13.10 Conclusions

When I teach public speaking, I use a form to record my reactions to the different aspects of a student’s speech: how well the intro catches my attention, the strength of the evidence, the main points in the body of the speech, my thoughts about the conclusion, etc. I’m usually busy writing notes in different spaces on that form, so I’m often listening more intently than I’m watching the speaker. There have been many times when I’m taking notes about the body of the speech, and waiting for the student to transition into the conclusion. Instead, they just stop speaking, I look up from my notes to try to figure out what’s going on, and realize that the speech is done. I’m often surprised, and say to myself, “Oh! I guess that’s it then; speech over.” If you have to say “End of story,” like Mr. Mohra did when giving his witness statement in the original Fargo movie, something’s wrong.

What does this tell you?

The lesson I learn from awkward moments like these is that conclusions are the hardest part of the speech to write. I’m waiting to hear a conclusion, and the student must think that their last points are a conclusion, but to me they sound like part of the body of the speech.

If your audience can’t tell the difference between the body of your speech and its conclusion, you don’t have a good conclusion. If the audience’s only clue that it’s time to clap is your silence, you could have stopped your speech at any point. It’s not absolutely necessary to use the words “in conclusion,” but there should be a shift in what you’re saying and why. It may be a challenge to say something new in your conclusion, but you should at least say something different from what you said in the body of your speech.

What is the purpose of a conclusion? If you’re following the deductive model, the purpose is simply to repeat what your audience has already heard, but this isn’t the best you can do. (It’s like the director of a movie coming out at the end and saying “Here’s the whole plot of the movie again,” which sends the message “I assume you have a bad memory and need help remembering what you just saw.”) Better ways to end a speech include:

• Giving one more insight into the ramifications of your topic, something your audience may not have thought about before.
• Making a call to action: if your audience is motivated to act, what should they do?
• Restating your theme.
• Making statement about the urgency of the situation, or one last appeal to your audience’s emotions (Chapter 8)
• If you started your speech with a story, conclude by telling how the story ends.

Since this chapter is about the importance of being able to write a good speech, and how to do it, you could turn the chapter itself into a “speech about the importance of speeches.” How might I end such a speech?

As an example of the first technique — offering an insight about the ramifications of the topic — I could conclude by telling the story of the man who saved public television with one speech. The man was Fred Rogers, host of the children’s television show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, the year was 1969, and the context was a hearing of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications about the proposal by President Richard Nixon to cut funding to public television. Mr. Rogers testified to Congress, asking them to give $20 million to PBS instead of cutting it. Speaking for less than seven minutes, Rogers was so effective that the committee chair, Senator John Pastore, said, “Looks like you just earned the $20 million.” Nixon not only increased the fund to $22 million, but appointed Rogers as chair of the White House Conference on Children and Youth the next year. To see how much difference one speech can make, watch the video.