Hi folks. I'm running for presidency in the mathematics club at my college. I need to write a good convincing speech. I am fairly popular among its members and feel I have a good chance at this. My speech is almost ready and its going to be only a few minutes long. I wanted to ask for your experience in the little tips which can increase my chances of winning. How exactly do you get people to vote for you without bragging too much about yourself? Which particular words and tones do you have to use to win votes? The speech is going to be next week so thanks for any input.

cheers,
TRS.

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P.S. This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated.

-- Mitch Hedberg

If you are good at being funny and telling jokes, try starting off with some relevant humor. Getting people to laugh helps them to relax and feel more comfortable with you. Then, after a comfort level has been established, you can hit them with more serious items later in the speech.

However, if you lack comedic timing and rhythm, I would skip the humor. Ditto if you can't find humor that is relevant to the situation. Nothing will kill a speech faster than a joke that goes badly.

Remember that trying to get votes is an appeal to the emotions. You can use facts and logic (and this is for presidency of the mathematics club, so those should hopefully apply here), but remember that you are trying to influence how other people feel about you. It is how they feel about you that will convince them to vote for or against you.

Edit to add: Also, remember to make eye contact with your audience. This also helps to establish a relationship with the people listening. Make sure you have the important parts of your speech memorized so that you only need to glance at your notes once in a while, then look back at the people to whom you are speaking.

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Yes, they laughed at Einstein, but only because of his silly hairstyle; no one was actually laughing at his science.

Pander to your audience: 0.999~ is both equal to, and different from, 1. (Hey, it's how the pros do it.)

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Go negative early..... (just kidding)

To me, assembling your rhetoric starts with why you want to be president. Why you instead of someone else? Once you have that how do you convince others you are right?

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

a. open mindedness
b. speak in present scinario, if the talk on the stage is relent upon the present tense.
c. be optimists about the spectetors, have a confident eye-contact with them, revolve your neck from center to the left and right of the stage very gently,
d. do not extremely look at the down.
e. don't look number of times in the paper which is holding with your hands
f. to the point speech is very important, select or speak to the point on the given topic precisely, ask about the time available, or you can say, if you are ready then I will take my own time, ask their reply, if found suitable then proceed, else sum up your speech within 10 minutes, otherwise if there are no good points remain, our speech may be boar one for them.
g. dress well, think well, look well, go well, keep a proper balance in throwing words on the mike, keep a pace with the subject
h. stand steady, no crampling in the hands, or in legs, otherwise it will restrict your confidence and your speech may go in dolldrum
i. do not touch frequently any item in front of you like the cord of mike, the mike itself, a paper weight in front of you, don't revolve that paper weight, do not come out of way from the wooden stand which is provided to stand in front of mike []/
j. don't try to look out of hall, do not look at light for more times, otherwise problem will be start for your eyes, and naturally you will start scrubbing your eyes by the fingers. (because the flud lights can creat trouble for our eye sight, although they are adjusted on the stage and are working to highlight the speakers for the projectivity to the spectetors.

No way, very bad advice. You never get your own hands dirty. You get some third party to "leak" made up stuff in the form of 'innocent' questioning "Does your opponent think Pi = 3?" and let the student newspaper go negative for you.

__________________
[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Seriously, I'm not completely sure what a math club does (other than math), so I can't give you specific advice that isn't jokey, but you need to figure out what the math club needs in a president and then express what you can bring to the table to meet those needs.

Don't smear, don't say anything you don't mean, because I'm pretty sure the math hardcore are likely to be less forgiving of perceptible insincerity than a more mixed crowd might be.

As for the rest, there's plenty of good speech advice on the net. I'm sure you can find some good stuff on general presentation techniques that should help.

__________________
[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Imagine everyone is the audience is naked, and take it from there.

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A person's name, or a mark representing it, as signed personally or by deputy, as in subscribing a letter or other document.

Tried that once. Front row was of course all the popular girls.

Zoned out.

And I'm not even going to tell you what gibberish came out instead of the speech...

Watch clips of Hitler giving speeches. He was a great public speaker...

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

Host of Seraphim

I give presentations on a regular basis. Here are a few things that serve me well:

1. Humor can be risky. If you do tell a joke, make yourself the butt of the joke. Audiences tend to like speakers who use self-deprecating humor.

2. Avoid profanity or provocative material. You'll just alienate a good portion of your audience.

3. Know your audience. Don't speak above or below their level.

4. Brevity is the soul of wit.

5. Since you're running for office, you'll want to give an advocacy brief. Tell your audience why you want to be the club president and what you hope to accomplish. Don't mention any of your opponents at all.

Campaign slogan: You can count on me

LJ has it right, don't mention your opponents.


More than brag on yourself tell them why you are capable to do the job and what your plans are. The one with the best slogan or policy often wins.

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"I will do my best to understand and explain the universe from big to small without invoking miracles, unrepeatable events, or divine intervention. In place of those things I will use observations, mathematics, and science."


-Cross
My travel blog

Some of my Astrophotography


Those that lack education have a hard time understanding its value. - Cross

Memorize Pi as much as you can.

If you're going to be president, what good will it to do me if I was a student there and into math? What does your Math club people like? Find out and give them what they want.

For your speech, plug in a lot of math terms. "My talents adds up and will multiply the club's success" etc.

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Fields of Space

LOGIC, n.
The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.

In the Year 2525.

"One small step for (a) man. One giant leap for mankind".

If an astronaut doesn't need good grammar, niether does you.

Host of Seraphim

Before giving any speech the big question deals with how well you know your audience and what is it they are looking for that might be new. They have heard many speeches before and yours should depart but with a tangent that you can handle without going too far away from them. They are mathematicians and they tend to not overclutter themselves with too many postulates. So bring a postulate to the club for reorganizing it in some way thay allows them to take full part in turning that postulate (perhaps some new by-laws?) into a theorum figuratively speaking.

You might want to study the model rocketeers organization..NAR. They are very well organized and have classes for all new members along with contests. Maybe you can do something similar.