“人应该活到210岁”

最好的演讲者通常都是谦虚且充满智慧，不妨来看看著名企业家迈克尔·布隆伯格2014年在哈佛大学的毕业典礼上的致辞是如何开头的吧～

The best speakers are knowingly wry and a bit self-deprecating. Here’s Michael Bloomberg, opening his 2014 Harvard Commencement address, with a typical opening:

I’m excited to be here, not only to address the distinguished graduates and alumni at Harvard University’s 363rd commencement but to stand in the exact spot where Oprah stood last year. OMG.

我很激动能够站在这里，不光是能向优秀的第363届哈佛毕业生以及校友们做演讲，更是因为去年奥普拉就站在这个位置上。我的天呐！

要时刻将听众的多元化铭记在心。毕业典礼上的听众们不光只有好学生，还有一些努力了几年才能毕业的学生。听众中不光只有学生，还有家长和老师。莎士比亚也遇到过同样的问题， 他的观众包含三教九流。所以在撰写演讲稿时，要学习一下莎翁的写作方法：深奥的拉丁语与平白的英语并用，比如将不常用的incarnadine（鲜红色）与常用的red（红色）放在一起。

Keep the diversity of your audience in mind. You are speaking to students, but the students are not all the same.  There are honor students—summa, magna, and cum laude–as well as those who are still sweating out a few grades. You are also speaking to families and to the university faculty.  Shakespeare had that same problem—needing to address those in the Lord’s room, the galleries, and the ground pit. He solved it by repeating himself, expressing ideas in both the Latinate phrases and in plain Anglo-Saxon, as when he combined unfamiliar words like incarnadine with familiar ones like red.

著名的脱口秀主持人艾伦·德詹尼丝2009年在杜兰大学做演讲时，还用上音似校友（alumni）的一波词开起了玩笑：

I thought that you had to be a famous alumnus – alumini – aluminum – alumis – you had to graduate from this school.

我以为成为著名校...校...校油……先得从这个学校毕业。

（注：艾伦在当年的毕业典礼上也获得了该校的荣誉学位，感觉本人也是开心到结巴23333）

在构思毕业演讲主题时，试着每个部分都用一句简单好记的主题句概括。毕竟，大家都没法重听你的毕业演讲，而且在纸上划重点。所以简单好记的主题+通俗易懂的事例就成了一场优秀毕业演讲必不可缺的要素了~

As you develop your theme, try to have a memorable, quotable line for each segment of your audience—the grads, the families, and the faculty. And remember that your audience can’t rewind your speech or mark it with a yellow highlighter, so be sure to illustrate your easily-recognizable theme with smaller, easily-digestable examples.

比如，美国哥伦比亚广播公司主播莎琳·阿尔方西在密西西比大学2013年的毕业演讲中谈到了工作和坚持不懈的主题，并且用她职业生涯中遇到的种种困难举例，比如找工作，艰辛岁月以及糟糕的老板等等。这么接地气的话题，也让大家一下就记住了演讲的内容~

Journalist Sharyn Alfonsi did it in her commencement address to the journalism school at Ole Miss in 2013, as she talked about work and perseverance, and illustrated those values through her own career’s challenges, including job applications, tough days, and bad bosses. Choose examples that everyone can relate to and can talk about over lunch.

在演讲当中也应避免谈一些老生常谈的梗，比如“大家即将进入现实世界”这样的话。这样会让学生们觉得你不大接地气，事实上，不少学生都在勤工俭学并且常常处理一些现实问题。当然，也别谈太多关于教育价值的话题。毕竟，他们懂得教育的价值，不然也不会去上大学。

Be careful when using clichés in your speech. Tempting as it may be to tell the graduates that they are about to enter the “Real World” (where you have thrived), you should avoid that. Savvy students will see you as out of touch, since many of them have been working all along and are often managing any number of real life issues.

You may want to avoid talking about the value of their education as well. They know the value. That’s why they went to college. (It’s the cost they are worried about.)

一般来说，毕业演讲的时间最多不要超过20分钟，12分钟为宜。演讲者一般每分钟能说120个词，所以一场毕业演讲下来，演讲稿长度大约在1400-2400词之间。在大太阳底下坐着的学生、家长和老师们都会感谢你的简洁~

Unless you are using the speech to announce a major policy, you won’t need more than 20 minutes, tops. Twelve minutes would be even better. The average speaker reads about 120 words a minute, so that’s about 1,400-2,400 words or 9-15 pages (double spaced, 16 point font). Sitting in the sun, the students, families, and faculty will all appreciate brevity.