words for speech length

Do you wonder how long it takes to deliver your speech?

This website helps you convert the number of words into the time it takes to deliver your speech, online and for free. This tool is useful when preparing a speech or a presentation. The number of minutes you will take is dependent on the number of words and your speed of speech, or reading speed.

Note: This calculator provides an indication only.

Enter details below

The overview below provides an indication of the minutes for a speech (based on an average reading speed of 130 words per minute):

• Words in a 1 minute speech 130 words
• Words in a 2 minute speech 260 words
• Words in a 3 minute speech 390 words
• Words in a 4 minute speech 520 words
• Words in a 5 minute speech 650 words
• Words in a 10 minute speech 1300 words
• Words in a 15 minute speech 1950 words
• Words in a 20 minute speech 2600 words
• How long does a 500 word speech take? 3.8 minutes
• How long does a 1000 word speech take? 7.7 minutes
• How long does a 1250 word speech take? 9.6 minutes
• How long does a 1500 word speech take? 11.5 minutes
• How long does a 1750 word speech take? 13.5 minutes
• How long does a 2000 word speech take? 15.4 minutes
• How long does a 2500 word speech take? 19.2 minutes
• How long does a 5000 word speech take? 38.5 minutes

Speech calculator:  how long does it take to deliver your speech?

With this speech calculator, you can easily calculate how long it will take you to deliver a speech.

How many words per minute?

In the English language, people speak about 140 words per minute. A fast speaker will get to 170 words per minute, a slow speaker will use around 110 words.

Professional speechwriters use this speech calculator to find out how long a speech takes.

Copy your full text and paste it in the box below:

The entire analysis happens within your browser. The text will NOT be stored and NOT be sent over the web.

Word count:

Your speech rate:

Speech duration:

FAQ’s

How many words is a 3 minute speech  .

A speaker with an average speaking speed will need 420 words for a 3 minute speech. A fast speaker will need 510 words while a slow speaker will only need 330 words.

How many words is a 5 minute speech?  

A speaker with an average speaking speed will need 700 words for a 5 minutes speech. A fast speaker will need 850 words for the same speech length. A slow speaker will only need 550 words.

Is this a word count calculator?  

The speech calculator is a word count calculator. Insert your text and the tool will automatically calculate the word count.  It will then also calculate the speech length depending on the selected talking speed.

How to best select the right speaking speed?

Fast, average or slow? The answer depends on the speaker, the speech type and the speech setting.

The speaking speed of the speaker

Some speakers are natural fast or slow speakers. The best speakers keep a variance during their speeches. They speed up to keep momentum and slow down to put special emphasis on other parts.

The speech type

The type of speech matters a lot in selecting the right speech speed. If you read the whole speech word for word from paper then your average speech speed will be lower. If you intend to use the written speech as speaker notes then your average speaking speed will be much higher.

The speech setting

An informal setting will have a faster average speaking speed compared to a more formal setting.

Keeping all three factors in mind you will able make a better judgement about selecting the right speech speed in the speech calculator.

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How long will it take to read a speech or presentation?

Enter the word count into the tool below (or paste in text) to see how many minutes it will take you to read. Estimates number of minutes based on a slow, average, or fast paced reading speed.

Number of words

Reading speed

Common conversions (average speed)

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Speech Length Calculator

Calculate the estimated length of your speech.

Share results with your friends

Speech analysis often involves understanding speech length and speech rate. Our speech length calculator pairs effectively with the speech rate calculator , assisting in speech analysis and preparation.

How to Use the Speech Length Calculator

The Speech Length Calculator takes into account several factors such as the number of words, speaking rate, pause length, additional time, and pause frequency to provide an estimate of the speech length. By inputting the relevant data into the calculator, you can get an approximate duration for your speech. This allows you to make necessary adjustments and plan your presentation accordingly.

