

Now here's how you can write its conclusion:

"Samantha's speech engulfed me and the entire audience the moment she began her story. It hooked me, and I could feel her pain moving like waves in the hall and the audience.

However, I believe that the tone and pace should have been slightly lighter for my liking. Otherwise, the unfortunate incident with her husband didn’t allow her to control her emotions."

This will be your judgment and remarks that you acquired throughout the speech analysis. That makes up for a satisfactory conclusion to your speech analysis.

Final Verdict

You might find it challenging to analyze a speech at first, but once you learn the pain points, it's a child's game. Use the above factors to analyze your next speech and get an A+ on that assignment.

A good speech analysis manifests the intent, the audience, the content, the delivery style, visuals, and much more. Now that you know how speech analysis works, you're well versed with all the points.

That brings us to the end of this post. Happy Speaking!

Related: How to Give a Speech Evaluation in Toastmasters

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• How to write a rhetorical analysis | Key concepts & examples

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis | Key Concepts & Examples

Published on August 28, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A rhetorical analysis is a type of essay  that looks at a text in terms of rhetoric. This means it is less concerned with what the author is saying than with how they say it: their goals, techniques, and appeals to the audience.

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Table of contents

Key concepts in rhetoric, analyzing the text, introducing your rhetorical analysis, the body: doing the analysis, concluding a rhetorical analysis, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about rhetorical analysis.

Rhetoric, the art of effective speaking and writing, is a subject that trains you to look at texts, arguments and speeches in terms of how they are designed to persuade the audience. This section introduces a few of the key concepts of this field.

Appeals: Logos, ethos, pathos

Appeals are how the author convinces their audience. Three central appeals are discussed in rhetoric, established by the philosopher Aristotle and sometimes called the rhetorical triangle: logos, ethos, and pathos.

Logos , or the logical appeal, refers to the use of reasoned argument to persuade. This is the dominant approach in academic writing , where arguments are built up using reasoning and evidence.

Ethos , or the ethical appeal, involves the author presenting themselves as an authority on their subject. For example, someone making a moral argument might highlight their own morally admirable behavior; someone speaking about a technical subject might present themselves as an expert by mentioning their qualifications.

Pathos , or the pathetic appeal, evokes the audience’s emotions. This might involve speaking in a passionate way, employing vivid imagery, or trying to provoke anger, sympathy, or any other emotional response in the audience.

These three appeals are all treated as integral parts of rhetoric, and a given author may combine all three of them to convince their audience.

Text and context

In rhetoric, a text is not necessarily a piece of writing (though it may be this). A text is whatever piece of communication you are analyzing. This could be, for example, a speech, an advertisement, or a satirical image.

In these cases, your analysis would focus on more than just language—you might look at visual or sonic elements of the text too.

The context is everything surrounding the text: Who is the author (or speaker, designer, etc.)? Who is their (intended or actual) audience? When and where was the text produced, and for what purpose?

Looking at the context can help to inform your rhetorical analysis. For example, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech has universal power, but the context of the civil rights movement is an important part of understanding why.

Claims, supports, and warrants

A piece of rhetoric is always making some sort of argument, whether it’s a very clearly defined and logical one (e.g. in a philosophy essay) or one that the reader has to infer (e.g. in a satirical article). These arguments are built up with claims, supports, and warrants.

A claim is the fact or idea the author wants to convince the reader of. An argument might center on a single claim, or be built up out of many. Claims are usually explicitly stated, but they may also just be implied in some kinds of text.

The author uses supports to back up each claim they make. These might range from hard evidence to emotional appeals—anything that is used to convince the reader to accept a claim.

The warrant is the logic or assumption that connects a support with a claim. Outside of quite formal argumentation, the warrant is often unstated—the author assumes their audience will understand the connection without it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still explore the implicit warrant in these cases.

For example, look at the following statement:

We can see a claim and a support here, but the warrant is implicit. Here, the warrant is the assumption that more likeable candidates would have inspired greater turnout. We might be more or less convinced by the argument depending on whether we think this is a fair assumption.

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See an example

Rhetorical analysis isn’t a matter of choosing concepts in advance and applying them to a text. Instead, it starts with looking at the text in detail and asking the appropriate questions about how it works:

• What is the author’s purpose?
• Do they focus closely on their key claims, or do they discuss various topics?
• What tone do they take—angry or sympathetic? Personal or authoritative? Formal or informal?
• Who seems to be the intended audience? Is this audience likely to be successfully reached and convinced?
• What kinds of evidence are presented?

By asking these questions, you’ll discover the various rhetorical devices the text uses. Don’t feel that you have to cram in every rhetorical term you know—focus on those that are most important to the text.

The following sections show how to write the different parts of a rhetorical analysis.

Like all essays, a rhetorical analysis begins with an introduction . The introduction tells readers what text you’ll be discussing, provides relevant background information, and presents your thesis statement .

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how an introduction works.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech is widely regarded as one of the most important pieces of oratory in American history. Delivered in 1963 to thousands of civil rights activists outside the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech has come to symbolize the spirit of the civil rights movement and even to function as a major part of the American national myth. This rhetorical analysis argues that King’s assumption of the prophetic voice, amplified by the historic size of his audience, creates a powerful sense of ethos that has retained its inspirational power over the years.

The body of your rhetorical analysis is where you’ll tackle the text directly. It’s often divided into three paragraphs, although it may be more in a longer essay.

Each paragraph should focus on a different element of the text, and they should all contribute to your overall argument for your thesis statement.

Hover over the example to explore how a typical body paragraph is constructed.

King’s speech is infused with prophetic language throughout. Even before the famous “dream” part of the speech, King’s language consistently strikes a prophetic tone. He refers to the Lincoln Memorial as a “hallowed spot” and speaks of rising “from the dark and desolate valley of segregation” to “make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” The assumption of this prophetic voice constitutes the text’s strongest ethical appeal; after linking himself with political figures like Lincoln and the Founding Fathers, King’s ethos adopts a distinctly religious tone, recalling Biblical prophets and preachers of change from across history. This adds significant force to his words; standing before an audience of hundreds of thousands, he states not just what the future should be, but what it will be: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” This warning is almost apocalyptic in tone, though it concludes with the positive image of the “bright day of justice.” The power of King’s rhetoric thus stems not only from the pathos of his vision of a brighter future, but from the ethos of the prophetic voice he adopts in expressing this vision.

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The conclusion of a rhetorical analysis wraps up the essay by restating the main argument and showing how it has been developed by your analysis. It may also try to link the text, and your analysis of it, with broader concerns.

Explore the example below to get a sense of the conclusion.

It is clear from this analysis that the effectiveness of King’s rhetoric stems less from the pathetic appeal of his utopian “dream” than it does from the ethos he carefully constructs to give force to his statements. By framing contemporary upheavals as part of a prophecy whose fulfillment will result in the better future he imagines, King ensures not only the effectiveness of his words in the moment but their continuing resonance today. Even if we have not yet achieved King’s dream, we cannot deny the role his words played in setting us on the path toward it.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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The goal of a rhetorical analysis is to explain the effect a piece of writing or oratory has on its audience, how successful it is, and the devices and appeals it uses to achieve its goals.

Unlike a standard argumentative essay , it’s less about taking a position on the arguments presented, and more about exploring how they are constructed.

The term “text” in a rhetorical analysis essay refers to whatever object you’re analyzing. It’s frequently a piece of writing or a speech, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, you could also treat an advertisement or political cartoon as a text.

Logos appeals to the audience’s reason, building up logical arguments . Ethos appeals to the speaker’s status or authority, making the audience more likely to trust them. Pathos appeals to the emotions, trying to make the audience feel angry or sympathetic, for example.

Collectively, these three appeals are sometimes called the rhetorical triangle . They are central to rhetorical analysis , though a piece of rhetoric might not necessarily use all of them.

In rhetorical analysis , a claim is something the author wants the audience to believe. A support is the evidence or appeal they use to convince the reader to believe the claim. A warrant is the (often implicit) assumption that links the support with the claim.

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How to Analyse your Audience for a Speech

March 2, 2021 - Sophie Thompson

This article will teach you how to perform audience analysis for your speech or presentation and the different types of audience you might encounter. The type of audience affects the choice of language, humour, opening sentences, length and many more.

Here is a great overview from the  University of Pittsburgh :

Audience analysis involves identifying the audience and adapting a speech to their interests, level of understanding, attitudes, and beliefs. Taking an audience-cantered approach is important because a speaker’s effectiveness will be improved if the presentation is created and delivered in an appropriate manner. Identifying the audience through extensive research is often difficult, so audience adaptation often relies on the healthy use of imagination.

Four types of audience

This audience does not want to be listening to you. This could be for many reasons, from not liking the organisation you are representing, to wanting to get home and watch their favourite TV show.

They can be openly hostile and disagree with you. If audience analysis shows that you’ll be faced with this audience (e.g. you have the last slot of a busy day of presentation), consider the following:

• Work hard on  developing trust  and interest
• Construct your presentation from an area of agreement or point of disagreement
• Use plenty of references and data to back up your points
• Challenge them, ask questions during your speech and engage them

Speaking to a hostile audience? Make sure you understand the type of audience you will be up against and build you speech accordingly.

2. Critical

Often at technical conferences, you get critical people who believe they are extremely intelligent and relish the thought of proving part of your presentation incorrect. Use the following techniques:

• Use lots of evidence with strong references
• Argue both sides of the case, clearly stating pros and cons of each
• Try not to exaggerate, keep to the facts

3. Uninformed

This is the most common type of audience you will encounter. They might know a little about your presentation topic but certainly not in great detail.

• Open up with questions so you can understand the level of knowledge on your topic
• Spend a few slides going over the basics of your topic
• Use  simple language  and avoid acronyms
• Give basic facts and try to relate information to something people understand (e.g. if talking about space and using huge numbers, relate them to things people can comprehend)

4. Sympathetic

This audience is willing to listen and wants to be there. They can be interested in your topic, excited to see you talk (you might be a well-known figure in your speaking field), have an emotional attachment – these people are the easiest to persuade.

• Use the state of this audience to ask for help / funding etc.
• Trigger emotions which powerful stories

People checking their watches? Make sure you understand the situation your audience is in. If your presentation is the last of the day, you’ll most likely have a hostile audience. Take this into account and structure your speech accordingly.

Different personalities in a meeting

The following section discusses the four types of  audience personalities  and an audience analysis on them.

• Scrupulous about preparation before and after meetings
• Arrives on time, keeps to time and prevents drift
• Takes very detailed minutes and listens intently
• Reflects on discussion, makes considered contributions
• Drives decision making and ensures time is not wasted
• Cuts across distractions and leads meetings well
• Manages difficult people assertively
• Ensures the action plan is implemented
• Builds rapport easily and connects people together
• Remembers coffee, cake and connects people together
• Averts conflict, when it threatens
• Supports the team and leader fully
• Entertains, engages when in the limelight
• Challenges old way of thinking
• Generates creative ideas and opens new possibilities
• Tells the truth, brings on debate, breaks through niceties

Features of each personality:

Analytical  – 100% accurate, chronology, don’t rush, focus on facts, internally focussed, distant from others, systematic, critical

Driver  – 100% task, headlines, don’t waste time, focus on action, future focused, leading others, quick to decide, impatient

Amiable  – 100% social, relationships, don’t intimidate, focus on feelings, present focused, asks questions, dislike conflict, support, kind

Expressive  – 100% impulsive, vision & ideas, don’t limit, focus on themes, externally focused, makes statements, competitive & chaotic, unpredictable, energetic

How to gauge the audiences interest

Greet people before your speech.

This is a great way to perform early audience analysis. If possible, stand near the entrance and  greet people  as they come in. Ask them questions to gauge their level of knowledge and expectations. Example questions can be “what industry are working in?” and “how long they have been working at…”

Call and Response Technique

Ask carefully  prepared questions  at the beginning of you speech to understand the mood and experience of the audience. You could ask “Raise your hand if you have used a virtual reality headset before” for example.

Research the Event

Read up about the conference you are attending. Find out what the other presentations are about and how they might relate to your speech to give you a head start on audience analysis. This gives you an idea of how technical and prepared your audience might be.

For additional information on understanding your audience and audience analysis, read:

• Know your Audience: What it Takes to Persuade, Inspire and Motivate them
• Public Speaking: Know Your Audience

Key audience analysis factors

Audience expectations.

Different audiences can have completely  different expectations  about the topics and speaker. Ignoring these differences can have a negative effect on your speech. Imagine that you’re asked to speak at the memorial service for a close friend.

The audience will expect your speech to praise the life of the deceased. If you start talking about the flaws of the person, the audience is likely to react badly to it.

Knowledge of topic

You need to find out how much your audience already knows about your topic as an audiences knowledge can vary widely. Two ways to achieve this could be:

• Research who else is speaking at the event and the topics they are presenting (if it’s been made public)
• Gauge the type of people who will attend using the event website or social media profiles

Never overestimate the audience’s knowledge of a topic. If you start speaking about complex algorithms for robotics, but the listeners are not familiar with basic genetics, they’ll quickly lose interest and find something to distract themselves with.

On the other hand, drastically underestimating the audience’s knowledge may result in a speech that sounds condescending.

Presentation setting, such as what time you are presenting and style of the conference room, will influence audience’s ability and desire to listen.

Finding out ahead of time the different environment and situational factors. This will give you plenty of time to prepare for an audience of 1000 when you were expecting 50. You want to understand whether there will be a stage, where your slides will be shown, what technology is available to you, who is presenting before you and other factors.

Take into account the way that the setting will affect audience attention and participation. If you’re scheduled to speak at the end of the day, you’ll have to make the speech more entertaining and appear more enthusiasm to keep their attention.

Read more about how to  speak to an unruly crowd  if you’re stuck with an end of day presentation slot.

Audience size

Your speech will change depending on the size of the audience. In general, the larger the audience the more formal the presentation should be. Using everyday language when speaking to a group of 5 people is often appropriate.

However, you’ll need a well throughout structure and  literary techniques  when talking to 500 people. Large audiences often require that you use a microphone and speak from an elevated platform.

Attitude toward topic

Being able to understand the audiences attitudes about a topic will help you connect with them. Imagine you’re trying to convince people at a town hall to build a new college. You’ll be inclined to spend the majority of the speech giving reasons why a college would benefit the town.

If you find that the major worry was how much this would cost students, you can talk more about funding available to the students. The  persuasive power  of the speech is therefore directed at the most important obstacle to the building the college.

Demographics

The demographic factors of an audience include:

• Ethnic background
• Job or Career

These categories often underpin the individuals experiences and beliefs, so you should tailor your speech accordingly. Presenting at a conference in London will be a very different experience to presenting in Shanghai. The structure of your speech and words you use will probably be very different.

Using demographic factors to guide speech-making does not mean changing the goal of the speech for every different audience; rather, consider what pieces of information will be most important for members of different demographic groups.

Voluntariness

Audiences are either hostile, critical, uninformed or sympathetic. Knowing the difference will assist in establishing the content of your speech. It’s very hard to generate and maintain interest with a hostile audience. You’ll definitely want to know if you’re up against this so you can plan ahead for it.

