Think. Write. Speak. Blog.

Most speeches are dull affairs because they are simply pieces of writing read aloud. If you don’t want to end up trying to swim across a lake in lead boots, it’s vital to remember that speaking and writing are fundamentally different ways of communicating.

Speech is evanescent; its medium is sound. It unfolds in a series of moments; each ...

People often ask me, “what makes a good speaker?” My answer is simple: good speakers - and writers - talk in pictures. The language they use is full of images and metaphors. As they speak, the words they use conjure up pictures in the mind’s eye. Pictures that help listeners see and feel what they mean. Pictures that transform lifeless ...

Constructing robust and persuasive arguments is an essential speechwriting skill. Sending your speaker to the podium with incoherent and illogical arguments is like sending a warrior into battle with a cardboard sword and chocolate shield.

But when it comes to intellectual rigour, it’s also important for speechwriters to bear in mind that ...

Last night on Sky News a masked, and apparently deeply repentant, Boris Johnson told reporter Beth Rigby, "I repeat my deep apology for mistakes that may've been made on my watch."

Sadly, as any professional wordsmith will tell you, his form of words was a carefully considered attempt to deflect responsibility. A master class in ...

Rhetoric gets a bad press. Familiar phrases like 'empty rhetoric' and 'cutting through the rhetoric' create the impression that rhetoric is little more than a linguistic back alley – a dark and dangerous place teeming with dubious characters who spend their time perfecting ways of pulling the wool over our eyes. A destination honest folk, like you ...