Oprah Winfrey’s 2008 Stanford Commencement Address: Critical Analysis

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Oprah Winfrey did a wonderful job at give this speech especially since it was in front of a large audience. First in for most it was great and respectful how she started the speech off with congratulating the class of 2008 for a job well done. Throughout the speech she gave the audience little short stories about her life and she found a way to tie it back to the audience and how her life lessons could help them be better people in the future. Oprah Winfrey uses several quotes through the speech which showed that she was very credible. The best quote of all was the last quote by Dr. King stating “not everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

The speech first started with Oprah Winfrey telling a story about her good daughter and how she did not want anyone to know that she knew who she was. Even though her god daughter was graduating that day I really did not see the relevance of spending about five minutes telling the story. Even though it is a special occasion for her it still was not really relevant to me. The language she use while given the speech in this section was okay. It just to me that was not a strong opening and she could have done a better job at organizing that opening.

It was wonderful how Oprah Winfrey express the important of education and how she started in her profession. That inspired me to go after my degree with all my heart even if just like her I end up missing one credit to graduate. She connected to the audience while expressing how life was for her around that time. The tone of voice kept on changing which help the aud...

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...ion is very memorable to me. I recall her saying in order to be happy you must give back. Giving back is the true form of happiness because you make someone else happy which help brighten up your spirit. I also remember she said that when faced with a difficulty it best that you help someone else out and by helping them out is exactly how you would get out of our situation. Oprah Winfrey conclusion gave the listener something to look forward to and also in a way a call to action. To show the exactly what she meet she followed through with her call of action by giving them a surprise. The surprise was the last thing she expressed, she made was when she said she believe that everything is better when you share it and she gave the class two book that are of important to her. Overall she did a great job present the speech to the class of 2008 at Stanford University.

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