Egocentrism

Most audience members are interested in things that directly affect them or their company. An effective speaker must be able to show their audience why the topic they are speaking on should be important to them.

How to Write a Critical Analysis of a Speech

How to Set Up a Rhetorical Analysis

Whether you’re a student or a seasoned professional, the ability to critically analyze a speech is an essential skill for speakers. Understanding the components of a speech and what makes those components successful can help you deliver a speech that your audience finds engaging and enlightening.

Understanding the Different Types of Speeches

When critiquing a speech, you first need to understand the objective of the speech. There are three primary types of speeches: to inform, to persuade or to entertain. Informative speeches are typically rooted in facts and statistics or focus on “how-to” topics. For instance, many TED Talks are informative speeches.

Persuasive speeches also use facts and statistics but use that information to convince an audience to change their behavior or take a certain action. Finally, speeches that are meant to entertain are often those delivered at weddings or social gatherings. They’re often funny or self-deprecating and are populated with anecdotes.

Know Your Audience

Another critical aspect of speech analysis is understanding the audience. Is this a formal setting where your audience expects a serious, informative tone? Is the audience a group of people who are impassioned about a particular subject and could be hostile if you’re trying to change their minds? Is your audience an informal gathering of people who expect a light-hearted or amusing delivery?

You wouldn’t have a person with no sense of humor host a convention for comedians. Likewise, you wouldn’t have a comedian lead a convention for physicians who are discussing breakthroughs in cancer research. Knowing your audience can mean the difference between a successful speech and one that fails.

Know What You’re Analyzing

Once you know the objective of the speech, you’ll need to know what to analyze. In "Rhetoric," ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote that all great speeches share three pillars of rhetoric: logos, pathos and ethos.

While typically applied to persuasive speeches, these three elements are critical for any speech. Logos is the meaning, the reasoning and the logical evidence the speaker uses. Pathos is the words, phrases and personal stories a speaker uses to elicit emotion, and ethos is the credibility and trustworthiness of the speaker. In other words, does the speaker have expertise in this particular subject?

Evaluating a Speech

Critical speech analysis should revolve around the three pillars. As you analyze, you’ll need to determine whether the speech maker is using enough facts and logical evidence to establish credibility.

For instance, if a speaker is delivering information on protecting the environment, is he using credibly sourced facts to support his statements, or is he speaking in generalities? Is he using words, phrases and personal anecdotes that elicit emotion from the audience, or is he using vague words that have no emotional impact?

Finally, through education or background, is the speaker qualified to be speaking on this particular subject? Is she passionate about the subject, or is she coming across as a boring, monotone speaker? Is she using appropriate gestures and body language? Is her voice clear and loud enough to be heard? Finally, is her tone appropriate for the audience?

Use a Speech Analysis Rubric

A rubric can be an effective tool to help you analyze a speech, as it can help you assign a numeric value to each specific component of a speech. If you’re analyzing a speech for a classroom assignment, you’ll likely be given a rubric from which to work. If not, you can easily find one online by searching for “critical speech analysis rubric.”

Many readily available rubrics focus on aspects of Aristotle’s rhetoric by addressing a speech’s structure, format, research, delivery and style and will help you determine whether the speech was appropriate for its particular audience and met its overarching goals.

How to Write an Analysis of a Speech

If you’re working on the critical analysis of a speech for a class assignment, you’ll likely need to complete a written assignment to accompany your assessment. As with any other essay, a written analysis of a speech should include a strong introduction and clear thesis statement, several body paragraphs with topic sentences and strong transitions that clearly support your analysis and an effective conclusion that summarizes your critique.

Be sure that the essay is free of grammar and spelling mistakes and typos. As with any piece of writing, it’s always helpful to have another person review it before you publish it or submit it for a grade.

Related Articles

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Speech Vs. Essay

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How to Establish Credibility in an Informative Speech

• Brigham Young University: Basic Questions for Rhetorical Analysis

Jennifer Brozak earned her state teaching certificate in Secondary English and Communications from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., and her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Pittsburgh. A former high school English teacher, Jennifer enjoys writing articles about parenting and education and has contributed to Reader's Digest, Mamapedia, Shmoop and more.

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10.4 Analyzing a Speech Body

Learning objective.

• See what a full speech body looks like in order to identify major components of the speech body.

Sean MacEntee – presentation outline – CC BY 2.0.

Thus far this chapter has focused on how you go about creating main points and organizing the body of your speech. In this section we’re going to examine the three main points of an actual speech. Before we start analyzing the introduction, please read the paragraphs that follow.

Smart Dust Speech Body To help us understand smart dust, we will begin by first examining what smart dust is. Dr. Kris Pister, a professor in the robotics lab at the University of California at Berkeley, originally conceived the idea of smart dust in 1998 as part of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). According to a 2001 article written by Bret Warneke, Matt Last, Brian Liebowitz, and Kris Pister titled “Smart Dust: Communicating with a Cubic-Millimeter Computer” published in Computer , Pister’s goal was to build a device that contained a built-in sensor, communication device, and a small computer that could be integrated into a cubic millimeter package. For comparison purposes, Doug Steel, in a 2005 white paper titled “Smart Dust” written for C. T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, noted that a single grain of rice has a volume of five cubic millimeters. Each individual piece of dust, called a mote, would then have the ability to interact with other motes and supercomputers. As Steve Lohr wrote in the January 30, 2010, edition of the New York Times in an article titled “Smart Dust? Not Quite, but We’re Getting There,” smart dust could eventually consist of “tiny digital sensors, strewn around the globe, gathering all sorts of information and communicating with powerful computer networks to monitor, measure, and understand the physical world in new ways.” Now that we’ve examined what smart dust is, let’s switch gears and talk about some of the military applications for smart dust. Because smart dust was originally conceptualized under a grant from DARPA, military uses of smart dust have been widely theorized and examined. According to the Smart Dust website, smart dust could eventually be used for “battlefield surveillance, treaty monitoring, transportation monitoring, scud hunting” and other clear military applications. Probably the number one benefit of smart dust in the military environment is its surveillance abilities. Major Scott Dickson in a Blue Horizons Paper written for the Center for Strategy and Technology for the United States Air Force Air War College, sees smart dust as helping the military in battlespace awareness, homeland security, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) identification. Furthermore, Major Dickson also believes it may be possible to create smart dust that has the ability to defeat communications jamming equipment created by foreign governments, which could help the US military to not only communicate among itself, but could also increase communications with civilians in military combat zones. On a much larger scale, smart dust could even help the US military and NASA protect the earth. According to a 2010 article written by Jessica Griggs in New Scientist , one of the first benefits of smart dust could be an early defense warning for space storms and other debris that could be catastrophic. Now that we’ve explored some of the military benefits of smart dust, let’s switch gears and see how smart dust may be able to have an impact on our daily lives. According to the smart dust project website, smart dust could quickly become a part of our daily lives. Everything from pasting smart dust particles to our finger tips to create a virtual computer keyboard to inventory control to product quality control have been discussed as possible applications for smart dust. Steve Lohr in his 2010 New York Times article wrote, “The applications for sensor-based computing, experts say, include buildings that manage their own energy use, bridges that sense motion and metal fatigue to tell engineers they need repairs, cars that track traffic patterns and report potholes, and fruit and vegetable shipments that tell grocers when they ripen and begin to spoil.” Medically, according to the smart dust project website, smart dust could help disabled individuals interface with computers. Theoretically, we could all be injected with smart dust, which relays information to our physicians and detects adverse changes to our body instantly. Smart dust could detect the microscopic formations of cancer cells or alert us when we’ve been infected by a bacteria or virus, which could speed up treatment and prolong all of our lives.

Now that you’ve had a chance to read the body of the speech on smart dust, take a second and attempt to conduct your own analysis of the speech’s body. What are the main points? Do you think the main points make sense? What organizational pattern is used? Are there clear transitions? What other techniques are used to keep the speech moving? Is evidence used to support the speech? Once you’re done analyzing the speech body, look at Table 10.2 “Smart Dust Speech Body Analysis” , which presents our basic analysis of the speech’s body.

Table 10.2 Smart Dust Speech Body Analysis

Stand up, Speak out Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Traditionally, teachers have encouraged students to engage with and interpret literature—novels, poems, short stories, and plays. Too often, however, the spoken word is left unanalyzed, even though the spoken word has the potential to alter our space just as much than the written. After gaining skill through analyzing a historic and contemporary speech as a class, students will select a famous speech from a list compiled from several resources and write an essay that identifies and explains the rhetorical strategies that the author deliberately chose while crafting the text to make an effective argument. Their analysis will consider questions such as What makes the speech an argument?, How did the author's rhetoric evoke a response from the audience?, and Why are the words still venerated today?

Featured Resources

From Theory to Practice

Nearly everything we read and hear is an argument. Speeches are special kinds of arguments and should be analyzed as such. Listeners should keep in mind the context of the situation involving the delivery and the audience-but a keen observer should also pay close attention to the elements of argument within the text. This assignment requires students to look for those elements.

"Since rhetoric is the art of effective communication, its principles can be applied to many facets of everyday life" (Lamb 109). It's through this lesson that students are allowed to see how politicians and leaders manipulate and influence their audiences using specific rhetorical devices in a manner that's so effective that the speeches are revered even today. It's important that we keep showing our students how powerful language can be when it's carefully crafted and arranged.

Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

Materials and Technology

• ReadWriteThink Notetaker
• Teacher Background and Information Sheet
• Student Assignment Sheet
• List of Speeches for Students
• Queen Elizabeth I’s Speech with Related Questions
• Historical Speech Research Questions
• Peer Response Handout
• Essay Rubric

This website contains audio of the Top 100 speeches of all time.

Included on this site is audio of famous speeches of the 20th century, as well as information about the speeches and background information on the writers.

The "Great Speeches Collection" from The History Place are available here in print and in audio.

This website includes information on finding and documenting sources in the MLA format.

Preparation

• Review the background and information sheet for teachers to familiarize yourself with the assignment and expectations.  Consider your students' background with necessary rhetorical terms such as claims, warrants, the appeals (logos, pathos, ethos), and fallacies; and rhetorical devices such as tone, diction, figurative language, repetition, hyperbole, and understatement. The lesson provides some guidance for direct instruction on these terms, but there are multiple opportunities for building or activating student knowledge through modeling on the two speeches done as a class.
• Check the links to the online resources (in Websites section) make sure that they are still working prior to giving out this assignment.
• Decide whether you want to allow more than one student to analyze and write about the same speech in each class.
• Look over the  List of Speeches for Students to decide if there are any that you would like to add.
• Look over the suggested Essay Rubric and determine the weights you would like to assign to each category.  For example, you might tell students that Support and Research may be worth three times the value of Style. Customize the Essay Rubric to meet the learning goals for your students.
• Reserve the library for Session Three so the students can do research on their speeches.
• President Obama’s Inauguration Speech.
• Former President Bush’s Defends War in Iraq Speech.
• Former President Bush’s 9/11 Speech.
• Former President Clinton’s “I Have Sinned” Speech.

Student Objectives

Students will

• analyze a speech for rhetorical devices and their purpose.
• identify an author’s purposeful manipulation of language.
• identify elements of argument within a speech.
• write an analysis of a speech with in-text documentation.

Session One

• Begin the lesson by asking students what needs to be present in order for a speech to occur. Though the question may seem puzzling—too hard, or too simple—at first, students will eventually identify, as Aristotle did, the need for a speaker, a message, and an audience.
• The class should discuss audience and the importance of identifying the audience for speeches, since they occur in particular moments in time and are delivered to specific audiences. This is a good time to discuss the Rhetorical Triangle (Aristotelian Triad) or discuss a chapter on audience from an argumentative textbook. You may wish to share information from the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Persuasive Techniques in Advertising and  The Rhetorical Triangle from The University of Oklahoma.
• Next distribute Queen Elizabeth’s speech to the troops at Tilbury and use the speech and its historical context as a model for the processes students will use on the speech they select. Provide a bit of background information on the moment in history.
• Then, as a class, go over  Queen Elizabeth’s speech and discuss the rhetorical devices in the speech and the purpose for each one. Adjust the level of guidance you provide, depending on your students' experiences with this type of analysis. The questions provide a place to start, but there are many other stylistic devices to discuss in this selection.

Discuss the audience and the author’s manipulation of the audience. Consider posing questions such as

• This is a successful speech.  Why?
• Elizabeth uses all of the appeals – logos, pathos, and ethos – to convince all of her listeners to fight for her from the loyal follower to the greedy mercenary.  How?
• The tone shifts throughout the selection.  Where?  But more importantly, why?

Martin Luther King, Jr. uses an appeal to pathos in his “I Have a Dream” speech through his historical allusion to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: “Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.” This is particularly effective for his audience of people sympathetic to the cause of African American men and women who would have been especially moved by this particular reference since it had such a significant impact on the lives of African Americans.

Session Two

• Continue the work from the previous session by distributing the  Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments handout and discussing the assignment and what it requires. See the  background and information sheet for teachers for more details.
• Tell students they will be getting additional practice with analyzing a speech as an argument by showing a short  10-minute clip of a presidential speech . Ask students to think about how the particular moment in history and the national audience contribute to the rhetorical choices made by the speaker.
• Lead a discussion of the speech as an argument with regard to purpose and intent. Work with students to identify warrants, claims, and appeals.
• Ask students to consider how the author manipulates the audience using tone, diction, and stylistic devices. What rhetorical devices aided the author’s manipulation of his audience? Discuss a particular rhetorical device that the President used and the purpose it served.
• Share the Essay Rubric and explain to students the expectations for success on this assignment.
• Allow students to select a speech from the List of Speeches for Students . If they wish to preview any of the speeches, they can type the speaker's name and the title of the speech into a search engine and should have little difficulty finding it.

Session Three

• Take the students to the library and allow them to research their speeches. They should locate their speech and print a copy for them to begin annotating for argumentative structure and rhetorical devices.
• What was the speaker up against?  What is the occasion for the speech?
• What did the author have to keep in mind when composing the text?  
• What were his or her goals?  
• What was his or her ultimate purpose?  
• What was his or her intent?
• Remind students that the writer of the speech is sometimes not the person who delivered the speech, for example, and this will surprise some students. Many people assume that the speaker (president, senator, etc.) is always the writer, and that’s not always the case, so ask your students to check to see who wrote the speech. (They might be surprised at the answer. There’s always a story behind the composition of the speech.)
• Help students find the author of the speech because this will challenge some students. Oftentimes, students assume the speaker is the author, and that’s sometimes not the case. Once the speechwriter is identified, it is easier to find information on the speech. Help students find the history behind the speech without getting too bogged down in the details. They need to understand the climate, but they do not need to be complete experts on the historical details in order to understand the elements of the speech.
• If they wish, students can use the ReadThinkWrite Interactive Notetaker to help them track their notes for their essays. Remind them that their work cannot be saved on this tool and should be printed by the end of the session so they can use it in future work.
• For Session Four, students must bring a thesis, an outline, and all of their research materials to class for a workday. Remind them to refer to the Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments , the Essay Rubric , and any notes they may have taken during the first two sessions as they begin their work.
• The thesis statement should answer the following question: What makes this speech an effective argument and worthy of making this list?

