Speech According to Manner of Delivery

Besides classifying speech according to the Purpose of the Speaker, it can be classified based on the
Manner of Delivery or the way the Speech is given before an Audience.

When a Guest Speaker gives a Speech before an Audience, most of the time, he/she reads a fully
written out speech. This is called Reading from a Manuscript or Speaking from a Manuscript. When a
student joins an oratorical contest, he/she memorizes the full Speech beforehand. This is called a
Memorized Speech. When without preparation, or hardly any, you are suddenly asked to give the
Welcome Remarks in a program that is about to start or is already ongoing, what you will be
delivering is an Impromptu Speech. But when you deliver a Speech from a prepared outline of your
ideas, complete with supporting data, testimonies, and statistics, this is the Extemporaneous Speech,
delivered without having been written in full, without memorizing, or without reading from a
manuscript prepared beforehand. Briefly, the different Types of Speech according to Manner of
Delivery are discussed below.

a. Reading or Speaking from a Manuscript is usually used in the Formal Speech Context. The Speech
is fully written out, usually typed, and not folded but place in a folder for neatness. This Manner of
Delivery allows for greater control of the wording of the Speech when precise wording is paramount.
This is also useful when you have embellished your thoughts and you want to deliver your sentences
exactly as you wrote them. The State of the Nation Address by the President of the Republic of the
Philippines is one such Speech, Presentations of Scientific Papers in conferences are another. There
are however, drawbacks to Reading/ Speaking from a Manuscript:

1. The Speaker tends to read without emotion, lacking spontaneity, and may even sound
boring. The reading will contain no highlights, show little or no variation of intonations, and
no obvious emphases.
2. The Speaker, most of the time, never looks up from the manuscript being read. All anyone
sees is the top of the Speaker's head. This position contributes to the Speaker's voice being
muffled and unintelligible, even with a microphone.
3. The Speaker can lose his/her place in the Speech even while reading it or turn to the wrong
page of the manuscript.
4. The manuscript may be blown by the wind/fan/air conditioning unit or fall from the lectern
and the order of the sheets of paper disarranged while being put back together.
5. The formality of the language of the Speech/Manuscript often means the use of complex
words, jargon, or technical language which are more often than not polysyllabic. Most of the
time, the Listeners are lost in such language, unless they are experts in the same field.

b. Memorized Speech is also a speech that is fully written out like the Speech that is Read from the
Manuscript. This time, however, the written speech is fully memorized—every word, every phrase,
every comma, and every period. Oratorical Contests require that contestants memorize their Speech
thoroughly. But, again, there are drawbacks to a Memorized Speech:

1. The most common problem encountered by the Speaker is forgetting lines when one is
already delivering the Speech. This is usually noticeable to the Audience, and in the case of a
contest, to the judges. Very seldom does one meet a Speaker who can bridge that memory
gap without letting the Audience notice it.
2. The second problem is the lack of eye contact with the Audience. Many speakers tend to
look upward, to the side, or, worse, on the floor, to help themselves remember the Speech.
They say that not looking at the Audience seems to lessen their nervousness or at least does
not exacerbate it.
3. Similar to Reading from a Manuscript, there could be a tendency to deliver the Speech
without any inflection, unless, of course, the contestant has had a good coach and had
practiced to sound spontaneous!
c. Impromptu Speech is when one is suddenly asked to give the welcome remarks in a program
already ongoing and there is hardly time to prepare. Many people think that an Impromptu Speech
is the same as an Extemporaneous Speech. In fact, these two types of speech have sometimes been
interchanged. The major difference: one is hardly given time to prepare one’s Impromptu Speech,
while one can prepare an Extemporaneous Speech because one is given enough time to prepare.

The Impromptu Speech is delivered on short notice with little or no preparation. That is why it is
sometimes called “thinking on your feet”. The Speech is not really made on the spot because one
usually speaks or is asked to speak about something one already knows. One's preparation comes
from everything one has learned or experienced as they are all the source of ideas for the Speech.
Therefore, one is prepared although the Speech was not written out nor rehearsed. Before speaking,
one may ask for a few minutes to collect one’s thoughts or be given time to jot down a few notes
that can be used as basis for the Speech. Just remember that no matter how short the Impromptu
Speech is, it has to have a beginning (introduction), a middle (body of the speech), and an end
(conclusion/summary).

The advantages of a Speech delivered Impromptu are the following:

1. The Speech is delivered in a spontaneous manner and in a more conversational tone unlike
the Manuscript Speech.
2. The speaker can adjust the Speech (make it longer or shorter) and add or skip an idea
without any problem, obvious gaps, or long pauses due to memory loss as in the Memorized
Speech.

There are, however, drawbacks to this type of delivery such as the following.

1. The Speaker can just go on and on, and sometimes, with no point to make at all.
2. The Speaker may be so rattled and disorganized that the Speech ends up with not much
sense.

d. Extemporaneous Speech may sound like it is delivered “off-the-cuff” as it were with hardly any
preparation because it sounds so spontaneous or it may also sound like a Speech that was fully
written out and then memorized, but both are not the case. What the Speaker prepares, however, is
a good outline which organizes the Speaker's thoughts and ideas (including data, testimonies, etc.).
It is only this fully developed outline that is memorized.

This outline preparation is what differentiates Extemporaneous Speech from Impromptu Speech or
any of the other Types of Speech according to Manner of Delivery. The following are the advantages
of using Extemporaneous Speech:

1. The outline helps the Speaker remember the particular order of points he/she wants to
make. There is no need to memorize paragraph upon paragraph that make up the Speech.
2. At the same time, the outline allows the Speaker to jump from one’-point to another or even
rearrange the order of the Speech’s points should circumstance demand it without the
Audience knowing or noticing the change.

The delivery of the Speech is less formal than a Manuscript Speech, more conversational than a
Memorized Speech, and prevents the Speaker from losing eye contact with the audience.
Sometimes, Speakers using Extemporaneous delivery may bring one or two note cards so they do
not forget some data such as specific concepts, complicated statistics or an important quotation. But
definitely, these outlines are not manuscripts in which the Speech is fully written out.