Whether the opening remarks are successful or not greatly affects the success or failure of the speech. The basic requirement of opening remarks is conciseness and attractiveness.

There are eight common types of opening remarks.

1. Story style

A story-based prologue begins a speech with a story or event closely related to the topic of the speech. This story or event should have people and details.

Such as Sichuan Zhou Guangning's "Save the Children" prologue:

Xinmin Evening News published on May 24th last year revealed the fact that a fourth-grade pupil had to take his parents' shelled eggs to school every day. On one occasion, parents forgot to peel eggs and almost choked their children to death. He looked around at the eggs and didn't know how to eat them. As a result, I had to bring back the original eggs. Asked why he didn't eat eggs, the answer was simple: "Why didn't you sew?"

Zhou Guangning introduced the theme of his speech to the audience through a news report that primary school students can't peel eggs: the whole society should pay attention to cultivating children's ability to live independently and the courage to overcome difficulties.

Story-based opening remarks are easy to attract the attention of the audience, and the requirements for language skills are relatively simple, so beginners are particularly suitable for choosing story-based opening remarks. For example, in a lecture at a university in Hunan, the topic of the lecture was "When I walked into the university gate", and a college student began his speech like this;

Everyone will remember a legend: there is a magical cave in Arabia, which contains 40 gold and silver treasures and pearls and agates stolen by thieves. As long as you master a spell, the cave door will open automatically. One day, a man named Alibaba came across this spell. He opened the door of this treasure and became a very rich man.

The speaker started with a well-known Arabic legend, and compared the door of university to the door of wealth of knowledge, which achieved good speech results.

Story-like opening remarks should avoid complicated plots and lengthy language.

2. Make it clear from the beginning

Cut to the chase, explain the intention or theme of the speech in concise language, and then demonstrate and elaborate in the main part. This way of opening remarks can be called opening remarks.

The prologue is suitable for more formal and solemn application speech occasions, which requires the speaker to have good generalization ability. Han Jian, a famous badminton player, adopted the opening remarks in his report speech:

Dear leaders and comrades:

I have been engaged in badminton since I was 17 years old, and it has been 14 years now. In this 14 year, I have both successful experiences and failed lessons. I have the joy of becoming a world champion and the pain of failure. Today, I don't want to show off how to "go through five customs and kill six generals", but I just want to talk about "going to Maicheng" seriously.

humorous

Humor is a kind of speech with humorous language or examples as the opening remarks, which can make the audience play the role of speaker easily and happily.

1965165438+10 In October, American friend Ms. anna louise strong celebrated her 80th birthday in China, and Premier Zhou Enlai specially held a grand birthday party in the Shanghai Exhibition Hall. Premier Zhou's opening remarks are:

Today, we celebrate the 40th birthday of our good friend, American woman writer anna louise strong. The participants in the birthday party are puzzled by the new term "40 years old". ) In China, the word "gong" is twice as much as the quantifier after it. 40 kilograms equals 80 kilograms, and 40 years old equals 80 years old.

Premier Zhou's clever explanation caused a burst of laughter from hundreds of birthday girls, and Ms. Strong shed tears of joy.

Humorous opening remarks should avoid vulgar jokes or vulgar language. For example, a grassroots cadre reports to young workers:

"Today, I want to brag about this situation. What happened? That's the lice on the bald man's head-the obvious thing. What blind son of a bitch dares to say bad? However, some guys can't say it well. He doesn't want to do anything all day, just want to put the ticket in his pocket. I don't even want to eat pork. I want to eat snakes, fish, bastards and the like. Smoking is a cigarette butt, what else do you need' three fives' (three five cards) and' Marlboro' cards (Marlboro cards)? Tea belongs to Longjing and Tiger Wells, so you can't drink dog wells and cat wells? Also scold your mother all day! " You heartless bastard, pick up a bowl of meat and put down your chopsticks to scold your mother. "

There is nothing wrong with this cadre's speech, which also caused a burst of laughter from the audience. But this kind of laughter is precisely the audience's ridicule of the speaker's rude language. This so-called "humor" not only damages the value of the theme of the speech, but also devalues the speaker's personality image in the eyes of the audience.

Step 4 quote

The opening remarks can also directly quote other people's words to pave the way for your speech and set off the theme.

For example, the opening remarks of the speech entitled "Let life shine in pursuit" are:

Benjamin Mays, an American black educator, has an intriguing famous saying: "The tragedy of life lies not in not achieving your goal, but in not achieving what you want to achieve." This statement makes sense.

