How to write a five-star commencement speech

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 26, 2026 I blogged about how On May 2nd actor Hugh Jackman gave the commencement speech at Ball State University. When I was looking up the YouTube video for his speech to put in that post, I found a five-minute video from the Obama Foundation on May 21, 2026 titled How to write the perfect commencement speech. It has seven top tips from his presidential speechwriters:

 

Match the energy of the day!

Know your audience

Say something only you can say

Pick one big idea

Honor your audience’s accomplishment

Tell the truth

And (no surprise!) End With Hope

 

But I believe a perfect speech is an asymptote – a limit that can be approached but not quite reached. On February 20, 2011 I blogged about Effort and an asymptote.

 

The cartoon was assembled from a podium and star at OpenClipArt, and a speaker modified from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

On May 2nd actor Hugh Jackman gave the commencement speech at Ball State University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Katherine Hill in the Ball State Daily News on May 2, 2026 titled ‘You are living your own life; no one can take that away from you’: Hugh Jackman addresses Ball State graduates. Another article by Ella Chakarian in Fast Company on May 4, 2026 is titled Hugh Jackman tells new grads the most ‘painful lesson’ he’s learned. She presented some quotes:

 

“ ‘My life has not gone the way I thought it would,’ Jackman said. ‘A lot of the best things that have ever happened to me have been mistakes or failures or random classes I joined to get me across the finish line.’

 At the end of his speech, Jackman told the graduating class to ‘throw away perfect’ and to ‘embrace that even the mistakes may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us.’

 ‘Our minds, our brains, they want a plan,’ he said. ‘They have all sorts of good reasons to follow a path because it makes sense. But if we’re listening, if we open our hearts, that voice inside is trying to show us something a little more magical, a little more mysterious [and] surprising.’ “ 

You can watch the entire 19-minute speech posted at C-SPAN on May 3, 2026 and titled Hugh Jackman Commencement Address.

 

A cartoon of Mr. Jackman as The Wolverine came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

The Spanish Agency for Medicine and Medicine Products issued a report on Homeopathy and Homeopathic Products which said homeopathy was ineffective

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Homeopathy has been touted for treating fear of public speaking or stage fright. On April 13, 2024 I blogged about An extremely peculiar homeopathic remedy for stage fright.

 

There is an article by Edzard Ernst on April 22, 2026 titled “Homeopathy and Homeopathic Products: Evaluation of Evidence on Their Efficacy and Safety” by the Spanish Agency for Medicine and Medicine Products. He described the Spanish language content of that report as follows:

 

“The Spanish Agency for Medicines and Medical Products (AEMPS) has just published a comprehensive technical report entitled “Homeopathy and Homeopathic Products: Evaluation of Evidence on Their Efficacy and Safety,” which categorically concludes that there is no scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of homeopathy as a therapeutic tool. After a systematic review of scientific literature and evaluations by state agencies internationally, the report states that the observed effects are comparable to placebo.

The report, which analyzed 64 systematic reviews published since 2009, highlights that most studies suggesting benefits from homeopathy have low methodological quality, often invalidated by small samples, short follow-up periods, or biases in randomization. Furthermore, it notes that as the quality and rigor of clinical trials increase, the supposed effect of homeopathy diminishes until it disappears entirely.”

That conclusion of ineffectiveness is not new. On January 6, 2016 I blogged about how According to Consumer Reports, homeopathy is an emperor with no clothes.

The sugar pills were cropped and flipped from this image at Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

A recent book on good writing with 36 ways to improve your sentences

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an excellent 200-page 2026 book by the husband and wife team of Neal Allen and Anne Lamott titled Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences. Google Books has a preview up to page 23. Each rule is discussed for a few pages by both Neal and Anne.

 

Their rules are:

 

Use Strong Verbs

Replace weak verbs, which are imprecise (‘walked,’ ‘stood’), with vivid verbs, which are specific (‘trudged,’ ‘malingered’).

 

Question ‘Being’ and ‘Having’

The verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ are the weakest of all; by nature static, they slow a narrative.

 

Keep It Active

Pay attention to words that end in -ed or -en and are preceded by a form of ‘to be,’ and watch out for -ing endings; try flipping the sentence to get it more active.

 

Stick with ‘Said’

When attributing a quote, ‘said’ is the default verb; the reader’s attention is on who said it, not how it was said.

 

Don’t Show Off

Let others be erudite; your job is to befriend your reader.

 

Prefer Anglo-Saxon Words

Favor shorter, punchier Anglo-Saxon words over fancy, abstract Latinate words.

 

Sound Natural

Unless you’re writing a technical manual, keep your language conversational and use modern speech patterns.

 

Trust Your Voice

Your natural voice has its own tempo, pitch, ease, and overall sound. Let it ring out.

 

Question Transitions

Transitional phrases (‘then,’ ‘next,’ ‘when,’ ‘meanwhile,’ ‘however’) are not needed unless a gap in time or logic has opened.

 

Link Ideas with Semicolons

If two sentences are tightly linked and one progresses from the other, consider separating them with a semicolon.

 

Drop ‘Very’ and Other Crutch Words

The word ‘very’ seldom improves a sentence.

 

Jettison {All Those} Tiny Words

Remove the clutter of short words (pronouns, prepositions, connectors).

