From political rallies to NGO fundraisers, speeches are given at diverse events to persuade and engage the audience. To effectively carry forward the relevant message to the audience, a speech needs to be written with a lot of care and thought. Roger Wolfson underlines that writing a speech is quite different from writing a story, letter, or even an essay. Unlike many other forms of writing, rhetoric plays a significant role in speech writing. Wolfson himself has worked full-time for Senators like John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Ted Kennedy as a speechwriter, and hence is well-versed with this domain. He currently writes speeches for several high profile Democratic members of the US Senate and House.
Speech writing can be considered to be a valuable tool for outlining ideas, thoughts, ethics, and objectives in a systematic format. Sitting down to write a speech can help people to actually think about what they want to convey, allows them to recognize the gaps within their chain of thought, identify the areas where they may need more information, and subsequently work towards filling up those gaps. Roger Wolfson mentions that speech writing is the distinctive art of writing for public presentation. Hence, it is vital to take into consideration the ability of the audience to understand the core message, while formulating a speech. It is crucial to write a speech in a manner that can be easily comprehended by the audience. There is no point in writing long and informative speeches if the audience is unable to understand it properly.
The core reasons to give a speech tend to be to inform, explain, or persuade. The majority of people give speeches with the aim of persuading the listener to support their views. Hence, it is of prime importance to craft a speech in a manner that develops interest among the audience. Not everyone has the skills and talent to formulate speeches perfectly, and hence they seek assistance from professionals like Roger Wolfson. He was the first official speechwriter of Senator John Kerry, and has written dozens of speeches for him. Wolfson had also helped Senator Kerry in writing the first bill in Congress to outlaw cop-killer bullets, as well as amendments pertaining to the Health Care Reform Act and the Welfare Reform Act. He was also responsible for writing amendments to the Rescissions Bill that successfully restored $100 million for the Safe and Drug Free Schools Program and $14 million for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services.
Over the years, Roger Wolfson has delivered numerous speeches. In addition to the political and policy speeches, he has also delivered motivational, spiritual, religious, entertainment-related and legal speeches for diverse events and functions. According to him, each and every opportunity to address a public audience is a sacred trust that must be honored to aid politicians and individuals to connect their highest sources of inspiration. Due to this vision, he puts all his heart and soul in every speech he writes.