As a material cited in the introduction, there are generally two basic conditions:

First, the cited materials have strong generality, persuasiveness and appeal.

Secondly, the quoted materials come from authorities, celebrities or people familiar to the audience, and the speaker uses the authority effect or the relatives and friends effect to attract the attention of the audience.

In some cases, the speaker doesn't even need to explain the source of the quoted material. The opening remarks of the speech entitled "Don't forget the national humiliation and revitalize China", which won the third prize in the Hunan University Student Speech Competition, did not explain the source of the cited materials:

I remember a famous saying: "a person's trauma will only be painful for a while, but a nation's shame is enough to remember the Millennium."

Step 5: suspense style

Suspense can stimulate the curiosity of the audience and urge them to enter the speaker's theme framework as soon as possible.

At the beginning of the speech, an old gentleman first asked the audience, "Where do people start?" The audience answered one after another, some said that people started with their feet, and some said that people started with their brains. The atmosphere was very active. The old man finally answered himself, "I think some people start with their asses." The whole audience burst into laughter, and the old man explained, "Some cadres don't go deep into reality and sit in the' conference sea' all day. That ass is suffering. It's enough to bear the weight of the upper body and rub the bench. In this way, isn't the ass getting old first? "

Before attacking bureaucracy, the old man created the first suspense with a question, which aroused the interest of the audience. Then use the audience's unexpected answers to create a second suspense, so that the audience can wait for the solution of the suspense in laughter, thus effectively controlling the audience's thoughts and emotions.

Physical suspense is a special form of suspense prelude. Before giving a speech to college students, a Japanese professor didn't rush to announce the theme of his speech in front of the college students who were chattering and talking in Kan Kan. Instead, he took a black stone from his pocket. "In Japan, only I have this." When the students craned their necks to see what was going on, the professor explained that this stone was brought back from the Antarctic expedition and began his lecture on Antarctic expedition.

There are two points to pay attention to when using suspense prologue: First, don't turn common-sense questions that everyone knows into suspense; Second, don't deliberately suspense the audience. All these may cause the audience to dislike the speaker.

6. Strong style

Power or prologue is to exaggerate the content to be discussed moderately, or to render it from an angle that ordinary people have never imagined, in order to attract the attention of the audience.

A broadcasting company in the United States began a popular science lecture to promote the role of radio: "Do you know that the tiny sound of a fly walking on the glass window of new york can be spread to Central Africa by radio, or it can be amplified into an amazing sound like Niagara Falls?" This broadcast speech chose an angle that ordinary people can't imagine and won't put into practice to publicize the special effects of broadcasting, which constituted a powerful opening remarks.

Some typical but not universal phenomena in life can often be good materials for powerful opening remarks. For example, a medical graduate student's speech:

Student:

Have you ever heard of such news? China's traditional medicine, which was produced and developed in China, has surpassed China in some aspects after their research! Some Japanese scholars even said that once we completely surpass China in this respect, we should rename "Chinese medicine is Chinese medicine" as "Oriental medicine". How do you feel when you hear this news? Aren't you surprised? Aren't you anxious? Don't you think our "national treasure" is facing severe challenges?

However, it should be noted that the powerful opening remarks should not be blindly exaggerated, so as not to cause mysterious and shocking negative effects.

7. Lyric style

Lyric prologue refers to the form of poetry and prose, which leads the audience to the realm of poetic speech through gorgeous rhetoric and surging passion.

Lyrical prologue is very common in speech contests, but some ingenious applied speeches often use lyrical prologue. For example, former Secretary of State edward everett, who is almost as famous as Lincoln in the history of American speeches, delivered a speech at the inauguration ceremony of the National Martyrs Cemetery in Gettysburg on June 1863+0 19:

Standing under the clear sky, overlooking the vast fields that have been quietly resting after years of hard work, the majestic Allegheny Mountain stands in front of you, and the graves of brothers are at your feet. I really dare not use my insignificant voice to break the infinite silence arranged by God and nature. But I have to finish the task you gave me, so I ask you to give me tolerance and sympathy.

Everett's speech brought the audience into a beautiful, magnificent, solemn and solemn atmosphere from the beginning.

Lyric prologue is easy to fall into vagueness and abstraction, so beginners should choose carefully. For example, the following lecture exercise-"When I walked into the university campus":

I am a cow. When I walked into the university gate, I saw a green pasture. I am a boat. Into the university gate, parked in a refueling port. I am an ore. When I walked into the university gate, I was thrown into a burning furnace. I am a swallow with cow milk. When I entered the university gate, it became the pillar of my wings. I am an unformed statue. When I entered the university gate, I came to the sculpture field where sculptors lived in groups.

