Analysis of Donald Trump's Inaugural Address

On 20 January 2017, Donald John Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States. He takes office at the end of the most acrimonious campaigns in recent history, and with Americans deeply divided, as witnessed by the protests that erupted across the country (and the world) the next day. Embed from Getty Images […]
Some "very" good advice

“Very” is a dangerous word. Mark Twain once gave the following advice to writers: Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. American novelist and columnist Florence King was of the same opinion: ‘Very’ is the most useless word in […]
Barack Obama's Farewell Speech

Yesterday, 10 January 2017, President Barack Obama gave his farewell speech in Chicago. It is the end of an era. Obama brought intelligence, dignity and character to the White House. Embed from Getty Images As the first black President, Obama broke a barrier that seemed impenetrable not so long ago. In so doing, he not only faced a […]
RHETORIC Game App: Thanksgiving / Black Friday Sale!

In a previous post, I announced that Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game™ is now available as an app. You can read that post here. For now, you can play RHETORIC in English, Spanish, French, German and Catalan. We will add more languages in the future. And, we will soon be releasing our first major upgrade to […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 246) – Garr Reynolds

“Humans are completely incapable of reading and comprehending text on a screen and listening to a speaker at the same time. Therefore, lots of text (almost any text!), and long, complete sentences are bad, Bad, BAD.” Garr Reynolds
The Holy Grail of Good Design

When it comes to slide presentations, I am a believer in good design, even though I am not a design specialist. Oh, I know a few things that you can do with software like PowerPoint and Keynote, but most of it is pretty basic. Good design is more than just flashy technology up on the screen; […]
Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 245) – Aristotle

“An emotional speaker always makes his audience feel with him, even when there is nothing in his arguments; which is why many speakers try to overwhelm their audience by mere noise.” Aristotle
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: An analysis of their speeches

The 2016 Presidential election in the United States is over and Donald Trump has emerged as the winner. As I write this post, the votes are still being counted in some states, but the results will not affect the outcome; Trump will be the 45th President of the United States. The campaign between Donald Trump and […]
Don't join Toastmasters? Seriously?

While skimming through my Twitter feed the other day, a Tweet caught my eye. It contained the link to a post on Entrepreneur by Jonathan Li entitled 10 Mistakes Successful Speakers Never Make Again. I was intrigued. I thought, I make mistakes; I should read it. So I did. Most of what I read in the post—which was […]
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