Primary Applications of the Calculator

The Speech Length Calculator finds primary applications in various scenarios, including:

• Presentations: Whether it's a business presentation or an academic seminar, knowing the estimated length of your speech helps you allocate time for each section and ensure that you stay within the given timeframe.
• Public Speaking Events: When participating in conferences, workshops, or panel discussions, it's crucial to have an estimate of your speech duration to ensure a smooth flow of the event.
• Speech Writing: For professional speechwriters, the Speech Length Calculator serves as a valuable tool to gauge the overall length of the speech, helping them deliver a well-timed and engaging presentation.

Now that we understand the significance of the Speech Length Calculator, let's delve into the instructions for utilizing it effectively.

Instructions for Utilizing the Calculator

To utilize the Speech Length Calculator, follow these steps:

1. Input Fields

The calculator requires the following input fields:

a) Number of Words : Enter the total number of words in your speech. This represents the content you have prepared or plan to deliver.

b) Speaking Rate : Input your estimated speaking rate, which is the number of words you can speak per minute. This can vary depending on your natural pace and style of speaking.

c) Pause Length : Specify the average length of pauses you intend to take during your speech. This allows the calculator to account for the pauses and adjust the estimated length accordingly.

d) Additional Time : If you anticipate the need for extra time during your speech, such as for audience interaction or Q&A sessions, input the desired additional time in minutes.

e) Pause Frequency : Select the pause frequency level from the provided options: Low, Medium, or High. This indicates the frequency at which you plan to incorporate pauses into your speech. Choose the level that best reflects your intended speaking style.

Ensure that you provide accurate and realistic values for each input field to obtain a precise estimation of your speech length.

2. Output Fields

The Speech Length Calculator generates the following output fields:

a) Number of Words : Displays the total number of words you inputted for your speech.

b) Speaking Rate : Presents the speaking rate you provided, indicating the number of words per minute.

c) Pause Length : Shows the average length of pauses you specified.

d) Additional Time : Indicates the additional time you entered, which accounts for any extra minutes you plan to allocate.

e) Pause Frequency : Displays the pause frequency level you selected.

f) Estimated Length : Provides the estimated length of your speech, taking into consideration the input values and the calculated adjustments based on the number of words, speaking rate, pauses, and additional time.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the input and output fields, let's explore the formula used by the Speech Length Calculator.

Speech Length Calculator Formula

The Speech Length Calculator estimates the speech length based on the provided input values using the following formula:

Estimated Length = (Number of Words / Speaking Rate) + (Pause Length / 60) * Pause Factor + Additional Time

The formula calculates the estimated length by dividing the number of words by the speaking rate to determine the base duration of the speech. It then considers the average pause length, converted to minutes, and applies a pause factor based on the selected pause frequency level. The additional time is added to account for any extra minutes you plan to allocate during the speech.

Let's break down the formula and its interpretation for each component.

1. Number of Words and Speaking Rate

The division of the number of words by the speaking rate determines the base duration of the speech. This represents the time required to deliver the content without considering pauses and additional time.

2. Pause Length and Pause Factor

The average pause length, converted to minutes, is added to the base duration. The pause factor adjusts the estimated length based on the selected pause frequency level. Higher pause frequencies contribute more to the overall estimated length.

3. Additional Time

The additional time you input is directly added to the estimated length. This accounts for any extra minutes you plan to allocate during your speech.

Now that we have a thorough understanding of the formula, let's proceed with illustrative examples to solidify our comprehension.

Illustrative Examples

Example 1: Academic Presentation Suppose you have prepared a presentation for an academic conference, and you have approximately 1500 words to deliver. You estimate your speaking rate to be around 120 words per minute. You plan to incorporate pauses of about 3 seconds on average, with a medium pause frequency. Additionally, you would like to allocate an extra 5 minutes for questions and discussions. Let's calculate the estimated length of your speech using the Speech Length Calculator:

• Enter the number of words as 1500.
• Input the speaking rate as 120 words per minute.
• Specify the pause length as 3 seconds.
• Choose the pause frequency as Medium.
• Enter the additional time as 5 minutes.
• Click the Calculate Speech Length button.