I am who I am. When I entered the university gate, my life began a new voyage!

This speech exercise seems to be fluent in wording and sentence making, but as a speech, the audience feels unsatisfactory. The reason is that the lyric style of prose poetry only brings a vague metaphor and symbol to the audience, lacking the distinct theme intention and vivid detail description that the speech should have, so that the full text is more suitable for "seeing" than "listening". Like this exercise, it is a common problem for some beginners, especially college and middle school students, to blindly pursue rhetoric and ignore content.

Step 8 chat

Chat-style opening remarks gradually introduce the theme of the speech through topics unrelated to the theme. Its main purpose is to quickly establish friendly relations with the audience at the opening stage and eliminate barriers or grade differences. This is often used in the speeches of some celebrities and authorities.

For example, 1934 Gorky's speech at the All-Soviet Writers' Congress:

Comrades, I think when Gorky's name is mentioned here, some adjectives are often added: "great", "tall" and "long". (Laughter)

Gorky's modest and humorous opening remarks greatly enhanced his feelings with other writers.

65438-0986, Mr. Tang, a famous literary critic in China, gave a lecture somewhere in Shaanxi. Mr. Tang said at the beginning:

..... I haven't lectured for a long time, and I speak with a southern accent. I come from Zhejiang, grew up in Shanghai and came to work in the north. Southerners don't admit that I speak Mandarin; North Korea denies that I can speak Mandarin. I am homeless!

Mr. Tang's self-deprecating opening remarks have no scholar's shelf, and the audience admire Mr. Tang's character and knowledge even more in laughter.

Chat prologue is not suitable for speech contests and other occasions, nor for young speakers, because it shows the unique identity of the speaker after all, and it is easy to cause nonsense in the speech.

The above eight kinds of opening remarks can't sum up the colorful opening remarks. There is often overlap between opening types. The speaker can elaborate and create various opening remarks according to time, place, people, events and feelings.

The following types of prologue are prohibited: wordiness, apology, attack, ostentation and vulgarity.

Second, six effective concluding remarks

Napoleon said: "The key to a war is often the last five minutes." The most touching part of a speech is often the ending. Without a good ending, a speech is like a flower without fruit.

There are six common ending types.

1. climax style

The sublimation of the theme and the rendering of the emotional atmosphere all reach the best at the end, which is a climax.

1946, after Mr. Li Gongpu and Mr. Wen Yiduo were killed one after another, more than 6,000 people in Chongqing held a grand memorial meeting. Wen Li Peng, the third son of Mr Wen Yiduo, aged 14, made a speech on behalf of his family. Wen's mourning speech was repeatedly interrupted by the cries, applause and slogans of the masses. Wen Li Peng finally said:

My father was killed. Some people spread rumors that it was killed by the producers of * * *, by local people and by my father's friends. I wonder why they are not happy to say that my brother killed my father! (The crowd was extremely angry and the applause was deafening. My father has been dead for half a month, and the murderer has not been caught. Now I ask everyone to help me, and we ask to cancel the secret service organization! (The roar of "We demand the cancellation of the Secret Service organization" broke out under the stage)

At the end of Wen's speech, the anger of the masses was mobilized to the highest degree. "Putting the climax last" is a structural principle that most lecture platforms consciously or unconsciously follow.

summary

Summary is to summarize and summarize the whole speech at the end.

For example, a speech entitled "If I were the Personnel Director" (the speaker Zhang Xuequn) put forward the speaker's views and ideas on the reform of the personnel system, and finally ended with a summary:

We should recruit talents wisely, use talents wisely and help talents appropriately. This is the reform implementation plan after I became the personnel director.

The summary ending is easy for beginners to master, but it is necessary to avoid forming a simple repetition of the previous speech.

3. The lingering style

Someone once asked Lin Zexu, who had been an honest official all his life, why didn't he leave some money for future generations? Lin Zexu replied, "If children and grandchildren are like me, what do they need money for? My children and grandchildren are not as good as me. Why do you want to save money? " Lin Zexu answered tactfully, with endless aftertaste, which made people feel his moral principles and values of life in repeated aftertaste. This is a typical rhyming question and answer method.

The rhyming ending of the speech is also to express the theme in implicit or leeway language, so that the audience can be inspired by the thinking after the speech or complete the theme conclusion of the speech.