Session Four

• Set up students in heterogeneous groups of four. Ask students to share their outlines and thesis statements.
• Go around to check and to monitor as students share their ideas and progress. The students will discuss their speeches and their research thus far.
• Have students discuss the elements of an argument that they plan on addressing.
• Finally, have students work on writing their papers by writing their introductions with an enticing “grab” or “hook.” If time permits, have students share their work. 
• For Session Five, students should bring in their papers. This session would happen in about a week.

Session Five

• In this session, students will respond each other's drafts using the Peer Response Handout .
• Determine and discuss the final due date with your students. Direct students to Diana Hacker’s MLA site for assistance with their citations if necessary. 
• Remind students that their work will be evaluate using the essay rubric .  They should use the criteria along with the comments from their peer to revise and polish their work.
• During the process of analyzing  Queen Elizabeth I’s Speech , consider showing the related scene from the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age . Though the text of the speech is drastically cut and altered, seeing one filmmaker's vision for the scene may help reinforce the notion of historical context and the importance of audience.
• Allow students to read and/or perform parts of the speeches out loud. Then, they can share some of their thinking about the argumentative structure and rhetorical devices used to make the speech effective. This activity could happen as part of the prewriting process or after essays have been completed.
• Require students to write a graduation speech or a speech on another topic. They can peruse print or online news sources to select a current event that interests them.  Have them choose an audience to whom they would deliver an argumentative speech.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• After peer response has taken place, use the essay rubric to provide feedback on student work. You may change the values of the different categories/requirements to better suit the learning goals for your classroom.
• Calendar Activities
• Lesson Plans
• Student Interactives
• Strategy Guides

Students explore the ways that powerful and passionate words communicate the concepts of freedom, justice, discrimination, and the American Dream in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

While drafting a literary analysis essay (or another type of argument) of their own, students work in pairs to investigate advice for writing conclusions and to analyze conclusions of sample essays. They then draft two conclusions for their essay, select one, and reflect on what they have learned through the process.

Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information.

This strategy guide clarifies the difference between persuasion and argumentation, stressing the connection between close reading of text to gather evidence and formation of a strong argumentative claim about text.

• Print this resource

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Speech Analysis

• Reference work entry
• pp 1284–1289
• Cite this reference work entry

• Doroteo T. Toledano 3 ,
• Daniel Ramos 3 ,
• Javier Gonzalez-Dominguez 3 &
• Joaquín González-Rodríguez 3  

1269 Accesses

Speech parametrization

The analysis of speech signals can be defined as the process of extracting relevant information from the speech signal (i.e., from a recording). This process is mainly based on the speech production mechanism, whose study involves multiple disciplines from linguistics and articulatory phonetics to signal processing and source coding. In this article, a short overview is given about how the speech signal is produced and typical models of the speech production system, focusing on the different sources of individuality that will be present in the final uttered speech. In this way, the speaker who produced the speech with those individual features is then recognizable both for humans and for machines.

Although speech production is felt by humans as a very natural and simple mechanism, it is a very complex process that involves the coordinated participation of several physiological structures that evolution has developed over the years. For a...

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Huang, X., Acero, A., Hon, H.W.: Spoken Language Processing. Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ (2001)

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Rabiner, L., Schafer, R.: Digital Processing of Speech Signals. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ (1978)

Deller, J., Hansen, J., Proakis, J.: Discrete-Time Processing of Speech Signals, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York (1999)

Chu, W.C.: Speech Coding Algorithms. Foundation and Evolution of Standardized Coders. Wiley, New York (2003)

MATH   Google Scholar  

Oppenheim, A., Schafer, R., Buck, J.: Discrete-Time Signal Processing. 2nd ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ (1999)

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Authors and affiliations.

ATVS – Biometric Recognition Group. Escuela Politecnica Superior, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid,  , Spain

Doroteo T. Toledano, Daniel Ramos, Javier Gonzalez-Dominguez & Joaquín González-Rodríguez

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Center for Biometrics and Security Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

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Toledano, D., Ramos, D., Gonzalez-Dominguez, J., González-Rodríguez, J. (2009). Speech Analysis. In: Li, S.Z., Jain, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biometrics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-73003-5_200

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Speech Analysis #4: Evaluation Forms, Tools, and Resources

This article provides a speech evaluation form and explains how it supports you in studying and evaluating speeches.

• How to Study and Critique a Speech
• The Art of Delivering Evaluations
• Modified Sandwich Technique for Evaluations
• Evaluation Forms, Tools, and Resources
• Toastmasters Evaluation Contests

Speech Evaluation Form

First things first… download a copy of the free speech evaluation form .

I created this form for use in Toastmasters Evaluation Contests (a topic of a future article here), but I have since used it as a general purpose speech evaluation template.

Why this speech evaluation tool may work for you…

• It is simple — one single-sided page.
• Lots of white space , to facilitate taking notes.
• Flexible . The labels and boxes are not tied to any particular style of speech, e.g. speaking to inform
• Rows recognize the three broad areas to be analyzed: impact, content, and delivery . These are in order of importance from top to bottom.
• The critical nature of the Opening and Closing is recognized with dedicated rows on the form.
• Two columns emphasize the necessity to recognize both the strengths and weaknesses of a speech or speaker.
• Evaluation Opening and Evaluation Summation are for notes which lead to an oral evaluation (e.g. in Toastmasters). They can be ignored if you are analyzing the speech in a different context.

An alternate speech evaluation template…

It is wonderfully simple , consisting of just two rows (Content, Delivery) and three columns (I felt, I saw, I heard). “Content – I Saw” might include things like props or slideware, while “Delivery – I Saw” might cover gestures or facial expressions. This template allowed him to effectively analyze the speech his way.

I strongly encourage you to develop a template that works for you. Maybe the examples here are perfect. Maybe they need a tweak. Maybe you need something entirely different as an aid to capture your thoughts and observations. Whatever the case, an evaluation template can help you.

Critiquing a Speech: Advice from the Blogosphere and Beyond

There’s some great advice elsewhere in the public speaking blogosphere and elsewhere on speech evaluation:

• How to Give a Killer Evaluation : lifehack.org
• Speech Self Critique Guide : Navy Speakers Bureau
• Evaluation Resources from Toastmasters New Zealand Includes “step-by-step approach” to speech evaluation, 10 steps to becoming an evaluation champion.
• Evaluation Template – Wendy Betteridge (PDF)
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Evaluators: Dr. Dilip Abayasekera, former Toastmasters International President

Next in the Speech Analysis Series

The next article in the series is Toastmasters Evaluation Contests .

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• Speech Analysis #3: Modified Sandwich Technique for Evaluations
• Speech Analysis #1: How to Study and Critique a Speech
• Speech Analysis #2: The Art of Delivering Evaluations
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Extremely great helpful tips Andrew

Time and time again I find myself at your site for help on my toastmasters path. Keep up the great work! I really do appreciate the work you do.

Awesome speech evaluation form. I used it at the division level of the evaluation competition and won. I segregated your areas into 3 categories – content, delivery and presence. It made a world of difference.

Thanks for sharing.

found this very helpful in preparation and practice for an english exam, thanks~

this is an excellent evaluation form. It is concise, yet flexible. I will be using it for my Advanced Toastmasters Club. thank you for making this available to others.

Hi Andrew, Your website is very informative and helpful. Just want to let you know the link below in this article does not work. ■Evaluation Template – Wendy Betteridge [PDF] Joshua

Thanks for letting me know, Joshua. I have replaced the link with an alternate resource.

Might you have a copy of the free speech evaluation form found in part 4 in pdf format to forward to me? Somehow, I am unable to download the form.

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A 9-Step Practical Guide On How To Analyze A Speech – Speech Analysis of I have A Dream Speech as an Example

A speech, as we all know, is a vocal opinion of a speaker’s stand. Speeches are usually used as an effective tool for rallying support, conveying opinion, as well as influencing the thoughts of others (usually the audience) to accept or agree with the thoughts of the Speaker.

However, in most cases, there is usually a need to consider what was not said in a speech, or what the motive of the Speaker was. For this reason, speech analysis comes in handy in order to have a full understanding of a speech.

What is Speech Analysis?

In its simplest form, speech analysis or speech interpretation can be said to be the process of extracting important pieces of information that are contained in a speech. When carrying out speech analysis, there is usually a need to take note of some essential and necessary components of the Speech . These include;

1. Analyzing the purpose or intent of the Speech

For instance, a speech may be written to entertain the audience with some humorous lines, persuade the audience into thinking or agreeing with the opinion of the Speaker, or to inform the audience about something which the Speaker is skilled in.

2. The target audience and how the Speech relates to them

Also of paramount importance during speech analysis is  taking note of who the target audience is, and how the Speech relates to the audience .

For instance, when analyzing a speech that was delivered to support the need for a pay rise in an organization, in that case, it will be expected that the audience listening to such a speech will be members of staff of the organization who are clamoring for a rise in their pay.

3. The effective and validity of the Speech 

Still using the same above example about a speech about a pay rise in an organization, the Speaker may have to include facts such as the agreed terms for a pay rise in the organization. 

The I Have A Dream Speech by Martin Luther King Jr (with Video+Audio+Full Transcript and Historical Context)

What is the First Step in Rhetoric Analysis?

The Structure of a Speech

Introducing a speech with such powerful elements is an excellent way to give the audience reasons why they should listen to the Speaker, instead of starting with a dry  “hello everyone, it’s a great privilege to talk to you today.”

After the introduction comes the body of a speech, which is the part that contains the Speaker’s main points. These points are usually expected to be supported with relevant examples, details, statistics, and facts, which are explained in simply and concisely.

In the body of a speech, the Speaker should make necessary effort to ensure that all the facts and pieces of evidence presented in the Speech aligns with the primary objective of the Speech. As mentioned earlier, these facts and proofs should all be presented in a simple and clear language for the understanding of the audience.

The concluding part of a speech also packs as much power as the other two parts mentioned earlier. 

Also, in the conclusion of a speech, the Speaker should be concise about what he expects from the audience, whether it is for a petition to be signed, requesting their support, for a product to be bought, or for some other specific actions from the audience as contained in the Speech. 

How to Analyze and Interpret a Speech? 9 Key Questions to effective speech Analysis.

However, when analyzing a speech, don’t feel satisfied by merely outline these nine important questions in the Speech and answering them. Instead, there should be a complementary explanation or example of how these nine key questions work using a speech as an example. So, in analyzing a speech, here are the 9 key questions you must give appropriate answers to for effective speech analysis .

1. Who is the Speaker?

In analyzing a speech, you have to consider who is the Speaker, and how does the Speaker’s rank, position, personal views, motives, or experience affect the Speech.

2. Who is/are the Audience?

3. what is the type of speech.

In this regard, the Speech delivered might be one that is intended to inform or educate the audience, entertain, or even persuade the audience to take certain steps of action.

4. What is the Structure of the Speech?

5. what is the purpose of the speech.

Like I mentioned earlier, every Speech is usually aimed at achieving a purpose. For some, the purpose might be to persuade the audience, entertain, or even to open the eyes of the audience about a piece of information they are yet to know.

6. What is the Content/Circumstances of the Speech

In evaluating the content and circumstances of a speech, you consider the events that have created the need for the Speech. In doing this, you may have to pay closer attention to specific elements such as;  

7. What are the Techniques used by the Speaker?

Techniques employed by the Speaker are usually the various modes of persuasion, in which the Speaker adopts. These techniques are also known as rhetorical appeals , and they are ways of persuading the audience to believe the Speaker’s point of view.

8. Is the Intention of the Speech Achieved?

By analyzing a speech to see whether or not it has achieved its purpose, you may have to carry out some evaluations to ascertain if the Speech was successful.

9. What is the overall result of the analysis of the Speech?

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The 4 Methods or Types of Speech Delivery

The 7 basic elements of public speaking.

Remember that time you had to present a topic in front of a crowd? Probably it was a proposal at work or an oral report in grade school. You took the time to prepare and gather materials, after which you climbed the podium and started talking. There are seven basic elements of public speaking that…

An Easy Guide to All 15 Types of Speech

Analyzing the i have a dream speech by martin luther king jr.

In a bid to have a full understanding of how the various questions that should be considered when carrying out speech analysis work, we shall be considering the heroic Speech delivered by a civil rights leader – Martin Luther King Jr, on August 28, 1963, in front of the Lincoln Memorial Mall. 

Before we go straight into the analysis of the “ I Have A Dream ” Speech, let’s take a quick look at the context of the Speech. 

Related Article: The I Have A Dream Speech by Martin Luther King Jr (with Video+Audio+Full Transcript and Historical Context)

Alternatively, you can just watch the 17 minutes full Speech through the link below;

The Speaker, in this case, is Martin Luther King Jr, who is a prominent negro civil rights activist fighting to secure freedom and emancipation for his fellow negroes.

However, it is evident that members of media were present to cover the event, and so it is obvious that the Speech was open to everyone who could have access to a live stream of the Speech

“And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

He started by reminding his fellow negroes about the history of the emancipation proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”

“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.”

“And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

From the content of Dr. King’s Speech, it is very obvious that the purpose of the Speech was to persuade the American government in 1963 to sign and enact the civil rights law that will bring absolute freedom and emancipation to the African American amongst them.

“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquillizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

“There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Also worthy of note and analysis is the geographical location where the Speech was delivered and the choice of such location. 

In this case, Martin Luther’s Speech was delivered at the Lincoln National Mall, just in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. And the choice of this place was to bring to mind the fact that about 100 years ago, Abraham Lincoln, whose statue is right behind the Speaker, signed the Emancipation Proclamation of the negroes in America.

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering.”

Dr. King also employed logos to give data and figures that will support his call for the emancipation of the African Americans.

“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”

I also noted the use of irony to express the supposed reasons why the negroes are undergoing injustice and segregation in America.

“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

Although the Speech wasn’t intended to convince or persuade the audience to accept or agree to the need for the emancipation of the negro, since the majority of the audience who present during the Speech were all civil rights activists protesting for the passage of the civil rights law.

In summary, I think that the “I Have A Dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr was a timely call for the freedom of the negroes in America after the successful completion of 100 years after the emancipation proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.

The choice of the geographical location for the Speech was apt, and it was the perfect place to call to mind the emancipation proclamation for the negroes.

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A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘I Have a Dream’ is one of the greatest speeches in American history. Delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) in Washington D.C. in 1963, the speech is a powerful rallying cry for racial equality and for a fairer and equal world in which African Americans will be as free as white Americans.

If you’ve ever stayed up till the small hours working on a presentation you’re due to give the next day, tearing your hair out as you try to find the right words, you can take solace in the fact that as great an orator as Martin Luther King did the same with one of the most memorable speeches ever delivered.

He reportedly stayed up until 4am the night before he was due to give his ‘I Have a Dream’, writing it out in longhand. You can read the speech in full here .

