Oprah Winfrey Case

In Oprah's acceptance speech for receiving the first Bob Hope Humanitarian Award, she constantly looked left, right, up, and down around the building as she thanked her voters and supporters. But when she opens up with a strong personal statement that "nothing is more important" to her "than striving to be a good human being", she delivers the entire line facing straight forward without breaking eye contact with the audience. This line was effectively delivered because working on becoming a better person is something people can relate to. Her personal statement and most importantly- her strong eye contact allowed her a way to connect with them and captivate their attention.

Another thing that Oprah does is share an old famous quote. She share's "I am a human being, nothing human is alien to me" by Terence 154 B.C. This means that she accepts all humanity for what it is because she is a part of humanity. A quote, if used appropriately, complements the ideas that one is trying to get across. This quote complemented her speech that revolves around her theme of humanity because it is evidently relative to the award given to her.

She then transitions into a story while still intriguing the audience by saying "when I first read it many years ago, I had no idea of the depth of that (quote's) meaning", allowing them to wonder. She then shared a story that showed her puzzlement of the meaning. As she shared this story, she emphasized her puzzlement by expressing questions that she had a long time ago in a very questionable tone. She also changed her facial expressions to a confused look as if she felt as puzzled as she was in the setting of her story, intriguing the audience due to how expressive and in-character she was in the flashback of her story.

When she shared that she finally came to realization of the true meaning of that quote, she says "We're all just people seeking the same thing. The guy on the street, the woman in the classroom, the Israeli, the Afghani, the Zuni, the Apache, the Irish, the Protestant, the Catholic, the gay, the straight, you, me--we all just want to know that we matter". She powerfully closed her speech because she slowed her words down and paused at the different types of people and last sentence to show the connection that despite how we may differ in great amounts of ways whether it is religion, race, or sexuality, the importance is that they are the same because they all want the same thing.

Another skill that Oprah possesses is confidence. Despite that she mistakenly said the wrong word she meant to say, she simply corrected herself and continued the rest of her sentence in a fluent manner as if it didn't phase her. This skill allowed the audience to still give their attention to her because she confidently kept going.

One thing that Oprah can do to improve her speech is to try to pace herself as she