Recipe for the Best Congress Speech
Writing a congress speech is honestly more difficult than it seems, but here is my tried and true recipe for the best congress speech. Before even deciding the best side of the legislation, make sure to research. Not only that, but also make an Affirmation vs Negation table because understanding the pros and cons of each side is extremely important. On the affirmation side write down arguments and reasoning why the affirmation would be a better side and link the resources used, do the same for negation.
This doesn’t only set you up for success when choosing the best side, or writing the best speech, but also when refuting the other side because the aff/neg table already has all the opponents biggest arguments.
After choosing sides make sure to want to pick out the strongest 2–3 arguments written down. Make sure the arguments and reasons chosen are impactful and the impact to our constituents, the world, can be deeply impacted.
The most important part of a great congress speech is having a strong introduction. A strong introduction can make or break speeches. It’s the difference between people actually knowing if a speech is going to be good and standing out, or people not caring about the speech as much.
An introduction is worth just as much as a conclusion. Introductions MUST tie into conclusions.
Ex. Introduction Hook: Life is like baking a soufflé. The soufflé needs to have egg whites beaten to perfection, and even the slightest egg yolk can ruin the whole dessert. Just like in our lives, a little bit of mayhem can ruin everything.
The way to connect introductions to conclusions is by utilizing the hook from your introduction. In the hook above we talked about soufflé’s so your conclusion can talk about soufflé’s too.
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Ex. Conclusion Hook: Just like a deflating soufflé can ruin the entire dessert a little bit of mayhem in your life can ruin everything.
This ties the introduction and conclusion back together. This makes the speech stand out and make it appear as one cohesive piece of writing and really make people understand the correlation between the hook and the arguments.
There are 2 ways how to tackle the body paragraphs in your congress speeches
- Impactful/Emotional : In body paragraphs impact (impact means explaining how this can impact people, the world, the people in this room, and more) how this bill or legislation can be a huge difference in people’s life and can either make people’s lives better or worse.
Ex. Housing first solves many issues, even people’s health. Rose Williams a 60 year old woman was battling 3 kidney diseases as she was also trying to find places to live, she lived everywhere from her son’s house to hotels when she eventually ran out of money and ended up living out of her car. That is when “Kaiser Permanente’s care team referred Rosa to its Project HOME initiative. Project HOME uses a “Housing First” approach, which prioritizes giving people experiencing homelessness — particularly those with acute needs — stable, permanent housing without preconditions. Once housed, they are then connected with the social services, mental health, or substance use disorder services that they need.”
Above was an example of someone’s actual life and showed how this legislation could and have benefitted peoples lives and will continue to aid our everyday people who need help.
- Fact Based : Here you are gonna impact heavily on statistics, the way to persuade your opponents is going to be in numbers.
Ex. When trash sits in landfills it emits a gas called methane which is 80 times more harmful than CO2 (which the negation argues is the downside of this legislation) Section 3 of this legislation states that companies who receive federal grants for waste to energy must inform the Department of Energy on their estimated emissions per year. Which means this legislation isn’t neglecting the environmental issues. Methane is a short lasting gas but much more harmful when compared to Co2’s longer lasting less harmful characteristics. Methane is responsible for accelerating climate change alongside contributing to air pollution. The difference between methane and CO2 is the fact that methane traps more heat per molecule which means it has a faster pace of heating, contributing to accelerating climate change. Yet, the effects of methane don’t end at air pollution and climate change, but methane also impacts our constituents lives. The Environmental Defense force stresses the health concerns methane leads to which include : “damaged airways, aggravated lung diseases, asthma attacks, increased rates of preterm birth, cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, and heightened stroke risk”
The entire paragraph here is fact based. There are numbers on how methane is more harmful than C02 and explain the difference between the two gasses. Not only that but the health concerns that can occur due to increased levels of methane are explained in depth.
We talked about the 3 most important steps to writing a great congress speech. Now take these 3 steps from my recipe of success and write the perfect speech.