‘I Have a Dream’: background

The occasion for King’s speech was the march on Washington , which saw some 210,000 African American men, women, and children gather at the Washington Monument in August 1963, before marching to the Lincoln Memorial.

They were marching for several reasons, including jobs (many of them were out of work), but the main reason was freedom: King and many other Civil Rights leaders sought to remove segregation of black and white Americans and to ensure black Americans were treated the same as white Americans.

1963 was the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation , in which then US President Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) had freed the African slaves in the United States in 1863. But a century on from the abolition of slavery, King points out, black Americans still are not free in many respects.

‘I Have a Dream’: summary

King begins his speech by reminding his audience that it’s a century, or ‘five score years’, since that ‘great American’ Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This ensured the freedom of the African slaves, but Black Americans are still not free, King points out, because of racial segregation and discrimination.

America is a wealthy country, and yet many Black Americans live in poverty. It is as if the Black American is an exile in his own land. King likens the gathering in Washington to cashing a cheque: in other words, claiming money that is due to be paid.

Next, King praises the ‘magnificent words’ of the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence . King compares these documents to a promissory note, because they contain the promise that all men, including Black men, will be guaranteed what the Declaration of Independence calls ‘inalienable rights’: namely, ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

King asserts that America in the 1960s has ‘defaulted’ on this promissory note: in other words, it has refused to pay up. King calls it a ‘sacred obligation’, but America as a nation is like someone who has written someone else a cheque that has bounced and the money owed remains to be paid. But it is not because the money isn’t there: America, being a land of opportunity, has enough ‘funds’ to ensure everyone is prosperous enough.

King urges America to rise out of the ‘valley’ of segregation to the ‘sunlit path of racial justice’. He uses the word ‘brotherhood’ to refer to all Americans, since all men and women are God’s children. He also repeatedly emphasises the urgency of the moment. This is not some brief moment of anger but a necessary new start for America. However, King cautions his audience not to give way to bitterness and hatred, but to fight for justice in the right manner, with dignity and discipline.

Physical violence and militancy are to be avoided. King recognises that many white Americans who are also poor and marginalised feel a kinship with the Civil Rights movement, so all Americans should join together in the cause. Police brutality against Black Americans must be eradicated, as must racial discrimination in hotels and restaurants. States which forbid Black Americans from voting must change their laws.

Martin Luther King then comes to the most famous part of his speech, in which he uses the phrase ‘I have a dream’ to begin successive sentences (a rhetorical device known as anaphora ). King outlines the form that his dream, or ambition or wish for a better America, takes.

His dream, he tells his audience, is ‘deeply rooted’ in the American Dream: that notion that anybody, regardless of their background, can become prosperous and successful in the United States. King once again reminds his listeners of the opening words of the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

In his dream of a better future, King sees the descendants of former Black slaves and the descendants of former slave owners united, sitting and eating together. He has a dream that one day his children will live in a country where they are judged not by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

Even in Mississippi and Alabama, states which are riven by racial injustice and hatred, people of all races will live together in harmony. King then broadens his dream out into ‘our hope’: a collective aspiration and endeavour. King then quotes the patriotic American song ‘ My Country, ’Tis of Thee ’, which describes America as a ‘sweet land of liberty’.

King uses anaphora again, repeating the phrase ‘let freedom ring’ several times in succession to suggest how jubilant America will be on the day that such freedoms are ensured. And when this happens, Americans will be able to join together and be closer to the day when they can sing a traditional African-American hymn : ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.’

‘I Have a Dream’: analysis

Although Martin Luther King’s speech has become known by the repeated four-word phrase ‘I Have a Dream’, which emphasises the personal nature of his vision, his speech is actually about a collective dream for a better and more equal America which is not only shared by many Black Americans but by anyone who identifies with their fight against racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination.

Nevertheless, in working from ‘I have a dream’ to a different four-word phrase, ‘this is our hope’. The shift is natural and yet it is a rhetorical masterstroke, since the vision of a better nation which King has set out as a very personal, sincere dream is thus telescoped into a universal and collective struggle for freedom.

What’s more, in moving from ‘dream’ to a different noun, ‘hope’, King suggests that what might be dismissed as an idealistic ambition is actually something that is both possible and achievable. No sooner has the dream gathered momentum than it becomes a more concrete ‘hope’.

In his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, King was doing more than alluding to Abraham Lincoln’s signing of the Emancipation Proclamation one hundred years earlier. The opening words to his speech, ‘Five score years ago’, allude to a specific speech Lincoln himself had made a century before: the Gettysburg Address .

In that speech, delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery (now known as Gettysburg National Cemetery) in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in November 1863, Lincoln had urged his listeners to continue in the fight for freedom, envisioning the day when all Americans – including Black slaves – would be free. His speech famously begins with the words: ‘Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.’

‘Four score and seven years’ is eighty-seven years, which takes us back from 1863 to 1776, the year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, Martin Luther King’s allusion to the words of Lincoln’s historic speech do two things: they call back to Lincoln’s speech but also, by extension, to the founding of the United States almost two centuries before. Although Lincoln and the American Civil War represented progress in the cause to make all Americans free regardless of their ethnicity, King makes it clear in ‘I Have a Dream’ that there is still some way to go.

In the last analysis, King’s speech is a rhetorically clever and emotionally powerful call to use non-violent protest to oppose racial injustice, segregation, and discrimination, but also to ensure that all Americans are lifted out of poverty and degradation.

But most of all, King emphasises the collective endeavour that is necessary to bring about the world he wants his children to live in: the togetherness, the linking of hands, which is essential to make the dream a reality.

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.css-14us1xl{box-sizing:border-box;margin:0;min-width:0;white-space:pre-wrap;} What is Speech Analytics and How Does it Work

Learn in-depth about speech analytics technology, its importance, types and benefits — along with a few real-life use cases of speech analytics software.

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What is speech analytics?  

Benefits of speech analytics  , how does speech analytics work , application of speech analytics in different industries .

Additionally, speech analytics is used for quality monitoring of voice-related operations since it can indicate call quality and agent performance with a fair degree of accuracy.  

Why is speech analytics important?  

Speech analytics is critically important for today’s businesses as it revolutionizes customer service operations in multiple aspects, enabling your organization to function at peak efficiency all the time. It enables contact centers to:  

Identify customer preferences, pain points and satisfaction levels and use them to further improve service quality 

Mitigate compliance risks by monitoring calls and ensuring adherence to industry regulations and brand guidelines 

Monitor agent-customer interactions and help improve agent performance with actionable feedback and training programs 

Increase cost efficiency and streamline processes by identifying scope for improvement in operations 

Stand out from the competition by delivering consistently satisfying customer service experiences 

Speech analytics vs. voice analytics   

As we’re learning about gathering data-driven insights from spoken language, distinguishing between voice analytics and speech analytics becomes essential. Below is a quick differentiation between the two.  

Types of speech analytics 

 There are two primary types of speech analytics based on the timing of audio data analysis. 

1. Real-time speech analytics  

With real-time speech analytics, audio data is analyzed on live voice calls with customers. This allows agents to access actionable insights, trends and metrics in the moment, so they can improve the interaction quality of their current customer conversation. Real-time analytics reveal insights into customer sentiment and tone and even give cues to agents to enhance the customer experience — all while they are on a call. 

Take this conversation, for instance: the agent realizes the caller is agitated and quickly assigns her to an agent who tops the leaderboard to enable quick redressal. All of this happens on the fly as the agent has real-time access to insights such as customer sentiment and agent performance scores. 

Also Read: How to leverage a call center agent performance scorecard

2. Post-call speech analytics  

Post-call speech analytics provides you with insights into a voice call only after the call has ended. These insights include — but are not limited to — identifying keywords in conversations and building custom text classification models to help build future customer support processes and strategies. 

Here is an example of post-call speech analytics from a call transcript. It yields metrics like average handle time (AHT), overall customer satisfaction and sentiment on the call. Call quality analysts can get their hands on insights at specific timestamps to map trends and keywords. 

Contact center managers use speech analytics platforms to identify the reason for each call, the products mentioned and the callers’ mood — helping them to better understand customer needs, wants and expectations. Instead of making decisions based on assumptions (what they think customers are feeling), speech analytics enables you to make decisions based on what customers are actually saying in real time — removing the guesswork.    

Speech analytics platforms gather actionable insights that can be used in the following ways:   

1. Increase customer satisfaction 

The additional layer of AI in speech analytics helps analyze data from customer journey   — including their tone of voice, sentiment and key phrases, so you can:   

Better comprehend inscrutable customer behavior and draw insights about satisfaction levels 

Detect buyer intent, helping you set up behavioral remarketing campaigns and seamless omnichannel customer experiences  

Coach new hires and prep them to address queries faster — helping improve your overall customer experience  

Learn more: Customer service tips: How to improve your strategies with technology   

2. Improve agent performance and resolution rates  

AI-powered speech analytics software can continuously retrain and improve their analysis models to ensure they provide the freshest insights to your agents — helping them improve performance and resolution rates. Here’s how this is achieved: 

Identify repetitive customer queries, help agents automate resolutions and speed up some of their routine tasks to free up time for more complex issues   

Empower agents with AI-driven insights about critical performance metrics such as first-contact resolutions and average handle time , meet their SLAs and keep up their productivity level 

Help agents identify speech and communication issues during calls and make proactive improvements (for instance, are they talking too fast or facing other speech issues from nervousness?)   

Ensure agents stick to their scripts and provide only brand-compliant responses — to avoid any legal/compliance-related issues and establish data privacy 

Learn more: Leverage AI to improve agent productivity and boost morale

3. Drive operational efficiency

AI-led speech analytics surface business intelligence that can help align your customer service , marketing and sales departments — enabling you to answer questions like:  

Are better-priced competitors, poor customer service or misunderstood business value the reasons your customers are not buying your services or products?   

Are your sales and customer service teams taking callers through a compliant script?    

Is your support team responding promptly and nurturing a positive customer relationship?    

What are the skills you should equip your sales and customer service teams with to help them be successful? 

Learn more: Call center agent skills to improve customer experience  

Once you are done uncovering the above insights, you can create support strategies to:  

Identify process bottlenecks and improve your operational efficiency   

Execute on-point capacity planning to keep your agents optimally engaged   

Perform root cause analysis of customer issues to identify recurring problems and fix them

Monitor mandatory compliance dialogs and phrases, such as settlement disclosures, data breaches and insider trading of sensitive information   

Identify employee training opportunities and provide your agents with on-call coaching and assistance    

Drive upsells, cross-sells and advocacy by monitoring customer conversations that indicate positive sentiment  

Learn more : 3 secrets of efficient and quality customer service  

4. Reduce costs

Real-time speech analytics tools and their capabilities also help businesses cut costs in several ways:   

Avoid unnecessary callbacks and improve resolution rates 

Direct customer queries to cost-effective channels like IVR or online self-service 

Prevent fines payable for non-compliance 

Eliminate costs associated with overstaffing 

Watch on-demand: Transform your contact center from a cost center to an intelligence center 

5. Mitigate risk pertaining to compliances  

Scoring each call and flagging breaches of compliance criteria in real-time can help you stay on the right side of the law and avoid penalties from regulatory authorities. At the same time, call monitoring also helps your compliance team focus on high-risk and low-quality calls. 

Speech analytics follows a three-step approach to process, transcribe and analyze unstructured audio data from customers' voice calls.  

1. Data processing  

Speech analytics combines sophisticated artificial intelligence technologies — these include automatic speech recognition (ASR), natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, transcription, tonality-based sentiment analysis and algorithms to process and analyze human speech.  

2. Analysis 

Once the audio data from recorded and live voice calls is processed, speech analytics picks up on customer sentiment — ranging from positive to neutral or negative. For regulatory compliance purposes, it simultaneously masks sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, social security numbers and other personally identifiable information (PII). Keyword spotting can also detect pre-determined words in customer conversations.

3. Generate insights  

The next step is detailed reporting and analysis based on the parameters your team has set — such as call quality, agent performance, sentiment, compliance monitoring and trend identification. Measure these against your customer service KPIs to ensure business goals are being met and to uncover areas of improvement. 

Pro tip: Today, the best speech analytics software can perform automated quality management. It can assess 100% of your conversations, evaluate agent performance based on predefined parameters such as call opening, handoff etc., give individualized improvement suggestions and compare the handling agent’s performance against team benchmarks and industry benchmarks.

Read more: Important call center agent performance metrics to track [+ Optimization Tips]  

Even though speech analytics is a comparatively new technology in the market, it is being increasingly adopted by organizations worldwide owing to the level of insights it can bring into contact center operations. Here are some of the real-life use cases of speech analytics software across multiple verticals: 

1. Technology

Speech analytics helps with streamlining customer support and enhancing product development in the technology industry.  

For example, a software company can use speech analytics to:  

analyze customer support calls 

identify recurring issues and user frustrations 

align your product development to address those concerns better.  

 By identifying these pain points, the company can prioritize improvements that directly address customer concerns, leading to a more user-friendly and competitive product. This approach also reduces support costs in addition to improving customer satisfaction, as fewer customers encounter problems due to proactive software enhancements.   

Download: Tech industry benchmarks report for digital CX & social   

2. Financial services

The financial sector employs speech analytics as the primary layer of security enhancement and fraud detection. FinServ brands can identify unusual or suspicious activities by analyzing the voice patterns of callers.   

For example, if a customer's voice pattern during a high-value transaction call differs noticeably from their previous calls, it could be flagged as suspicious. With real-time analysis of voice calls, fraud prevention and security become seamlessly integrated with your day-to-day operations, while legitimate transactions are allowed to proceed seamlessly.  

Make Compliant Customer-Centricity a Reality for Your Financial Services Business

3. Retail industry  

In the retail sector, call center statistics indicate that more than half of customers prefer voice calls to contact support and resolve their issues. Retail companies often gather lots of data through customer interactions — and analyzing these conversations can provide valuable insights.  

  For example, an apparel store can use speech analytics to: 

Monitor customer service calls and identify common concerns or preferences with products. 

Use this data to optimize their inventory, stocking items that customers usually purchase more 

Train their salespeople to address customer needs better — which helps improve sales and customer satisfaction. 

A guide to retail customer service (+ tips to improve it)

How Sprinklr helped Cdiscount optimize operations with speech analytics

Cdiscount, a prominent French e-commerce company, recognized the need to enhance its customer experience given its vast customer base and extensive transaction volume. They aimed to gain a deep understanding of customer sentiment and feedback at scale, along with assessing the quality of customer interactions across all their channels.  

The challenge: With millions of customer conversations across channels, the company struggled to monitor them and gather useful insights that can help improve their customer service. Their primary goals were to:  

Analyze all customer conversations with no/minimal manual efforts 

Provide real-time sentiment analysis to deliver highly satisfactory service experiences 

Measure interaction quality and identify an action plan to improve the quality of customer service. 

The solution: As a result of this initiative, the e-commerce company chose to try Sprinklr Service — an omnichannel customer service solution with advanced speech analytics capabilities. Through Sprinklr's AI-powered speech and text analytics, Cdiscount was able to: 

Transcribe and analyze voice, chat and social interactions on one platform.  