The calculator will display the estimated length of your speech, along with the input and output values, in the result table. In this example, the estimated length is found to be 15.25 minutes.

Example 2: Business Presentation Consider a situation where you are delivering a business presentation with a speech containing 2000 words. You speak at a rate of 150 words per minute and incorporate frequent pauses of about 5 seconds. You choose the Low pause frequency and allocate an additional 10 minutes for potential interactions. Let's determine the estimated length of your speech using the Speech Length Calculator:

• Enter the number of words as 2000.
• Input the speaking rate as 150 words per minute.
• Specify the pause length as 5 seconds.
• Choose the pause frequency as Low.
• Enter the additional time as 10 minutes.

The calculator will compute the estimated length of your speech, which will be displayed in the result table. In this example, the estimated length is found to be 15.78 minutes.

By following similar steps and adjusting the input values, you can calculate the estimated length for various types of speeches.

Illustrative Table Example

The following table showcases multiple rows of example data, demonstrating the versatility and functionality of the Speech Length Calculator:

Each row in the table represents a different speech scenario with its corresponding input data and calculated estimated length.

In conclusion, the Speech Length Calculator is a valuable tool that enables you to estimate the duration of your speech based on the number of words, speaking rate, pause length, additional time, and pause frequency. By utilizing this calculator, you can effectively manage your time, plan your speech content, and ensure that your presentation fits within the desired timeframe.

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Introducing Speech Time Calculate

Estimate how many minutes your speeches, presentations, and voice-over scripts will take based on your words per minute rate!

How To Speech Time Calculate Using This Tool?

If you have a certain number of words or a piece of text you want to time, you can either type in the word count or paste the text into the provided area. This tool will then calculate how long it would take to read that text out loud.

The talk time estimate is calculated using the average speaking speed of adults, which is determined to be 183 words per minute based on scientific studies. If you’re interested in how long it would take to read silently, it’s estimated at 238 words per minute ( This data is also backed by research )

You can adjust the slider to change the words per minute value, which will affect the talk time estimate. However, the silent reading time estimate remains fixed at 238 words per minute.

For ease of use, we’ve also provided reference points for slow, average, and fast reading rates below the slider.

To begin anew, simply click the ‘clear text’ button to erase the content and restore the slider back to its original setting of 183.

Who is This Words to Minutes Converter Tool For?

If you are a student wondering how long is my essay or you’ve been tasked with writing a speech and need to know how many words to aim for and how many minutes will it take to deliver or perhaps you are a podcaster, just starting out, who wants the ability to easily synchronize music and spoken word without having to painstakingly calculate seconds between them, then this Speech Time Calculate is precisely for you!

From now on, instead of spending long hours in front of the computer trying to figure out how many seconds it takes for one phrase or section of dialogue to end and another to begin, you can let our innovative tool do all the work and convert your text to time quickly and accurately. With this powerful tool at your disposal, whether you’re giving a TED talk or just need to nail a business presentation, your life will become a little bit easier.

So keep reading to learn more about what this fantastic words to minutes converter has in store for public speakers, aspiring students, and professional radio producers alike!

Whether you want to read the text silently or speak aloud, you can use this tool as both:

• Reading time calculator
• Talk time calculator

Explanation of the Reading Time

Reading time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a written text silently while still comprehending its content. Based on an extensive analysis of 190 studies that involved 18,573 participants , research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 suggests that the typical silent reading speed for an adult individual is approximately 238 words per minute .

To convert word count to read time for a specific text, you can do so by dividing the total word count of the text by this established value of 238. Here is the mathematical equation for determining the duration of reading time in minutes:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238

Explanation of the Speech Time

Speech time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a text out loud. Based on data from 77 studies involving 5,965 people , it’s been found that most adults read aloud at a speed of approximately 183 words per minute ( research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 ). To figure out how long it will take to read a specific piece of text aloud, you can divide the total number of words in the text by this average rate of 183 words per minute.