 

Dress Up ‘This’

Pronouns are hard for readers to follow, especially ‘this’ and ‘it.’

 

Remove the Boring Stuff

Spend less time defending what you’ve written, and more time revealing the truth.

 

Refresh Your Words

Don’t repeat a distinctive word unless you must.

 

Know Your Words Inside and Out

Examining the etymology of words makes them more concrete and useful.

 

Stay In Tune

The better word is both precise and unnoticed. A thesaurus is your book of magic spells.

 

Find the Hidden Metaphor

Metaphors mirror humdrum experiences through elegant comparison. In the hands of an expert, they both illuminate and offer depth of field.

 

Twist Cliches

We already think in cliches; you owe it to your reader’s search for novelty to remove or deconstruct your hackneyed phrases.

 

Knock Three Times

For a series of terms to land, you usually need three.

 

Stretch Out

Long sentences require attention to detail, conjunctions, and rhythm – and a payoff at the end.

 

Short Sells

Interrupt lyrical or other long passages with an abrupt, short sentence.

 

Give Your Sentence a Finale

Even if you begin your sentence with a punch, end it stronger.

 

Crystallize Your Dialogue

Dialogue needs to be as zippy and economical as the rest of the book.

 

In Fiction, Archetype Your Characters

Below the human stereotypes are common psychological patterns that readers expect.

 

Show, Then Tell

Start with the concrete – what happened – and after, when appropriate, riff on your thoughts about consequences.

 

Give Them a Hero’s Welcome

Start off by telling the reader who to root for.

 

Once Is Enough

Keep your first description of a character or place distinctive enough that you aren’t tempted to add to it later.

 

Smell the Roses

Sight is only one of the five senses; let your readers enjoy touch, hearing, smell, and taste.

 

Don’t Filter

Don’t point out that someone is thinking, opining, or experiencing what is already happening on the page.

 

Trust Your Reader

Your reader will fill in the gaps; you only need to be complete enough.

 

Layer Your Sentences

Sentences convey more than information; their other purposes must be tended.

 

Write the Hard Stuff

Don’t shy away from the big mysteries of life.

 

Break the Rules

A rule may be of universal use, but need not be universally used.

 

Finish the Damn Thing

Your job is to complete the project. The final quality and consequences are not yet your business.

 

Worship (Talented) Editors

Writing is collaborative, and editors save your skin.

 

 

A botched bar chart about conspiracy beliefs from a discussion of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 20, 2026 I blogged about A botched pie chart about homelessness from a discussion of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears. It was in an article titled Chapman Survey of American Fears 2025 Key Findings.

 

That article has another section titled Conspiracy Theories with a horizontal bar chart created by Gabriella Bartsch, shown above, which I have annotated (in green) based on the data presented in the Methods Report for Q22 on pages 72 to 74. All seven percentages she listed for the sum Agree + Strongly Agree are wrong. They are too low by an average of 3.6%, which is much more than the web blank percentage (Don’t Know) that is 0.6% or less.

 

This graphic should have been edited by a professor to check the math before it was put into an article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I previously discussed this chart in a post on October 24, 2025 titled An article about key findings from the 11th Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025 has stumbling student graphics with significant errors, with another bar chart of mine, as shown above.

 

 

A misty morning at Shoshone Falls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a post on May 18, 2026 I discussed Attending the 2026 District 15 Conference of Toastmasters International in the Salt Lake City suburb of South Jordan.

 

During my drive back to Boise on May 17th I stopped at the impressive Shoshone Falls on the Snake River, which has a height of 212 feet – 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls. There is a nominal fee of $5 for admission to the city park.  Recent TV news reports had noted that the falls was at peak flow.

 

I stopped around noon, and took the misty soft-focused image shown above from over the fence by the parking lot. At the lower left you can see a viewing platform reached by taking steps down. It was soaking wet, so I didn’t try going down there.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another shaper image from April 25, 2018 shows a similar view when the flow was lower. Then that viewing platform was nice and dry.

 

 

A botched pie chart about homelessness from a discussion of the 2025 Chapman Survey of American Fears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 23, 2025 I blogged about how In the eleventh Chapman Survey of American Fears for 2025, public speaking only was ranked #46 of 67 fears at 33.7%. That survey had some additional questions with four possible agreement levels of Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree. Six of them, Q20 in their Methods Report, asked about homeless people. For example, Q20A was:

 

“Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements – Homeless people should be allowed to live on the streets or in tents.”

 

There was an article titled Chapman Survey of American Fears 2025 Key Findings, which has a section on Homelessness that included a miscaptioned pie chart (by Emma Boyd) titled OPINIONS OF HOMLESSNESS POLICY which I have shown above with added annotations.

 

The chart caption claims to show the percent who Strongly Agree or Agree, but really does not. I added the correct percent in green. The sum for all six questions is 372.3%, and the percents she shows were rescaled to add to a hundred - divided by a factor of 3.72. The largest percent, which she placed at the lower left, really is 92.4%, but she instead shows 24.8%.  

 

Also, for pie charts the usual layout is to start with the largest wedge beginning at 12 o’clock and then go clockwise in decreasing order. More careful editing could have caught these problems.