The key to Cicero’s canons of rhetoric ultimately lies in making an audience emotionally invested in your argument as:

The first canon of rhetoric is that of invention which refers to the act of finding something to say which can lend support to the speaker. With effort, a good speaker can turn a weak argument stronger through effective preparation. 

Any good speech will refer to several resources which can be used to persuade an audience, most notably the following: maxims, facts, statistics, testimony, examples, narratives and topics. 

This is the process of arranging and structuring your arguments for impact. Just like how you write an essay with a certain structure, your speech should also follow a key structure by following an introduction, body and conclusion.

Introduction - to state the purpose of the speech and establish credibility by allowing you to capture the audience’s attention and to state the topic of speech and purpose.

Statement of facts - to provide an overview of the situation, for example current measures taken by member states to combat an issue.

Division - by outlining what should follow and specify main points.

Proof - presenting arguments and other supporting facts.

Refutation - refuting or refusing possible counterarguments

Conclusion - summarising the main points and reinforcing any emotional appeal.

Determining the style or how to present your arguments by using rhetorical techniques such as alliteration and metaphors. Consider linguistic tools to bring emphasis to certain ideas. Style is often considered ornamentation but allows provides emphasis on ideas to the facts, statistics and narratives provided in the inventio stage. 

A good example of this can be seen in the famous “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King Jr in which he effectively uses alliteration: the occurrence of a same letter or sound at the start of closely connected words. 

“Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice”,

And,

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The use of alliteration places emphasis on certain ideas and how they can change from dark, desolate and segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.

In the classical world, speakers had to memorize their speeches before delivering it, therefore memory refers to the process of learning and memorizing. While it is often neglected, especially in Model UN conferences where most speeches are generally a couple of minutes long, memory is one of the most effective tools that can be used to focus in on the audience. Memorizing key facts, quotes and other phrases can provide a level of confidence to a speaker. 

Indeed, if we do not accurately memorize a speech, it can result in the speaker feeling self-conscious and therefore awkward if the speech is written in haste. While it is difficult to memorise a speech in Model UN, we will look at delivery techniques that will enable you to appear more confident whilst delivering a speech in the next article.

Actio is the process of delivering your speech through gestures, the volume of your voice, pronunciation and body language. I would personally argue that this is the most important of the five canons. You can have the best facts, statistics and linguistic devices, however if you fail to deliver them in a confident manner then it can often be lost on your audience. 

The components of delivery are as follows: appearance, gesture, position, eye contact, articulation, pronunciation, dialect, pitch, volume, pauses and rate. We will also delve more into these in our next article.

To conclude, Cicero’s five canons of rhetoric can still be used to great effect today. Consider how you intend to refine your arguments, structure your speech, how to present your arguments, memorising certain phrases and finally delivering the speech to maximum effect to bring an audience to your side of the argument. In the next two articles, we will look at body language followed by delivery to see how these two can ultimately make or break any speech.