Of course, it’s important to note that talk time can vary depending on factors such as clarity of speech, pauses for emphasis, and use of visual aids. However, using this tool for converting the number of words to minutes can still provide a helpful guideline for planning and practicing your presentation. By having a better understanding of speech rates, you can ensure that your message is delivered effectively and efficiently.

Benefits of Using a Speech Time Calculate

Time management in presentations.

Effective time management during presentations is crucial to ensure the audience remains engaged and the information is accurately conveyed. This is where our words to speaking time converter comes in handy. By using this tool, presenters can easily determine how many words they need to include in their presentation to stay within the allotted time frame.

Not only does it help with time management, but it also ensures that the pacing of the presentation is consistent, making it easier for the audience to follow. With the use of this presentation time calculator, presenters can confidently deliver their presentations without the worry of running over time or rushing through it.

Estimated speech time for public speaking

Public speaking can be nerve-wracking, especially when you have too little or too much information to fill your time slot. You wonder only if there were an accurate public speaking time calculator available so that you could be able to allocate the appropriate amount of time to each section of your presentation, ensuring that you cover all the necessary points without rushing or going over time.

Effective pacing is key in ensuring your message is delivered with clarity and impact.

Most public speakers target an average of 130-150 words per minute for their spoken content, meaning you should aim to limit your speaking time to roughly one minute per 130-150 words. While this may take some practice to achieve, the end result is a confident, well-timed delivery that keeps your audience engaged from start to finish.

Remember, in public speaking, less is often more—take your time to breathe and emphasize key points. Your audience will appreciate your thoughtful and measured approach. For that, you can use this tool and adjust your words to speech time.

Accurate estimations for audiobooks and podcasts

As more and more people turn to audiobooks and podcasts for their entertainment and information needs, accurate estimations of listening time have become more important than ever. After all, there’s nothing worse than settling in for a quick listen only to find yourself trapped in a story that goes on for hours longer than you anticipated.

That’s why it’s great to see publishers and podcast producers taking estimated reading time seriously, providing listeners with the information they need to choose the right content for their schedule. Whether you’re looking for a quick listen on your daily commute or a lengthy distraction for a lazy Sunday afternoon, accurate estimations using this words to speak time calculator make it easier than ever to find the perfect content.

Some Popular Speech Times

how many words in a 2 minute speech

Almost 300 words

how many words in a 3 minute speech

Almost 450 words

how many words in a 4 minute speech

Almost 600 words

how many words in a 15 minute speech

Almost 2250 words

The speech time is calculated taking 150 words per minute as reference value

Common conversions (average speed)

How long does it take to read 500 words?

3.8 minutes

How long does it take to read 750 words?

5.8 minutes

How long does it take to read 1000 words?

7.7 minutes

How long does it take to read 1200 words?

9.2 minutes

How long does it take to read 1500 words?

11.5 minutes

How long does it take to read 1800 words?

13.8 minutes

How long does it take to read 2000 words?

15.4 minutes

How long does it take to read 3000 words?

23.1 minutes

As the world becomes more fast-paced, time is a precious commodity. Determining how long your script will take to read, whether for a presentation or a video, can make a significant difference in engaging and retaining your audience’s attention.

That’s where our Words to Time Converter comes in handy. It’s a valuable tool for anyone working in various professions, from broadcast journalists to teachers to executives. No matter the industry, time is of the essence, and knowing how long your speech or presentation will take is crucial for effective communication.

Convert Words to Time

Calculate how long it will take to read a speech or presentation

Enter the word count of your speech below to see how long it will take you to read. Estimate the number of minutes based on a slow, average, or fast speaking pace.