Access valuable insights into customer concerns like delivery issues, refunds and subscription queries. Provide highly personalized agent training that helps improve their customer service quality.  

Protect brand reputation with real-time alerts flagged sensitive interactions,  

Detect operational issues with Sprinklr AI .  

The result: After implementing Sprinklr Service, the company has seen tremendous improvement in the quality of customer service being delivered due to the amount of monitoring being performed. To mention a few support milestones that they achieved post-implementation:  

Analyzes 100% of voice calls — amounting to about 2M calls or 200k hours of calls every month 

Monitors 75k conversations across channels in real-time 

15% improvement in CSAT since implementation 

I nterested in knowing more? Read the full story here >     

Bottom line   Customers reach out to your business on multiple channels — including voice — and leave insights that should be leveraged to improve customer service performance and ROI. But to do so, you need a single point of truth that unifies all those insights, metrics and trends in one place — so your decision-makers can access them quickly.   

Sprinklr’s AI-driven speech analytics software can help. Powered by the world’s only unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform , this technology helps centralize analytics and insights from scattered, raw voice call data — and leverages advanced capabilities, including:  

Automated speech recognition engine that detects user expressions with a Word Error Rate (WER) of 0.15 (tested)  

Text-to-speech feature that can train the voice of your bot to resemble any human voice  

Custom intents and ASR models that are tailored to industry use cases and support multiple languages 

Speech analytics dashboard with a Tone of Voice widget to identify the prevalent customer intents — and a conversations widget to view and access all of your cases  

AI-led Smart Alerts to indicate breached SLAs and escalations  

Customer sentiment insights are organized by issue type, priority and channel  

AI-powered CSAT prediction to detect fluctuating sentiment during a call and generate insights to boost CSAT 

Sign up for a free, fully functional trial and know how speech analytics in Sprinklr Service can enhance and optimize your customer service operations! 

START MY FREE TRIAL  

Frequently Asked Questions

Key features of speech analytics are as follows: 

Automated transcription and analysis of spoken conversations 

Sentiment and emotion detection 

Keyword and phrase spotting 

Compliance monitoring 

Trend analysis 

Customizable reporting

Yes, speech analytics can effectively detect customer sentiments. It analyzes tone, language patterns and context in spoken conversations to determine whether customers express satisfaction, frustration or other emotions.

In speech analytics, sensitive customer information is handled with rigorous data encryption with data at rest and in transit. Access to this data is restricted to authorized personnel only, and strict compliance with regulations (like GDPR and HIPAA) is maintained to ensure the confidentiality and privacy of customer information.

The frequency of updating speech analytics for relevance depends on various factors, including industry dynamics, customer behavior and business goals. Usually, quarterly or semi-annually updates are recommended to keep the system aligned with changing customer needs and emerging trends. 

