Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Your speech needs a great headline - not just a title

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The April 2021 issue of Toastmaster magazine has an article on pages 14 and 15 by Lesley Stephenson titled Titles That Talk and subtitled Short, clear, and compelling titles make a strong statement. It is good but not great, and unfortunately has major blind spots.

 

One excellent point she makes is that punctuation (like question marks or exclamation points) may not be understood by the audience when announced by your introducer.

 

But in her fourth paragraph she makes an outrageous claim that five words or less is the recommended maximum length for a speech title. To support that she says that the vast majority of titles used by finalists in their World Championship speeches contained just one to five words. Speeches for that contest are inspirational (an unusual subset), while most other speeches that Toastmasters give will instead will be informational (and often need longer titles). Her five word maximum reminded me of a similar claim Ryan Urie made in an article titled Make Your Slides Sing in the September 2019 issue of Toastmaster. Ryan claimed that a slide ideally should have no more than five or six words. I blogged about that in a post on September 23, 2019 titled How many words should be on a PowerPoint slide: 6, 12,20, 25, 36, or 49? PowerPoint templates instruct us Click to add title, so that’s what most of us do. 

 

 

   


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her second paragraph says good titles have the impact of a billboard, and the article even is illustrated by a billboard with the word OUCH! But that is a bad comparison. A title is way more like the headline for a newspaper article (see above for an imaginary supermarket tabloid trifecta cover). She does mention newspaper articles in her fifth paragraph but never headlines. And the link in her second paragraph in red on steering audience focus is to another article by Judith T. Krauthammer in the January 2018 issue of Toastmaster titled Building your audience, one title at a time which mentions neither newspapers nor headlines. On April 25, 2019 I blogged about how Your presentation and slides need powerful headlines, and on June 4, 2018 I blogged about how A presentation slide, presentation, or blog post needs a great headline rather than just a title.

 

We can see current examples of headlines at the AP TOP NEWS web page from the Associated Press. Here are twenty with an average length of 8.6 words:

 

Official: Biden moving vaccine eligibility date to April 19

Police official: Chauvin was trained to defuse situations

Biden boosted by Senate rules as GOP bucks infrastructure

Authorities: Navy medic shoots 2, is shot and killed on base

As states expand vaccines, prisoners still lack access

World powers seek to bring US back into Iran nuclear deal

Israeli president picks Netanyahu to try to form government

EXPLAINER: Why is North Korea skipping the Tokyo Olympics

Capital officer remembered for humor, paying ultimate price

Viral thoughts: Why COVID-19 conspiracy theories persist

COVID-19 vaccine eligibility expands to 16 and over in NY

Musician couple hosts concerts to fundraise for food pantry

IMF upgrades forecast for 2021 global growth to a record 6%

Florida dismisses 2 nd breach risk at phosphate reservoir

Iran prosecutor say 10 indicted for Ukraine plane shootdown

France to open archive for period covering Rwandan genocide

Eating our lunch: Biden points to China in development push

Baylor beatdown: Bears win title, hang 86 – 70 loss on Gonzaga

Myanmar’s online pop-up markets raise funds for protest

The latest: Montana governor tests positive for COVID-19

 

My imaginary tabloid cover combined images of Elvis, JFK, and the Gulf Breeze UFO from Wikimedia Commons.

 


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