Number of words

Reading speed, common conversions (average speed).

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• How many words per minute in a speech

How many words per minute in a speech?

A quick guide for slow, average and fast rates of speech.

By:  Susan Dugdale  

If you're preparing a speech or presentation with a strict time limit it’s useful to have an estimate of the number of words you’ll need to fit the number of minutes you've been given.

And it's even more useful to have those guidelines before you rush into writing, only to discover when you’re done, you’ve written far too much. Something I used to do on a regular basis! (And then, I had the tedious job of pruning to fit.)

What's on this page:

How many words are there in a 1-minute speech, how many words are there in a 2-minute speech, how many words are there in a 3-minute speech, how many words are there in a 4-minute speech, how many words are there in a 5-minute speech, how many words are there in a 6-minute speech, how many words are there in a 7-minute speech, how many words are there in an 8-minute speech, how many words are there in a 9-minute speech, how many words are there in a 10-minute speech, how many words are there in a 15-minute speech, how many words are there in a 20-minute speech, how many words are there in a 25-minute speech, how many words are there in a 30-minute speech.

• How to calculate your own speech rate: 2 easy methods
• How many pages is a 4, 7 or 20-minute speech?     

About this quick reference guide

The following table (below) shows the average number of words spoken per minute for speeches from 1 to 30 minutes long. It's a quick reference guide: one only intended to provide general information.

Who, and what, is truly average?

An average word count for any timed speech (one minute, two minutes, three, four, five, six...or more, minutes) is impossible to give. As there really is no such thing as an average person, who uses an average rate of words per minute when they speak.

We are individuals: each of us different. Speech patterns and speech (speaking) rates vary considerably between person to person for a great many reasons. The best you’ll ever get is an educated guess.

Use as an estimate: test yourself to be sure

That aside, the following estimates will give you a handy indication of the number of minutes it takes to say x number of words depending on whether you talk at a slow speed, a medium speed or you're one of the world's fast talkers.

(And, no, it's never a good idea to gabble at a mile a minute to fit everything you've prepared into the length of time you've been given!)

To be absolutely sure what you've done will fit the time allocation you've been given it's a good idea to test yourself to establish your own speaking rate or speed of speech .

How many pages is a 'x' minute speech?

Multiple variations on the question how many pages are needed for a speech are frequently asked. For instance:

• How many pages is a 4-minute speech?
• How many pages is a 7-minute speech?
• How many pages is a 20-minute presentation?

Unfortunately, the answer is not simple. Calculating the number of A4 pages of text you need for a speech of any number of minutes long is tricky for two reasons.

How many words are on an A4 page?

The first reason is that the number of words on an A4 page depends on how the page has been formatted. The answers to the questions below make a very big difference to the total number of pages needed to print a speech.

• What is the font family being used? (Different fonts take up differing amounts of space because of the shape/design of their characters.)  
• What is the size of the font? (The font size you're reading right now is 20px.)
• What is the spacing between each of the letters in a word?
• What is the spacing between each line of text? Is it single spacing, 1.5 or double line spacing?
• What spacing has been set for paragraphs?
• What size have the margins of the page been set at?
• Are there headings? Sub-headings or lists?

On average if the font is plain, (sans-serif, without embellishment), like Arial or Verdana, its size is set for 12px, and the line spacing is set for 1.5, then a page may have between 400-500 words on it.

Speech rate changes how we calculate the number of words we need

The second reason why using the number of pages to gauge how long a speech will take to deliver is problematical is because we speak at different rates. 

A 500-word page may take someone speaking at very slow rate 4 minutes to get through.

Another person, who has a much faster speaking rate, may take about 2.5 minutes to deliver exactly the same text.

Using the number of pages as a guide for a speech that has to fit a time limit is completely unreliable.

If you need to use a 'guesstimate' use the speech rate table below. Forget about counting the pages! 