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© Copyright 2001-Present. American Rhetoric by Michael E. Eidenmuller All rights reserved. My Favorite Speeches for Rhetorical Analysis: 10 Speeches for Middle School ELA and High School English Teaching rhetorical analysis is one of my absolute favorite units to complete with my students. I love teaching my students about rhetorical strategies and devices, analyzing what makes an effective and persuasive argument, and reading critical speeches with my students. Here is a quick list of some of my favorite speeches for rhetorical analysis. I absolutely LOVE teaching rhetorical analysis. I think it might be one of my favorite units to teach to my high school students. There are just so many different text options to choose from. Here is a list of some of my favorite speeches to include in my rhetorical analysis teaching unit. 10 Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis 1. the gettysburg address (abraham lincoln). Some notable things to mention in this speech include allusion and parallel structure. To make your analysis more meaningful, point out these devices to students and explain how these devices enhance the meaning of the text. Teaching Resource : The Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis Activity Packet 2. Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech (Lou Gehrig) This speech is one that many of my athletes love to analyze, and it is an excellent exemplar text to teach pathos. And like The Gettysburg Address, it is short. This is another speech that you can read, analyze, and even write about in one class period. When I use this speech in my class, I have students look for examples of pathos. Mainly, I have them look at word choice, tone, and mood. How does Lou Gehrig’s choice of words affect his tone and the overall mood of the speech? 3. I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King,  Jr.) In the classroom, it is important to point out the sermonic feel to the speech and also to have your students look for calls to action and pathos. Have your students look for tone, allusions, and word choice to help them notice these rhetoric expressions throughout it. Teaching Resource : I Have a Dream Close Read and Rhetorical Analysis 4. Speech at the March on Washington (Josephine Baker) This is another important speech that held a lot of importance for the changes that needed to be made in America. The speech is a shorter one, so in the classroom, it will not take as long to analyze it, and students can understand the significance of the use of rhetoric in a shorter amount of time than some other speeches. When teaching this speech, I like to remind my students to search for devices that portray an excellent example of the pathos that is so present in this speech. Some of these devices could be mood, repetition, and diction. 5. Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech (Steve Jobs) In class, it is good to have your students annotate and analyze the speech just as they have done for the others. The organization of the speech will help them to notice the similarities and differences between each point Jobs makes. 6. Space Shuttle Challenger (Ronald Reagan) This speech represents a strong sense of pathos as a movement to help the American people cope with loss after the deaths of the astronauts aboard the Challenger. It is another speech that is not too long, so it should not take a long time to both analyze and annotate the entire speech. When teaching this speech in class, be sure to mention how pathos is the driving force behind the speech, through the tone and the diction. How does Reagan use emotion to focus on the astronauts as humans, rather than solely focusing on the tragedy? 7. The Perils of Indifference (Elie Wiesel) This speech is a good one to teach because it both makes students question their own lives, but also how the world works. The speech relies on pathos, and a little ethos too, to get the audience to feel the full effect of the tragedy of the Holocaust and what the speaker went through. It is a long speech so it may take longer for the students to fully grasp all the details that make it such a persuasive speech. When I teach this speech, I like to have students annotate every place they notice an example of pathos, and then have them explain why in their annotations this makes them feel an emotion. The same with the ethos, and then we can further analyze the rest together. 8. 9/11 Address to the Nation (George W. Bush) This speech shows another example of the use of pathos in the midst of a tragedy. The President wanted to show the American people how much he was feeling for those lost in the tragedy of 9/11. It is not a long speech, but the amount of emotion within the words is significant for students to notice. When teaching this speech, it is essential that students look very closely at each part of it, noticing each piece that reveals tone, mood, and other literary devices. How do the different devices add to the pathos of the speech? FREE TEACHING ACTIVITY : September 11 Address to the Nation Sampler Teaching Resource : September 11 Address to the Nation Rhetorical Analysis Unit 9. We are Virginia Tech (Nikki Giovanni) This speech is probably the shortest speech on this list but provides one of the most emotional and pathos-filled rhetoric. This describes another tragedy that is spoken about with pathos to give the audience a safe feeling after such an emotional thing. Students can spend time analyzing the different devices that make the piece so strong in its emotion. In the classroom, make sure your students make a note of the repetition, and what that does for the speech. Does it make the emotion more impactful? How does it make the audience feel like they are a part of something bigger? 10. Woman’s Right to the Suffrage (Susan B. Anthony) This is another short speech that holds a lot of power within it. A lot of students will enjoy reading this to see how much the country has changed, and how this speech may have some part in influencing this change. It is a great speech to help teach logos in the classroom, and it will not take a long time to analyze. Make sure your students notice, and they also understand, the use of allusions within the speech. These allusions help to establish the use of logos, as Anthony wants the use of American historical documents to show how logical her argument is. Ready-For-You Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Unit You might also be interested in my blog post about 15 rhetorical analysis questions to ask your students. Teaching rhetorical analysis and speeches in the classroom is a great way to teach informational text reading standards. Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Resources: These resources follow reading standards for informational text and are ideal for secondary ELA teachers. Rhetorical Analysis Unit with Sticky Notes Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Understanding Rhetorical Appeals\ Rhetorical Analysis Mini Flip Book Join the Daring English Teacher community! Subscribe to receive freebies, teaching ideas, and my latest content by email. I won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Built with ConvertKit Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. SUBSCRIBE NOW Health Tech Health Insurance Medical Devices Gene Therapy Neuroscience H5N1 Bird Flu Health Disparities Infectious Disease Mental Health Cardiovascular Disease Chronic Disease Alzheimer's Coercive Care The Obesity Revolution The War on Recovery Adam Feuerstein Matthew Herper Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu Ed Silverman CRISPR Tracker Breakthrough Device Tracker Generative AI Tracker Obesity Drug Tracker 2024 STAT Summit All Summits STATUS List STAT Madness STAT Brand Studio Don't miss out Subscribe to STAT+ today, for the best life sciences journalism in the industry Trump keeps losing his train of thought. Cognitive experts have theories about why By Olivia Goldhill Aug. 7, 2024 I n a speech earlier this year, former President Trump was mocking President Biden’s ability to walk through sand when he suddenly switched to talking about the old Hollywood icon Cary Grant. “Somebody said he [Biden] looks great in a bathing suit, right? When he was in the sand and he was having a hard time lifting his feet through the sand, because you know, sand is heavy. They figure three solid ounces per foot. But sand is a little heavy. And he’s sitting in a bathing suit. Look, at 81, do you remember Cary Grant? How good was Cary Grant, right? I don’t think Cary Grant — he was good. I don’t know what happened to movie stars today,” he said at a March rally in Georgia. Trump went on to talk about contemporary actors, Michael Jackson, and border policies before returning to the theme of how Biden looks on the beach. advertisement This shifting from topic to topic, with few connections — a pattern of speech called tangentiality — is one of several disjointed and occasionally incoherent verbal habits that seem to have increased in Trump’s speech in recent years, according to interviews with experts in memory, psychology, and linguistics. STAT+ Exclusive Story Already have an account? Log in This article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers Unlock this article — plus daily intelligence on capitol hill and the life sciences industry — by subscribing to stat+.. Totals $468 per year for 3 months, then $39/month Then $39/month Savings start at 25%! Annually per user $300 Annually per user Get unlimited access to award-winning journalism and exclusive events. About the Author Reprints Olivia goldhill. Investigative Reporter Olivia Goldhill works to hold corporations and public bodies to account, with a particular interest in reproductive health, mental health, and psychedelics. STAT encourages you to share your voice. We welcome your commentary, criticism, and expertise on our subscriber-only platform, STAT+ Connect To submit a correction request, please visit our Contact Us page . Recommended Recommended Stories Harris pledges to scrap billions in medical debt with new presidential platform STAT Plus: Physicians weigh in on potential impact of Trump’s ear wound: ‘It’s a matter of inches’ STAT Plus: Health Care's Colossus: How UnitedHealth turned a questionable artery-screening program into a gold mine STAT Plus: Meet the billionaire media mogul who’s taking on the food industry STAT Plus: Boston’s lab market is in rough shape News Analysis: Trump seeks to reclaim spotlight with old playbook of lying, talking smack to media Copy Link URL Copied! Standing next to a spread of coffee, cereal and breakfast meats at his New Jersey golf club on Thursday, former President Trump started what he billed as his second news conference in as many weeks by highlighting increased costs of everyday foodstuffs due to inflation — a major issue for voters in November. Then, he veered off into a rambling 40-minute speech — uninterrupted by media questions — in which he aired old political grievances and debunked conspiracy theories, and lied, repeatedly, about the state of the economy, the safety of the nation and the policies of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against him in the presidential race. Among other things, Trump made the false claim — easily debunked — that Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general, made it legal for thieves in California to “rob a store” if what they take is worth less than $950. Thieves are “going into stores with calculators, calculating how much it is, because if it’s less than $950, they can rob it and not get charged,” Trump said. “That was her that did that.” Trump’s event was part of a new campaign strategy to draw a contrast with Harris, whom the Trump campaign has been hammering for not taking media questions as she rides a wave of Democratic enthusiasm . But it and other recent events have had the additional effect of reviving a much older Trump strategy for drumming up attention — which is essentially for him to stand in front of reporters and talk smack. Trump says he’s ‘entitled to personal attacks’ on Harris in rambling news conference At a news conference at his New Jersey golf club, Trump said he thinks he’s ‘entitled to personal attacks’ on his Democratic rival, saying he’s ‘very angry’ at her because of the criminal charges he faces. Aug. 15, 2024 At his recent events, Trump has delivered a steady stream of insults about the country, about Harris and about the media — which have responded by showering him with headlines. Some of those headlines have been critical, such as an NPR analysis that concluded Trump made at least 162 “misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies” during his hourlong presser at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida last week — or “more than two a minute.” However, many others have simply repeated his most outrageous claims, furthering their reach. The Harris campaign has largely ignored calls for her to speak more often with the media — which has frustrated reporters — and responded instead by mocking Trump’s gaggles as pathetic grabs for the spotlight. Before Trump’s Thursday event, for example, the Harris campaign predicted to the press that the GOP nominee would “deliver another self-obsessed rant full of his own personal grievances to distract from his toxic Project 2025 agenda, unpopular running mate, and increasing detachment from the reality of the voters who will decide this election.” “Tune in for the same old thing,” the message concluded. In another statement after the event, which it called “Our statement on Trump’s ... whatever that was,” the Harris campaign reduced Trump’s long speech into him having “huffed and puffed.” Jennifer Mercieca, a political historian and communications professor at Texas A&M and author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” said the Republican’s latest use of news conferences — and interviews with sycophants such as billionaire Elon Musk, who this week lobbed softball questions to the former vice president on his social platform X — is classic Trump. “It’s information warfare. He wants to flood the zone with his content, he wants us to be talking about what he wants us to talk about, through his frame,” she said. “He cares about dominating — dominating the news cycle — and these press conferences provide him with an opportunity to dominate the news cycle.” Many of Trump’s deviations from the truth stem from his style of political speech , where he routinely speaks in superlatives and employs populist language to cast himself as a strongman leader who can do no wrong. In his version of things, everything he does is the best or the “greatest,” while any plan, policy or output from his opponents is the “worst.” At Thursday’s event, Trump was cheered by a group of supporters — making it feel more like a campaign event than a news one — and took only a handful of questions, some of which seemed teed-up for him, such as one in which he was asked why God decided to save him during the attempt on his life in Butler, Pa. He railed against California and Gov. Gavin Newsom — whom he called “Newscum” — and suggested Harris had destroyed the state. “San Francisco, you know, was a great city 15 years ago. Now it’s considered almost unlivable. You can’t live there,” he said. Column: What Trump’s crowd obsession says about him — and the race for the White House As Kamala Harris and Tim Walz draw larger crowds, Donald Trump’s frenzy shows he’s struggling against his surging opponent and a startling new political reality. Aug. 14, 2024 He repeated a false claim that all new jobs in the country are going to migrants, and said if Harris is elected, the U.S. would have a “1929 crash” — a reference to the Great Depression — and watch Social Security and “probably the nation itself” go bankrupt. “You don’t have to imagine what a Kamala Harris presidency would be,” he said, “because you’re living through that nightmare right now.” He said Harris “is in favor of the death of the American dream,” and repeatedly insinuated that the 2020 election was stolen, which it was not . And as with his other recent media events, he ridiculed the press — at one point alleging without any evidence that members of the “fake news” were destroying old video that would prove Harris has flip-flopped on policy. “All you have to do is go back and look at your tapes — which many have been discarded, discarded by the fake news, because they don’t want people to see what she said just a year ago,” Trump said. Robert C. Rowland, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Kansas and author of the book “The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy,” said Trump has never shown any real capacity to focus on policy, at least not in any detail. The former president has always spoken off the cuff about what threatens his base. That can work, but it has become more difficult lately, Rowland said, as inflation has slowed , food prices have moderated and some wages have been increasing. Making matters worse for Trump is that his ramblings are becoming less coherent than ever. “That tendency to ramble, to elaborate on stream of consciousness and to brag shamelessly — all of those things have become much stronger, and much less coherent than in 2016 and 2020,” Rowland said. “The stream of consciousness has become less clearly connected to real events, and more connected to a sense of grievance and anger.” Mercieca said that politicians answering questions directly from the media is a good thing — an important part of any democracy — but that Trump has managed to flip that on its head, using his lies to undermine the media, people’s trust in the Fourth Estate and “democracy itself.” Trump says whatever he wants — truthful or not, bigoted or braggadocian or cruel — because he knows the media will repeat it, and because he knows he won’t be checked on any of it by his base or the Republican establishment, which has handed the party over to him. To avoid being used, Mercieca said, reporters should write about Trump’s “news conferences” only if he says something newsworthy, not whenever he says anything outrageous — because the latter, at this point, is his standard shtick, a stump speech that’s old news. “When a plane lands safely, that’s not news, because it happens every five seconds,” Mercieca said. “When Trump says something outrageous, that’s not news, because it happens every five seconds.” More to Read Goldberg: Trump turned politics into reality TV. Now Harris is the show to watch Aug. 13, 2024 Trump, railing about crowd sizes, falsely claims a photo from a Harris rally was fake Aug. 12, 2024 Donald Trump reportedly used a slur against Kamala Harris in private conversations Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox three times per week. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Kevin Rector is a legal affairs reporter for the Los Angeles Times covering the California Supreme Court, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and other legal trends and issues, and chipping in on coverage of the 2024 election. He started with The Times in 2020 and previously covered the Los Angeles Police Department for the paper. Before that, Rector worked at the Baltimore Sun for eight years, where he was a police and investigative reporter and part of a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in local reporting. More recently, he was part of a Times team awarded the 2023 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished Reporting of Congress for coverage of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. He is from Maryland. More From the Los Angeles Times World & Nation Bibles, cryptocurrency, Truth Social and gold bars: A look at Trump’s reported sources of income Aug. 17, 2024 Beyond ‘childless cat ladies,’ JD Vance has long been on a quest to encourage more births Walz’s handling of unrest after George Floyd’s death coming under renewed scrutiny Los Angeles County voters are lukewarm on tax hike for homeless services, poll says Election 2024 Entertainment Newsletters Photography AP Buyline Personal Finance AP Buyline Shopping Press Releases Israel-Hamas War Russia-Ukraine War Global elections Asia Pacific Latin America Middle East Delegate Tracker AP & Elections 2024 Paris Olympic Games Auto Racing Movie reviews Book reviews Financial Markets Business Highlights Financial wellness Artificial Intelligence Social Media Highlights: Harris to hold rally in North Carolina, highlights from Trump’s NJ news conference With consumer goods placed on tables near him, Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump National Golf Club, Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Bedminster, N.J. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson) Copy Link copied Today’s live coverage has ended. See what you missed below and find the latest on the 2024 presidential election at apnews.com. Donald Trump held a press conference Thursday in Bedminster , New Jersey in which he said he thinks he’s “ entitled to personal attacks ” on his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris, saying he’s “very angry” at her because of the criminal charges he faces. Earlier, Harris joined President Joe Biden to announce a deal to lower drug prices , their first joint speaking appearance since she replaced him at the top of the Democratic ticket, as they both struggle to convince voters that costs will trend down after years of above-normal inflation. What to know: Harris is set to unveil her economic agenda. Her upcoming speech in North Carolina will preview policies around price gouging on groceries and cutting other costs, as her campaign zeroes in on food and housing prices. Trump addressed inflation and the economy Thursday. The Republican presidential nominee blamed inflation directly on government spending, sidestepping some of the more complex realities of global supply chain interruptions during the pandemic and global oil price spikes after Russia invaded Ukraine. Vance and Walz plan to debate later this year. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance have agreed to debate each other on Oct. 1, setting up a matchup of potential vice presidents as early voting in some states gets underway for the general election . Trump warns that anti-Israel protestors will descend on next week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Trump said that “hundreds of thousands of people that are opposed to Israel” are planning to protest around the events. “There will be no jihad coming to America under Trump,” he said, to applause from the crowd. Trump called Democrats “a radical group of people,” again criticizing Harris for not attending Netanyahu’s recent speech before a joint session of Congress, traveling to Indiana instead . Ohio Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, also did not attend the speech, stumping in Ohio and Virginia. Harris, however, met with the prime minister privately. Of Trump, Adelson said there’s just one president in her lifetime that fully shares the values she’s been talking about. “That president is Donald Trump,” she said, to cheers from the gathered crowd, adding that it was a “promised kept” when Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, as well as recognizing the Golan Heights and withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. Trump is being introduced by GOP mega-donor Miriam Adelson, an Israeli-born, naturalized U.S. citizen who earned a medical degree from Tel Aviv University and founded drug abuse treatment and research centers in Las Vegas and Tel Aviv. In her remarks, Adelson talked about the impact of the Israel-Hamas war, saying that “Israel is being demonized,” adding that, “in too many parts of the world, it is open season against the Jews, and antisemitism becomes acceptable.” Miriam is the wife of the late Sheldon Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate considered one of the nation’s most powerful Republican donors, who died in 2021 . The Adelsons donated $30 million to Trump’s campaign in the final months of the 2016 race, and Miriam Adelson is behind some major spending aimed at boosting Trump’s current campaign. Preserve America super PAC, a pro-Trump group backed by her, has reserved $45 million worth of advertising through the end of August. As president, Trump awarded Miriam Adelson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom - the highest honor the nation reserves for a civilian — in 2018. Trump repeats false claims that Minnesota law requires tampons in boys’ bathrooms CLAIM: Democratic vice presidential nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz “signed a bill that all boys bathrooms in Minnesota will have tampons.” FACTS: Walz signed a bill in 2023 that requires Minnesota public schools to make tampons available to “all menstruating students.” The law does not mention gender. The relevant section of the law reads: “A school district or charter school must provide students with access to menstrual products at no charge. The products must be available to all menstruating students in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12 according to a plan developed by the school district. For purposes of this section, ‘menstrual products’ means pads, tampons, or other similar products used in connection with the menstrual cycle.” That means a school system could theoretically opt to place dispensers in all bathrooms. But there is no legal requirement that tampons be distributed in boys’ bathrooms — because a system could satisfy the law with dispensers in girls’ restrooms. Former President Donald Trump falsely claimed he won Pennsylvania in the 2020 election. He did not. CLAIM: “I won Pennsylvania and I did much better the second time. I won it in 2016, did much better the second time. I know Pennsylvania very well.” THE FACTS: Trump did win the state in 2016, when he beat Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the presidency. But he lost the state in 2020 to President Joe Biden, a Pennsylvania native. According to the official certified results Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris received 3.46 million votes, compared to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence with 3.38 million votes. Trump is arguing that his presidency brought more national unity than he gets credit for and that he is not actually as brash or bombastic as he often seems on the campaign trail. “I think I’m doing a very calm campaign,” he said after being asked about some criticism from Republicans who want him to focus less on personal attacks. “Some of you will say, ‘he ranted and raved,’” Trump said, referring to journalists. “I’m a very calm person, believe it or not,” he said. He pointed to a criminal justice overhaul enacted when he was president. He did it with Democratic support."When you do that, that’s a big step,” he said, describing a negotiation process involving unusual allies. “Our country was coming together. Success will bring our country together again.” Trump says he’d welcome Nikki Haley on the campaign trail if she wanted to stump for him. Asked if he would want Haley to rally support for him, Trump said, “I’d love to have her go around and campaign.” “I fought Nikki very hard,” Trump said. “I beat her in her own state by legendary numbers. I get along with her fine.” The former South Carolina governor, who was the last remaining GOP opponent against Trump in the primary campaign and served two years as his administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, shuttered her campaign after Trump’s big wins on Super Tuesday. She didn’t endorse Trump immediately but has since and spoke at last month’s RNC in Milwaukee in support of his candidacy. Otherwise, she has not campaigned for him. Trump says he feels that he’s earned the right to take on his political opponents in a personal way, citing what he termed the way the justice system has been “weaponized” against him. It’s a theme Trump often hits in his rally speeches, citing the legal cases against him and characterizing them as politically motivated attacks by Democratic prosecutors and the Biden Justice Department. On Thursday, asked if he felt he needed to run a more disciplined campaign in the closing months ahead of Nov. 5 and pivot away from making personal attacks on Harris, Trump said, “I think I’m entitled to personal attacks, I don’t have a lot of respect for her, I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president.” Trump went on to say of Harris that “people don’t know who she is,” explaining that he doesn’t typically use his opponent’s last name because, “You can ask the man on the street, what’s the last name of Kamala?’ Nobody knew.” Trump’s been encouraging supporters to vote for him early, but he again called for “one-day voting” in elections. “We should have one-day voting, paper ballots,” Trump said, in part of a response to a question about credit card debt. Saying that large numbers of early voting is “ridiculous,” Trump also called for “voter ID, and we should have proof of citizenship” for voting in U.S. elections. Trump claimed the U.S. could suffer an economic collapse akin to the 1929 crash that preceded the Great Depression if Harris wins the election. CLAIM: “We’re going to have a crash like the 1929 crash if she gets in.” THE FACTS: Countering Trump’s gloomy predictions, the economy has shown recent signs of strength and stability. On Thursday, the S&P 500 jumped 1.6%, its sixth gain in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also increased, as did the Nasdaq composite. Recent economic reports show that shoppers increased their retail spending last month and fewer workers sought unemployment benefits. Fears that the economy was slowing emerged last month following a sharp drop in hiring and higher unemployment rates. But those worries were assuaged earlier this month when a better-than-expected jobless numbers led to Wall Street’s best rally since 2022. Trump was asked if he had reflected on his assassination attempt and why he felt his life had been saved. Calling it “a miracle” that he wasn’t more seriously harmed, Trump said that “God has something to do with it. ... And maybe it’s, we want to save the world.” At the Republican National Convention, Trump spoke in depth about the shooting and said that he wouldn’t make a habit of talking about it, although he has done so frequently at campaign events since. Trump made it more than 45 minutes into his remarks before bringing up his grievances over the 2020 election. He again implied — falsely — that the election was rigged as he bragged about getting “millions more votes” than he got in 2016 plus “other votes that we can talk about at a different day.” Indeed, turnout in 2020 was considerably higher than in 2016. Trump’s national vote total jumped from just shy of 63 million to 74.2 million. But Joe Biden got almost 81.3 million votes, up from Hillary Clinton’s 65.9 million votes four years earlier. Much of Trump’s remarks have been aimed to focus on the economy, and — more than 40 minutes into his event — he made reference to the food items and household goods set up in a display behind him. “I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time,” Trump said, noticing the cereal box. “I’m going to take them back to my cottage.” At about 45 minutes in, Trump started taking questions. But there have been some stem-winding moments, reminiscent of his rallies, where remarks can run an hour and a half. Trump is promising to eliminate all incentives and mandates that push the U.S. auto market toward electric vehicles. But he’s insistent that he does not oppose EVs — just that he wants market forces and consumer choices to guide the economy. Trump is going after remarks that Harris made in a Senate confirmation hearing in 2018. He said that Harris had compared U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the Ku Klux Klan. In 2018, Harris, then a senator, aggressively questioned acting Director Ronald D. Vitiello of ICE about a comment he had made on social media that compared the Democratic Party to the KKK. After a heated exchange during the hearing, Harris asked Vitiello, “Are you aware that there’s a perception that ICE is administering its power in a way that is causing fear and intimidation — particularly among immigrants and specifically among immigrants coming from Mexico and Central America?” Donald Trump is 30 minutes into what his campaign billed as a news conference, but he has yet to take questions. He stuck largely to prepared remarks on inflation but has stretched his remarks with various broadsides and anecdotes. Trump misstated Harris’ role in overseeing border security during his press conference Thursday in Bedminster, N.J. CLAIM: “She was the border czar but she didn’t do anything. She’s the worst border czar in history ... She was the person responsible for the border and she never went there.” THE FACTS: Biden tapped Harris in 2021 to work with Central American countries to address the root causes of migration and the challenges it creates. Illegal crossings are one aspect of those challenges, but Harris was never assigned to the border or put in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees law enforcement at the border . Trump is hammering Harris as a politician who wants to “defund the police.” His characterization of her previous statements is not accurate. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Harris expressed praise for the “defund the police” movement and questioned whether money was being effectively spent on public safety. But she has not advocated abolishing police forces, the insinuation behind Trump’s line of attack. Harris did an interview in June 2020 with the “Ebro in the Morning” radio show in New York noting, “This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities.” Her comments were part of a wider critique that police departments have to confront more social problems because other public programs — education, social services, mental health care — are often not funded well enough. The Biden administration tried to overhaul policing, but the legislation stalled on Capitol Hill, and Biden ultimately settled for issuing an executive order . The administration also pumped more money into local departments. The pivot to criticizing the Biden-Harris administration on immigration has been a theme of many of Trump’s speeches and events during this campaign cycle, and it’s one the GOP nominee is again renewing during his Bedminster remarks. After listing off programs he said Harris would threaten as president — saying “she will destroy Medicare, she will destroy Social Security” — Trump then turned back to immigration concerns, overstating the number of people who have come across the U.S.-Mexico border during Biden’s time in office. It’s a regular feature of modern U.S. elections for Republican nominees to cast Democratic nominees for various offices as “too liberal” or even “socialist.” Trump has elevated that line of attack on Harris. “She wants to change a free-enterprise-type country into a communist-type country,” he insisted. Trump’s argument depends heavily on certain positions Harris took as a U.S. senator from California and candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Harris once co-sponsored Sen. Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” Senate proposal, but she has backed away from that since the 2020 campaign. The Biden-Harris campaign in 2020 advocated for a “public option” plan to be added to existing private health insurance exchanges set up under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. That policy would not, as Trump claims, end private health insurance or private health care. Trump is warning that his Democratic opponent would upend not only the U.S. economy but also American relationships abroad. “If Kamala wins the election, the worst is yet to come,” Trump said, claiming that Harris is “far more radical” than Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders and “wants to change a free enterprise type country into a communist type country.” On foreign relations, Trump warned that “you’ll have a real problem in the future because people don’t respect her in the world.” Turning to the grocery items that are surrounding him, Trump quoted various inflation statistics for various staples of U.S. household diets. But he blasted Harris’ talk of taking on price gouging, including on food, calling it “communist price controls” and “the Maduro plan,” a nod to the authoritarian socialist leader of Venezuela. “She wants price controls,” he said. “They don’t work. ... They lead to food shortages.” He’s adding references to higher car insurance premiums and fuel costs. So far, Trump has not introduced any of his proposals to confront the situation. He’s opting instead for blaming Harris, because she is Biden’s top lieutenant, and recycling his sweeping predictions that a President Harris would tank the economy. Trump is opening his latest news conference with renewed attacks that Harris “broke the border and broke the world.” He is highlighting her role as vice president casting the tie-breaking Senate vote on major spending initiatives for the Biden administration. As the economy takes center stage in the presidential contest, Trump is blaming inflation directly on government spending — sidestepping some of the more complex realities of global supply chain interruptions during the pandemic and global oil price spikes after Russia invaded Ukraine. Harris, in turn, has focused the blame on corporate greed, glossing over the effects of considerable stimulus spending by the U.S. and other governments around the world. Trump has started a news conference outside at his Bedminster resort in New Jersey, where he is speaking surrounded by groceries set on tables. The former president and Republican nominee is trying to step up his attacks on Vice President Harris, shifting blame for rising prices from Biden to her as she becomes her party standard-bearer. Trump delivered what was billed as a major address on the economy a day earlier in North Carolina but he spent most of the 75-minute speech on his usual grievances. The news conference marks another opportunity for him to focus his argument on what many political observers believe can be a weak spot for Harris. For her part, Harris is planning an address on the economy Friday in North Carolina. At a rally yesterday in North Carolina that his campaign billed as a big economic address, Trump made little effort to stay on message. He mixed pledges to slash energy prices and “unleash economic abundance” with familiar off-script tangents. He aired his frustration over the Democrats swapping the vice president in place of Biden at the top of their presidential ticket. He repeatedly denigrated San Francisco, where Harris was once the district attorney, as “unlivable” and went after his rival in deeply personal terms, questioning her intelligence, saying she has “the laugh of a crazy person” and musing that Democrats were being “politically correct” in trying to elevate the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president. The former president will meet members of the press at his New Jersey golf club at 4:30 p.m. ET for his second news conference in as many weeks as he adjusts to a newly energized Democratic ticket. He’ll be flanked by popular grocery store items as he seeks to highlight the rising cost of food. The event comes one day after the Labor Department announced year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July — the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading. But consumers are still feeling the impact of higher prices and the Trump campaign is hoping to capitalize on those frustrations. ▶ Watch Trump’s New Jersey news conference live Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has released a video of her chatting with her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as the pair discuss their upbringings and tastes. Running just under 10 minutes and filmed last week when the pair made a joint campaign appearance in Detroit, the video recalls a similar one then-candidate Joe Biden had with former President Barack Obama during the 2020 campaign. Walz likens the election to a football game, saying it’s “halftime in America” and he feels like the campaign is trailing by a touchdown, adding, “I kind of like the idea of being a little bit behind.” Harris, who’s played up her running mate’s former career coaching high school football responds, “I’m looking at Coach Walz right now.” The vice president asks her running mate about liking what he describes as “white guy tacos,” which he says are ground beef and cheese but no sauce — prompting Harris to note that she’s grown chili peppers at the vice president’s residence. He tells her about his love of Bruce Springsteen and Harris talks about growing up with the music of Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis and John Coltrane and her love of Prince. She says she’s “more of a hip hop girl” while her husband, Doug Emhoff, is more partial to Depeche Mode. Harris talks about supporting policies that don’t “let people fall through the cracks” and trying to unify rather than divide the country. In the weeks since launching her presidential campaign, Harris hasn’t sat for a major media interview — making her chat with Walz one of the closest approximations. Former President Donald Trump will speak at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday flanked by popular grocery store items as he seeks to highlight the rising cost of food. Staff were seen laying out a selection of items, including tubs of instant coffee, sugary breakfast cereals, pastries and fruit, on tables behind the lectern where he’ll speak at a news conference Thursday afternoon. The event comes one day after the Labor Department announced year-over-year inflation reached its lowest level in more than three years in July — the latest sign that the worst price spike in four decades is fading. But consumers are still feeling the effect of higher prices — something Trump’s campaign is banking on to motivate voters this fall. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have appeared together for the first time since she replaced him as the Democratic presidential nominee. Biden and Harris spoke at an event at a Maryland community college to talk about the administration’s work to lower the cost of prescription drugs. They also praised each other. Harris, who spoke first, said it’s her “eternal and great honor” to serve with Biden, whom she called an “extraordinary human being and American and leader.” Biden said of Harris, “She’s going to make one hell of a president.” President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris arrive to speak about their administration’s efforts to lower prescription drug costs during an event at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Md., Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough) Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling is touting extensive officer training as a critical part of the city’s preparations for the Democratic National Convention next week. Roughly 50,000 people are expected in Chicago for the convention, including thousands of anti-war activists who plan to demonstrate near the United Center where Vice President Kamala Harris will officially accept the party’s nomination. Snelling maintained that the Chicago Police Department — working alongside federal law enforcement agencies — is prepared to deal with large crowds and any security concerns. “There’s a possibility that things could take a turn. Something could happen that we don’t expect,” Snelling told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “We know that our officers can respond in a professional manner with training behind them. They’ll be more effective in decision making. And then the response becomes greater and better.” FILE - Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign event, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023, in Columbia, S.C. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed paperwork Thursday, June 20, 2024 to get on the ballot for the November election in swing-state Pennsylvania, the state’s election office said. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard, File) Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential campaign suffered a blow this week when a judge in New York invalidated his petition to put his name on the state ballot, a ruling that could potentially create problems for the candidate as he faces challenges elsewhere. Kennedy’s attorneys filed an appeal Wednesday to a ruling this week from Justice Christina Ryba, who said the residence listed on his nominating petitions was a “sham” address he used to maintain his voter registration and to further his political aspirations. The judge ruled in favor of the challengers, who argued Kennedy’s actual residence was the home in Los Angeles he shares with his wife, the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” actor Cheryl Hines. New York is just one of more than a half-dozen states where challenges have been made to Kennedy’s petitions from Democrats and their allies. Some of the challenges allege he falsely listed the same New York address that was the subject of litigation in that state, or that there were problems with petition signatures. Donald Trump is asking the judge in his New York hush money criminal case to delay his sentencing until after the November presidential election. In a letter made public Thursday, a lawyer for the former president and current Republican nominee suggested that sentencing Trump as scheduled on Sept. 18 — about seven weeks before Election Day — would amount to election interference. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche wrote that a delay would also allow Trump time to weigh next steps after the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, is expected to rule Sept. 16 on the defense’s request to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July presidential immunity ruling . “There is no basis for continuing to rush,” Blanche wrote. Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio speaks at a campaign event, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024, in Byron Center, Mich. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio) To attendees gathered at a VFW post in New Kensington on Thursday in western Pennsylvania, Vance lauded Trump for putting “in place real policies that really benefit the veterans who served in our military.” As he opened his remarks, Vance asked attendees to hold a brief moment of silence to commemorate the deaths of 13 service members killed in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport as the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan three years ago, a move by Biden he said occurred “in the most disgraceful way,” also laying blame on Harris. Vance was introduced by several veterans now serving in Congress, including Florida Reps. Brian Mast and Mike Waltz. Pat Harrigan, a Republican running for the U.S. House in North Carolina, levied harsh criticism on Tim Walz’s record, calling the Minnesota governor “a coward who betrayed his men at their greatest time of need.” Since Harris named Walz - a 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard - as her running mate, Vance has repeatedly questioned his rival’s military credentials, accusing him of retiring to avoid deploying with his unit and saying Walz misled voters about serving in a combat zone, when he was deployed to Italy in 2003 in a supportive, not combat, role. As he ramped up for a congressional bid in 2005, Walz’s campaign in March issued a statement saying he still planned to run despite a possible mobilization of Minnesota National Guard soldiers to Iraq. According to the Guard, Walz retired from service in May of that year. In August 2005, the Department of the Army issued a mobilization order for Walz’s unit. The unit mobilized in October of that year before it deployed to Iraq in March 2006 . “Kamala Harris, showing terrible judgment, has decided that her way out of this political problem is to claim that she and Tim Walz are the victims,” Vance said, referencing comments by the campaign pushing back on Republicans’ criticism. “I think the victims are the veterans who are having their service disparaged because the guy who wants to be their vice president is lying instead of telling the truth.” Vance said he became a member of the VFW Post at which he spoke, saying he’d be back in the future to “have some pancakes, maybe a cigarette, whatever.” Vice President Kamala Harris has a perceived advantage over former President Donald Trump on several leadership qualities such as honesty, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds, although Americans are slightly more likely to trust Trump on the economy and immigration. Nearly half of Americans say that “committed to democracy” and “disciplined” are attributes that better describe Harris. About 3 in 10 say these qualities better describe Trump. About 4 in 10 say Harris is someone who “cares about people like you” while about 3 in 10 say that about Trump. About 4 in 10 say “honest” better describes Harris and 24% say that quality better describes Trump. ▶ Read more about the AP-NORC poll Vice President Kamala Harris plans to hold a rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday in the same venue where Republicans gathered for their national convention last month. Harris will hold the event at the Fiserv Forum while the Democratic National Convention is underway about 100 miles to the south in Chicago, the Harris campaign said Thursday. The stop will mark the third time since Harris become the Democratic presidential nominee that she’s come to swing state Wisconsin, a nod to the importance of the state. She held her first rally of the presidential campaign outside Milwaukee and last week stopped in Eau Claire, in western Wisconsin, with her newly selected running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. The campaign didn’t say if Walz would be with Harris on Tuesday. The rally is scheduled during the second day of the Democratic National Convention. Ohio Sen. JD Vance, running mate to Republican Donald Trump, planned to be in Milwaukee on Friday to speak at the Milwaukee Police Association. That would be his second visit to Wisconsin as the vice presidential nominee. He was in Eau Claire last week at the same time as Harris and Walz. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Ohio Sen. JD Vance have agreed to debate each other on Oct. 1, setting up a matchup of potential vice presidents as early voting in some states gets underway for the general election. CBS News on Wednesday posted on its X feed that the network had invited both Vance and Walz to debate in New York City, presenting four possible dates — Sept. 17, Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8 — as options. Walz reposted that message from his own campaign account, “See you on October 1, JD.” The Harris-Walz campaign followed up with a message of its own, saying Walz “looks forward to debating JD Vance — if he shows up.” Vance posted on X that he would accept the Oct. 1 invitation. He also challenged Walz to meet on Sept. 18. And she’s zeroing in on corporate price gouging. Her campaign says Harris plans to push for a federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries. She’s putting particular emphasis on rising meat prices, which she says account for a large part of rising grocery bills. Year-over-year inflation has reached its lowest level in more than three years. But many Americans are still struggling with food prices, which remain 21% above where they were three years ago. Republican Donald Trump has been pointing to inflation as a key failing of the Biden-Trump administration and its energy policies. Former President Donald Trump invited reporters to his New Jersey golf club Thursday for his second news conference in as many weeks as he adjusts to a newly energized Democratic ticket ahead of next week’s Democratic National Convention. Trump will meet the press as he steps up his criticism of Vice President Kamala Harris for not holding a news conference or sitting down for interviews since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign and endorsed her to replace him. ▶ Read more about Trump’s scheduled news conference The Biden administration is taking a victory lap after federal officials inked deals with drug companies to lower the price for 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs, but shared few immediate details about the new price older Americans will pay when they fill those prescriptions. White House officials said Wednesday night they expect U.S. taxpayers to save $6 billion on the new prices, while older Americans could save roughly $1.5 billion on their medications. Those projections, however, were based on dated estimates and the administration shared no details as to how they arrived at the figures. Nonetheless, the newly negotiated prices — still elusive to the public as of early Thursday morning — will affect the price of drugs used by millions of older Americans to help manage diabetes, blood cancers and prevent heart failure or blood clots. The drugs include the blood thinners Xarelto and Eliquis and diabetes drugs Jardiance and Januvia. Medicare spent $50 billion covering the drugs last year. In his first solo appearance as the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz warned cheering union members Tuesday that Donald Trump would wage war on working people and threaten Medicare and Social Security as he kicked off a five-state fundraising swing. He spoke of a grim future for unions if Trump and Ohio Sen. JD Vance are elected, describing a nation where bargaining rights, overtime pay and other protections would be scuttled. He said Trump and Vance have “waged war on working people.” However, Trump also has courted union support. When he accepted the Republican nomination, he said that he would rescue the auto industry from what he called “complete obliteration.” Read more about Walz’s 5-state fundraising blitz Whatever possessed Vice President Kamala Harris to pick Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, it probably wasn’t a desire to inflame arguments about apostrophes. But it doesn’t take much to get grammar nerds fired up . “The lower the stakes, the bigger the fight,” said Ron Woloshun, a creative director and digital marketer in California who jumped into the fray on social media less than an hour after Harris selected Walz last week to offer his take on possessive proper nouns. The Associated Press Stylebook says “use only an apostrophe” for singular proper names ending in S: Dickens’ novels, Hercules’ labors, Jesus’ life. But not everyone agrees. While there is widespread agreement that Walz’s is correct, confusion persists about Harris’ vs. Harris’s. Dreyer’s verdict? Add the ’s. ▶ Read more about the political world’s latest grammar debate Vice President Kamala Harris talks to the media, Friday, June 25, 2021, after her tour of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Central Processing Center in El Paso, Texas. Harris visited the U.S. southern border as part of her role leading the Biden administration’s response to a steep increase in migration. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin) Vice President Kamala Harris was never the “border czar,” as her critics claim. Biden administration officials say she was assigned to tackle the “root causes” of migration from the Central American nations of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that were responsible for a large chunk of border crossers. A review of Harris’ work on immigration reveals a record that is more nuanced than the one presented by her critics or allies. It also provides insights into how Harris — who took over as the Democratic standard-bearer when Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month — might tackle one of the nation’s most vexing concerns. ▶ Read more about Harris’ work on immigration The Democratic National Committee will offer a schedule of trainings, panels and other programming it’s calling “DemPalooza” during the party’s convention in Chicago next week. The name is a play on the Lollapalooza music festival Chicago plays hosts to every year. “DemPalooza” events will range from trainings on how to use organizing tools to polling briefings and skills workshops. The DNC says these programs are part of its and the Harris campaign’s efforts to organize and reach voters in an evolving media environment and provide opportunities for Democrats to take what they’ve learned back to the communities that will decide the November presidential election. President Joe Biden leaves after speaking about prescription drug costs at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., Dec. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is taking a victory lap after federal officials inked deals with drug companies to lower the price for 10 of Medicare’s most popular and costliest drugs, but shared few immediate details about the new price older Americans will pay when they fill those prescriptions. ▶ Read the full story here . Former President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower in New York on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. Trump is expected in court for an important hearing in his New York hush-money criminal case. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston) Donald Trump has lost his latest bid for a new judge in his New York hush money criminal case as it heads toward a key ruling and potential sentencing next month. In a decision posted Wednesday , Judge Juan M. Merchan declined to step aside and said Trump’s demand was a rehash “rife with inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” about his ability to remain impartial. It’s the third time Merchan has rejected such a request from lawyers for the former president and current Republican nominee. They contend the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter works as a political consultant for prominent Democrats, including Kamala Harris when she sought the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination. Harris is now the party’s nominee against Trump. The judge’s daughter, Loren Merchan, met Harris occasionally in 2019 but never “developed an individual relationship” with her, consulting firm founder Mike Nellis told the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, in a letter Tuesday. The firm, Authentic Campaigns Inc., has not worked for Harris’ campaign, President Joe Biden’s now-ended reelection bid or the Democratic National Committee in the 2024 election cycle, Nellis said. Kamala Harris Addresses Economy In Speech—Here’s What To Know About Her Policy Agenda Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled more details about her economic agenda in a speech Friday in North Carolina, proposing an “opportunity economy” as the Democratic nominee focused on lowering the price of groceries and prescription drugs and addressing the housing crisis with an eye on bolstering the middle class. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at Wake Tech Community College in Raleigh, N.C., on Aug. 16. Grocery Prices: The candidate would work in her first 100 days to help Congress pass a national ban on “price gouging” for food and groceries, as well as give the Federal Trade Commission and prosecutors authority to go after companies they determine price gouge, support small businesses in the industry, take a closer look at mergers between big grocery companies and “aggressively” investigate price-fixing in meat supply chains specifically. Housing Costs: Harris wants to provide $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time home buyers and is calling for the creation of three million new housing units within the next four years, proposing a tax credit for developers who build starter homes and investing $40 million in an innovation fund to tackle the housing crisis. Rental Costs: Harris would also expand a tax credit for housing developers who build affordable housing rental units, and is calling on Congress to pass legislation that would stop predatory investors who buy up rental homes and collude with each other to raise rental prices. Child Tax Credit: Harris proposed giving families a $6,000 tax credit for newborns in their first year of life, and restore a pandemic-era tax credit of $3,600 per child for middle and lower-class families. Taxes: Harris also wants to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for workers in lower-income jobs, which would cut taxes by up to $1,250, and has previously said she would continue President Joe Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on American households earning $400,000 or less annually, and does support raising taxes for high earners and corporations, according to The New York Times. No Tax On Tips: Harris has separately endorsed a plan to get rid of taxes on tips for hospitality and service workers, echoing a proposal by former President Donald Trump—which has been criticized by some experts—though a campaign official told CNN tips would still be subject to payroll taxes, and would include an income limit and guardrails to prevent people like hedge fund managers from taking advantage of the policy. Prescription Drug Prices: Harris proposed a $35 cap on insulin and capping out-of-pocket expenses on prescription drugs at $2,000 per year on Friday, also saying she would speed up Medicare negotiations on the price of prescription drugs—after the Biden administration announced a deal lowering costs on 10 medications—and crack down on anti-competitive practices in the pharmaceutical industry that cause higher prices. Healthcare: The Harris campaign also announced her intention to work with states to cancel Americans’ medical debt, and she proposed expanding subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans that would save health insurance customers an average of $700 on their health insurance premiums. Paid Leave: Harris has not released a specific paid leave proposal, but she has previously co-sponsored 12-week paid leave legislation, Politico notes, with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., telling the outlet, “I absolutely believe that when they are in office, we will get a paid leave bill done finally.” Minimum Wage: Harris called for raising the minimum wage in a Las Vegas speech earlier in August, but her campaign has not specified how high she believes it should be raised. Fed Independence: Harris has vowed to maintain the Federal Reserve’s independence after Trump said he believed “the president should have at least [a] say” on the Federal Reserve’s decisions, with Harris telling reporters, “The Fed is an independent entity and as president I would never interfere in the decisions that the Fed makes.” Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here . Crucial Quote Harris said Friday she’d be “laser focused on creating opportunities for the middle class” if elected president, calling for “an economy where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed.” “Now is the time to chart a new way forward, to build an America where everyone’s work is rewarded and talents are valued, where we work with labor and business to strengthen the American economy, and where everyone has the opportunity not only to get by, but to get ahead,” the vice president said. What To Watch For Harris said in her North Carolina speech that she intends to unveil more economic proposals in the weeks ahead. The vice president has still not issued a full policy platform or unveiled proposals for policy issues beyond the economy, and those are also expected in the near future. How Do Harris’ Policies Compare With Biden’s? Harris’ economic policy agenda is largely in line with Biden’s economic platform, with some tweaks to emphasize causes that are more important to her, like the child tax credit. “Same values, different vision,” a Harris aide told The Guardian. “She’s not moving far away from him on substance, she will highlight the ones that matter most to her.” The initial plans from Harris’ campaign also suggest the vice president plans to be more aggressive in her policy approaches than Biden, however, as polls have suggested voters hold dim views of how the president has handled the economy. While Biden has also opposed price gouging, Harris’ proposal to enable the FTC and U.S. attorneys to go after companies that hike up prices goes beyond what the president has proposed, Politico notes , and her proposed $40 million investment in the housing crisis is double the amount the Biden administration spent. Harris’ economic agenda released Friday didn’t go fully in depth about her proposals, which The New York Times reports is by design. The Times reported prior to Harris’ speech that the Harris campaign has adopted a “strategic vagueness” for her economic proposals, believing that being more of a “blank slate” will help ward off attacks and attract more support from business groups. How Do Harris’ Policies Compare With Trump’s? Trump’s economic agenda is largely focused on raising tariffs on imported goods, which Harris has said she opposes. The ex-president has also called for cutting taxes and regulations in hopes of lowering inflation, including lowering the corporate tax rate, and has encouraged increasing oil production in order to lower energy prices. In addition to his “no tax on tips” proposal that Harris has also endorsed, Trump has called for ending taxes on Social Security benefits, which Harris has not yet responded to. Experts believe the ex-president’s proposal could speed up Social Security and Medicare becoming insolvent, with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projecting exempting taxes on benefits would result in Social Security and Medicare receiving $1.6 trillion less in revenue between 2026 and 2035. The Trump campaign opposed reports of Harris’ economic proposals Wednesday, with spokesperson Steven Cheung saying in a statement, “Kamala Harris can’t hide from her disastrous record of skyrocketing inflation … Americans are struggling under the Biden-Harris economy, and now she wants to gaslight them into believing her bald-faced lies.” 42%. That’s the share of voters who trust Harris more to handle the economy, according to a Financial Times/University of Michigan poll released Sunday, versus 41% who trust Trump more. That’s down from Trump holding a six-point lead over Biden in July, though the poll also showed 42% believe a Trump presidency would leave them better off financially, while only 33% said the same for Harris. Key Background Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in July after Biden stepped down suddenly from the presidential race, following weeks of pressure over mounting concerns about his mental fitness. While the vice president has quickly garnered Democrats’ support and risen in the polls, Harris has released few concrete policy proposals in the first few weeks of her campaign—drawing some criticism as a result—with her speech Friday expected to be the most substantive remarks she’s given on policy so far. Her focus on the economy comes as polling has repeatedly shown it’s the most important issue to voters in this election cycle, with the vice president hoping to attract support amid low approval ratings for Biden’s handling of the economy. Harris’ speech also comes days after news that inflation fell in July to its lowest point in more than three years, with federal data released Wednesday showing inflation at 2.9% in July, the first time it’s been below 3% since March 2021. Further Reading Editorial Standards Reprints & Permissions Join The Conversation One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.  Forbes Community Guidelines Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space. In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil. 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Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service. 218 IMAGES Speech Analysis Vocab Speech analysis • Eine Redeanalyse in Englisch schreiben How to Write a Speech Analysis (With Examples) What is the Role of Speech Analysis In Understanding Consumer Behavior Speech Analysis Report 💌 Rhetorical analysis speech outline. Introduction to Rhetorical COMMENTS How to Write and Format a Speech Analysis Essay (With Example) Learn how to write and format a speech analysis essay with tips and examples. See how to use rhetorical strategies, quotations, and references to evaluate a speech by Elie Wiesel. Speech Analysis #1: How to Study and Critique a Speech Studying other speakers is a critical skill, one of the 25 essential skills for a public speaker. The ability to analyze a speech will accelerate the growth of any speaker. The Speech Analysis Series is a series of articles examining different aspects of presentation analysis. You will learn how to study a speech and how to deliver an effective ... Speech Analysis Learn how to evaluate a speech based on its purpose, audience, and rhetorical choices. See examples of speech analysis and tips on how to write your own. How to Conduct a Speech Analysis and Present It Like a Pro Learn what speech analysis is and how to do it for any speech. Find out the factors to consider, such as objective, audience, content, style, delivery, and visuals, and how to write a critique. How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Learn how to write a rhetorical analysis essay that examines how a text persuades its audience. Find out the key rhetorical concepts, such as appeals, claims, supports, and warrants, and see examples of rhetorical analysis. How to Analyse your Audience for a Speech Learn how to identify and adapt to different types of audience for your speech or presentation. Find out how to use questions, research, and setting to gauge the audience's interest, knowledge, and expectations. How to Write a Critical Analysis of a Speech Learn how to critically analyze a speech based on its objective, audience, logos, pathos and ethos. Find out how to use a rubric and write an essay to evaluate a speech. PDF Rhetorical Analysis of a Speech Essay # 1: Rhetorical Analysis of a Speech. Length: 1000-2500 words (please single space). Task:. Using Roberts-Miller, Selzer, and Campbell as guides (and also as professional rhetorical sources to quote when needed), write an essay that rhetorically analyzes and criticizes (evaluates) one of the following speeches: Ted Kennedy's ... 10.4 Analyzing a Speech Body First Main Point: Analysis: To help us understand smart dust, we will begin by first examining what smart dust is. Dr. Kris Pister, a professor in the robotics lab at the University of California at Berkeley, originally conceived the idea of smart dust in 1998 as part of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Audience Analysis: A Guide for Speakers Audience analysis is the process of learning who your audience is, what they are thinking, and how you can best reach them. Thoughtful audience analysis is one of the best habits you can develop as a speaker. It will help you understand your audience's perspective and provide maximum value for them. If done well, your audience analysis will ... Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments A lesson plan for grades 9-12 that teaches students how to identify and explain the rhetorical strategies of speeches. Students will analyze a historic and contemporary speech as a class and write an essay on a famous speech of their choice. Speech Analysis Speech analysis is the process of analyzing the speech signal to obtain relevant information of the signal in a more compact form than the speech signal itself. Given the previous review of the speech production mechanism and its relation to the most important characteristics of speech, the goal of speech analysis is to obtain some or all of ... Video: Speech Analysis Short Summary. The Introduction contains a hook to grab the audience's attention, a preview of what will be talked about in the speech, why that topic is important, and why the audience should ... Speech Analysis: Evaluation Forms, Tools, Resources Learn how to study and critique a speech with a free speech evaluation form and other tips. Explore different speech evaluation templates and resources from the blogosphere and Toastmasters. A 9-Step Practical Guide On How To Analyze A Speech In its simplest form, speech analysis or speech interpretation can be said to be the process of extracting important pieces of information that are contained in a speech.When carrying out speech analysis, there is usually a need to take note of some essential and necessary components of the Speech. These include; 1. Examples of speech analysis Learn how to analyze speeches using various methods and terms with examples from different topics, speakers and nationalities. Explore study guides for speeches by Pankhurst, Gandhi, King, Malcolm X, Rudd and Watson. PDF How to analyse a speech? - Most elements in a speech have at least one of these four functions: 1. To establish contact with the audience. 2. To place emphasis on certain ideas. 3. To present ideas understandably or memorably (illustration, memory aid). 4. To convey a certain image of the speaker (self-presentation). Writing a speech analysis Speech Analyzer HyperWrite's Speech Analyzer uses AI to identify and summarize the key themes and messages in speeches. It is useful for students, researchers, journalists, and anyone who needs to understand and summarize speeches quickly and accurately. A Summary and Analysis of Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' Speech Martin Luther King then comes to the most famous part of his speech, in which he uses the phrase 'I have a dream' to begin successive sentences (a rhetorical device known as anaphora ). King outlines the form that his dream, or ambition or wish for a better America, takes. His dream, he tells his audience, is 'deeply rooted' in the ... Analysis of Speeches Learn how to analyze speeches by studying the examples of others. Find out what I like and what I suggest for improvement in each speech, arranged alphabetically by speaker's last name. What is Speech Analytics? Types, Uses and Benefits 1. Technology. Speech analytics helps with streamlining customer support and enhancing product development in the technology industry. For example, a software company can use speech analytics to: analyze customer support calls. identify recurring issues and user frustrations. align your product development to address those concerns better. Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century by Rank Speech Bank: Top 100 Speeches: Great New Speeches: Obama Speeches: GWB Speeches: Movie Speeches: Rhetorical Figures: Christian Rhetoric: 9/11 Speeches: News and Research: For Scholars: Rhetoric Defined: Corax v. Tisias: Plato on Rhetoric: Aristotle on Rhetoric: Comm Journals: Comm Associations: Cool Exercises: Rodman & de Ref: Speech Quiz #1 ... My Favorite Speeches for Rhetorical Analysis: 10 Speeches for Middle Teaching rhetorical analysis is one of my absolute favorite units to complete with my students. I love teaching my students about rhetorical strategies and devices, analyzing what makes an effective and persuasive argument, and reading critical speeches with my students. Here is a quick list of some of my favorite speeches for rhetorical analysis. Tic Tacs, tampons, turmoil: What Trump's 'economy' speech actually An analysis of Donald Trump's speech indicates that more than 80 percent of it was about subjects other than the economy. Analysis of Trump's Speech Finds Signs of Cognitive Decline The post Analysis of Trump's Speech Finds Signs of Cognitive Decline appeared first on Futurism. A group of experts are saying that Trump's speech patterns have deteriorated in recent years, a big ... Experts: Trump speech patterns hint of potential cognitive decline In a speech earlier this year, former President Trump was mocking President Biden's ability to walk through sand when he suddenly switched to talking about the old Hollywood icon Cary Grant ... News Analysis: Trump seeks to reclaim spotlight with lies, smack talk News Analysis: Trump seeks to reclaim spotlight with old playbook of lying, talking smack to media ... whatever that was," the Harris campaign reduced Trump's long speech into him having ... Highlights: Harris to hold rally in North Carolina What to know: Harris is set to unveil her economic agenda. Her upcoming speech in North Carolina will preview policies around price gouging on groceries and cutting other costs, as her campaign zeroes in on food and housing prices.; Trump addressed inflation and the economy Thursday. The Republican presidential nominee blamed inflation directly on government spending, sidestepping some of the ... Analysis: Trump's fury over Harris' switch with Biden is increasingly Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN 8 minute read ... when the ex-president mocked his own aides for demanding that he give an "intellectual" speech on the economy and instead went his own way ... Kamala Harris' Economic Platform: What We Know As She Delivers Speech Harris' speech also comes days after news that inflation fell in July to its lowest point in more than three years, with federal data released Wednesday showing inflation at 2.9% in July, the ... assignment essay homework paper phd report review speech thesis