A middle-aged intellectual woman in a city poured out all kinds of troubles she encountered in the pursuit of her career at the Women's Day symposium on March 8, and finally ended her speech with one sentence: "I am not the only one in this world who has these troubles!" The speaker did not analyze the social reasons that hinder the success of women's career, nor did he propose measures to solve these problems. However, her concluding remarks attracted the attention of the female representatives present and the attention of the leaders of the municipal party Committee.

1924 Mr. Lu Xun delivered a speech entitled "Before Talents" at the Alumni Association of the Middle School Attached to Beijing Normal University. The end of the speech is:

Compared with genius, soil certainly lacks teeth, but it is not an indomitable spirit, and I am afraid it is not easy to do it; However, relying on people's efforts is more sure than a talented genius like Kong. This is the greatness of soil and the hope. Besides, there are rewards. For example, when a good flower comes out of the soil, people who look at it will appreciate it gladly, and the soil can appreciate it gladly, without the flower itself, which is refreshing-if there is a soul as the soil.

Mr. Lu Xun used vivid metaphors to let young people draw their own conclusions: efforts should be the soil for cultivating talents.

4. Motto

A word with concise language, rich connotation and educational significance is a motto. At the end of the motto, the speaker's thoughts or conclusions on the theme of the speech are condensed into one or two aphorisms, which deeply enlighten and educate the audience.

Patricia Henry was a famous politician during the American Revolutionary War. 1775 On March 23rd, Henry delivered a speech called "the fuse of the American War of Independence" in Virginia. The last part of the speech expressed the lofty integrity of a great patriot with shocking momentum and resolute words:

It's no use running away from reality. Gentlemen will shout: peace! Peace! ! But where is peace? In fact, the war has already started, and the strong winds in the north will send the sonorous echoes of weapons into our eardrums. Our compatriots are already on the battlefield, why are we standing here watching? What do gentlemen want? What do you want to achieve? Life is so precious? Peace is so sweet? Even being enslaved in chains? Almighty God, stop! I don't know what others will do in this struggle. As for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Henry's battle slogan "Give me liberty or give me death" became a famous battle motto during the American Revolutionary War.

Creating aphorisms is not necessarily the patent of writers or thinkers. As long as the speaker can deeply grasp the theme of the speech and convey rich ideas through extremely concise sentences, he can create his own motto. For example, the famous badminton player Han Jian's speech entitled "Stand up in the face of failure" ended with his own dialectical understanding of failure and success:

I know that I may fail miserably in the future, but I am not afraid, because those who are afraid of failure will never succeed!

5. Summoning style

At the end of the call, people are called to action with inspiring words. Some campaign speeches end with "Please vote for me", which is a typical call.

The action that the audience is asked to take can be a concrete action or an abstract and generalized behavior. For example, at the end of Mr Wen Yiduo's speech entitled "The Last Speech":

We should be prepared to step out of the gate with the front foot like Mr. Li, not with the back foot! (Long and warm applause)

Mr. Wen Yiduo called on people to be ready for sacrifice at any time with the metaphor that "the hind foot is not ready to cross the gate again".

Huang's speech entitled "Sweep away Ah Q Doctrine" ended more abstractly:

Students and friends, for the prosperity of our motherland, for the prosperity of our nation, let's completely eliminate Ah Q doctrine!

6. Congratulatory style

In various ceremonies, ceremonies and meetings, the end of eulogy is very common. Congratulatory endings can be roughly divided into three types: I wish success, happiness, health, friendship and luck. For example, when Commander-in-Chief Zhu De celebrated his 60th birthday in 1946, Zhou Enlai's birthday speech ended like this:

People wish you a long life! The whole party wishes you Yongkang!

Generally, there are fixed procedures at the end of eulogy, which is relatively easy to master, but it is not easy to have new wishes on the premise of fitting the scene. For example, 1972 When President Nixon visited China, he made a toast at the thank-you banquet:

..... Please join me in raising a glass to Chairman Mao, Premier Zhou, the people of our two countries, our future generations and the peaceful and harmonious legacy left by our generation. Cheers! Cheers!

Nixon's toast was not only a general courtesy tribute to the leaders of China and the people of China, but also stood at the height of historical peace and spoke highly of the efforts and contributions made by the leaders of the two countries, including himself, for future generations and peace.

The above six types of endings cannot cover all the endings of a speech, but no matter which type of endings, their purpose is only one: to impress the audience.