London Eye

Hello! Welcome to my new ''article'' where I am trying to look like an expert, although I am still studying and have my own speech not in the best condition...But it's easier to find a speck in somebody's eye, than a log in your own... 

This is an informative speech of another student (anonymous). I tried to be objective and straightforward. Hopefully, it will help somebody, at least me, to write better speeches. 

The attention-getter in this speech is a question, implying the reference to the audience. Moreover, the speaker does not name the topic directly, but makes a hint talking about eyes, as if the city really has them. A good step is to emphasize the significance of the sight in the introduction to interest the listeners. In general, this introduction is not bad. At the same time, from the point of the structure, which we are studying now, it lacks some elements. There is no preview, and actual division of the body, and no thesis statement. We can try and find one, but thesis statement is not thesis statement if it’s not clearly defined and obvious for the listener. To be honest, I think some more things can be improved here. If the speech is meant for NSPU students, I don’t think many of them were at London (and not many read Tolkien). So for some of them this question and comparison would not work effectively. It is not crucial, but being closer to the audience is always worthy.

Let’s look at the body. We can see 3 paragraphs, but they don’t represent 3 different parts of the speech. Actually, the speech mostly contain abstract advantages of the object, which resembles and advertisement, which is not bad, but to be informative, I think, it requires more important information. For example, some facts or stories about this wonderful place could be really suitable. And what about history- when and why it was built? Probably there are some thrilling legends about it.

Moving to a conclusion – I personally don’t like the phrase “to sum up”, just because it is used too often and it’s not interesting. Very likely, some people think so too, which means not that we are picky, but that as listeners, we are already prejudiced about the whole paragraph. Actually, I like the conclusion, as it really matches with the whole speech. If we imagine another variant - with many facts and parts, it would not be as suitable. That is why it’s difficult to judge. There is no full summary, but the body does not have enough points to enumerate.

I would like to add some more comments on the language. As we already know, one of the golden rules of writing a speech is using contracted forms. For example, the sentence «If you have, you MUST HAVE SEEN the eye of it» sounds overloaded, it could be shortened or at least, the word have could be contracted. Perfect Tenses also are excessive - It has been used – better to say was used.

The language is not always correct – for instance, high instead of height. And I would recommend the speaker to consult dictionaries, checking the valency of words, because some phrases do not sound natural. We are not native speakers and we have to adjust to the norms of the language. By the way, it’s clearly an example of written speech – A source of pride for the whole country as well as the capital, the London Eye ….. Such long and overloaded sentences work better in texts and books, unfortunately, not in speeches (also my weak point).

That's it! Let me know your opinion on this speech and on my comments.