Posted by : Unknown Saturday, 18 October 2014





Me and Mark worked on the script for the U2 live story, working off of what Roxanne and the rest of us had previously done (1st draft)

Because Mark is the presenter for this live package, we both thought that it would be better if he was to re-write the package himself as he would best know what words to say.

Whilst working on the script, i timed mark to make sure that we were fitting it into our allocated time allowance of 2 minutes, altering the script if it did not.

In altering the script, we checked over certain words and removed them if they were repeated to many time, rewording the words using a thesaurus, however, whilst doing this i randomly decided to check out the amount of syllables being used in the sentences; to hear if the listenability of the script sounded good. Doing this i decided to do some extra research and came across a really good pdf document which talks about readability and a Roman philosopher called Cicero, whose influence on the Latin language was so immense, that subsequent history of prose in not only Latin but European languages up to the 19th century was said to be either a reaction against or a return to his style. Merriam-Webster (1995:244)


This is what i extracted from the PDF document:

Cicero, one of history’s most persuasive speakers, dominated the teaching of rhetoric and eloquence for 1,500 years. In his Latin essay, “The Orator,” Cicero stresses the following [1]:
  1. All audiences are different. The good speaker must first study and understand the “inclinations and character,” of the audience and adapt his speech to “their particular humours and dispositions.”
  2. The four elements that most directly affect the listeners are
    1. Content—what is said. This includes the ideas, the basic thesis, and the arguments for it. In this regard, Cicero stresses that good speaking is mostly good thinking.
    2. Organization—in what order. The speaker must first make “himself master of the hearer’s good wishes” and then “invalidate what makes against him.” Thus, “having cleared the way,” the speaker can state his strong points at both the beginning and the end. He will bring in other points wherever they are most serviceable.
    3. Delivery. Cicero describes delivery as the “eloquence of the body,” meaning action, the tone of voice, facial expressions, pronunciation, posture and gestures. He writes For even those who were from being masters of good language , have many times, by the sole dignity of their action, reaped the fruits of Eloquence; while others who had the finest powers of elocution, have too often, by the mere awkwardnesss of their delivery, led people to believe that they were scarcely able to express themselves.
    4. Style , which includes one of the three styles of good speaking: 1. the plain style, “neat and accurate,” used for instruction, 2. the lofty and majestic style, “vehement and impetuous,” for forcing emotion and moving audiences to action, and 3. the middle style, “moderately florid,” used mainly for entertainment.
Cicero also emphasizes the importance of maintaining the decorum becoming to each of these different styles, different audiences, and different purposes: “For, as in the conduct of life, so in the practice of Speaking, nothing is more difficult than to maintain a propriety of character.” 


What is mentioned above correlates with a lecture i had a couple of weeks back about journalistic writing, and how to write persuasively, in which we were shown a vide of Winston Churchill's famours speech.






Because our script contains Twitter comments, i researched the terms and condition for using/publishing a Tweet from someone account; these are the results i found taken from twitters Terms of Service page https://twitter.com/tos

Taken from
www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/203037/can-a-twitter-user-really-prohibit-you-from-republishing-tweets/ 




Here is the script; it is still being worked on.

Where it has s next to the numbers i.e. 33s or 28s is to represent the amount of time it takes to read each section, this is done so that we make sure we're sticking to our allocated time allowance of 2 minutes.











Bibliography


Merriam-Webster, Inc (January 1995). "Ciceronian period". Merriam-Webster's Encyclopaedia Of Literature. Merriam-Webster. p. 244. ISBN 978-0-87779-042-6



Research material






Google search

syllable words in news script

Fang's ELF syllable

{ 1 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Great background research here Andrei - well done. Knowing the terms and conditions of use is very important. The script is well presented and timed.

    ReplyDelete

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