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How to Find a Speech

A good speech can be hard to find. If you are a beginning rhetorical critic, a single political speech is often the best subject for a short paper or even a term paper. If you are just starting out, you may not already have a political subject that interests you. But by doing rhetorical analysis, you can become interested.

A good speech will have a few of the following practical advantages
It is by a well-known speaker
It concerns a historically significant subject
Its language is rhetorically rich
The speech, the subject, or the speaker can be found in the communication literature (usually for one of the above reasons).
When selecting a speech you also must consider the source, whether print or online.
Do you have a complete text of the speech?
Is your source reliable and authoritative?
Is your source simple to cite?
Some good general sites for speeches online
  Douglass Archives of American Public Address
  American Rhetoric
Print sources are still often the best and most authoritative. Many prominent historical figures have published papers in critical editions, which provide not only good sources for speeches but access to a speech's immediate context. Try an author search in the library catalog. Do not use large indiscriminate anthologies such as Vital Speeches of the Day unless you already know exactly what you are looking for. Below are some reliable speech anthologies.
Andrews, James Robertson, and David Zarefsky. AmericanVoices : Significant Speeches in American History, 1640-1945. White Plains, New York: Longman, 1989.
---. Contemporary American Voices : Significant Speeches in American History, 1945-Present. White Plains, New York: Longman, 1992.
Foner, Philip S., and Robert James Branham Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787-1900. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1998.
Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. Man Cannot Speak for Her. Vol. I. Key Texts of Early Feminists. New York: Greenwood P, 1989.
 Great American Orators series. Greenwood Press. (search under series title for individual volumes.)
Reid, Ronald F., and James F. Klumpff.  American Rhetorical Discourse. 3rd ed. Long Grove, IL : Waveland P, 2005.

Other Rhetorical Artifacts

Political speech is not the only rhetorical subject. Any artifact can exercise a symbolic function and use symbols to persuade or build identity with an audience. By focusing on its persuasive aspect a critic can bring visual art, music, or narrative film into the orbit of rhetoric. Documentary film in a sense is already there, especially documentaries on political subjects.
Visual art can be rhetorical, for instance, in so far as it creates a world view or makes a statement about society. Choose works of art using similar criteria as speeches--historical, political or social significance and richness of symbolism.
Vocal music or sometimes even instrumental music is often powerfully persuasive. Unless you are very knowledgeable about music you should look for lyrics that make a political point and then consider how the musical setting operates as a level of style, to control pace, emphasis, memory and emotion.
Narrative in film, fiction, music, and visual art functions rhetorically to generate identification with the audience. If you choose to write a rhetorical criticism of a film, remember to maintain the proper relations between the artifact, its "author" and its audience. The film is the text and the characters are always part of the artifact. Many students are tempted to choose a speech given by a character in a movie. The character is not the author. Your job is to read the rhetorical strategy of the author--the director and scriptwriters, not the actors or the characters they play. Also when considering significance, we are talking about the significance of the film, not necessarily of the incidents depicted in the film even on a historical subject. For instance, when criticizing Oliver Stone's JFK, even though it is a take on a historical event, you must consider the reception of the film as its context. Obviously it makes a persuasive point and is not simply a transparent "window" on the Kennedy assassination. Look for a narrative that
addresses or creates identification with a particular audience.
makes a clear persuasive appeal
arises out of or addresses a rhetorical situation
participates in an ongoing public controversy.
Public Controversy often demands construing multiple "texts" as part of a composite utterance. Like narrative, it is a mediated composite of other rhetorical forms, as vocal and visual utterances can combine to generate controversy. One procedure would be to
Identify a controversy
Locate anchor texts that delineate the beginning or define a trajectory within a controversy
Organize exchanges chronologically.
Within the controversy, look for ideological terms and recurring arguments and other rhetorical features.