If you are a slow speaker, less than 120 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 120 - 160 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 160 - 200 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 240 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 240 - 320 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 320 - 400 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 360 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 360 – 480 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 480 - 600 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 480 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 480 – 640 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 640 - 800 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 600 words,

If you speak at an average speed between: 600 – 760 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 760 - 1000 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 720 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 720 – 960 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 960 - 1200 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 840 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 840 – 1120 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 1120 - 1400 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 960 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 960 – 1280 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 1280 - 1600 words.

If you are a slow speaker less than 1080 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 1080 – 1440 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 1440 - 1800 words.

If you are a slow speaker a little less than 1200 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 1200 – 1600 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 1600 - 2000 words.

If you are a slow speaker, a little less than 1,800 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 1,800 - 2,400 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 2,400 - 3,000 words.

If you are a slow speaker, a little less than 2,400 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 2,400 - 3,200 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 3,200 - 4,000 words.

If you are a slow speaker, a little less than 3,000 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 3,000 - 4,000 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 4,000 - 5,000 words.

If you are a slow speaker, a little less than 3,600 words.

If you speak at an average speed between: 3,600 - 4,800 words.

If you are a fast speaker between: 4,800 - 6,000 words.

Return to Top

Find out more about speech rate

• How to calculate your own words per minute speech rate - two easy methods
• The factors influencing a faster rate or slower rate of speech
• How to develop an ideal rate of speech : one matching content, speech purpose and your audience: six exercises for flexible speaking rate

Words per minute calculator

Lastly here's the link to a useful online words per minutes calculator . Once you've completed your speech enter the total number of words, and select whether you want it to give you an average for a minute of your speech at a slow rate, average or fast rate. Again, it's a 'guesstimate'. ☺

The only really safe way to find out whether your speech fits your time allocation is to say it aloud at an ideal rate or pace: one taking into account the content, and the audience who is going to listen to it, while timing it.

(Use the record function on your phone. It will assist in lots of other ways too! You'll hear where you need more vocal variety, where your pronunciation is blurred ...and, so on. It's super helpful.)

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How To Convert Words Into Time For Just-Right Speeches

Timing is crucial when delivering speeches. Event organizers plan on a certain amount of time for each speech, and individuals who speak too long throw off the timing and risk losing audience interest. Smart speakers convert their words into time to calculate how long their speeches will be and practice them, along with visuals, to get accurate timing.

Public speaking is daunting, and timing is one of the biggest challenges.  Getting it right is crucial for a successful and memorable presentation.

This article explores tips and techniques to help you  master the art of timing in public speaking  and deliver a powerful speech that engages and inspires your audience. When you learn to convert your words into time, you are on the road to delivering a speech that is timed just right.

Table of Contents

Why is The Timing Of Speeches Important?

A speech that is too short or too long may leave the audience feeling dissatisfied or disinterested. The length of a speech should be appropriate to the occasion, the topic, and the audience.

Timing is especially important  in speech events with strict running schedules, such as debate, poetry recitation, or stand-up comedy. Going over the allotted time not only throws off the event timing but can also result in disqualification or point deductions.

When a wedding or awards ceremony has room for speakers, long speeches drag out this part of the event. Speaking too long may belabor the point, kill the moment, and bore the audience. Keeping the timing right is crucial to ensuring the audience stays engaged and interested throughout the speech. In short,  timing is an essential aspect of public speaking that can make or break a presentation.

What Impact Does An Overly-Long Speech Have On An Event?

An overly-long speech harms an event in several ways.

Firstly, it  disrupts the schedule  and causes delays in the event, which is frustrating for the audience, especially if they have other commitments to attend to. This is particularly true for political speeches or speeches at weddings, where there is often a tight schedule to follow.

Secondly, an overly-long speech  affects audience engagement . This is especially true in the case of an elevator pitch or a speech in a corporate setting, where attention spans are typically shorter.

Lastly, an overly-long speech can be seen as  disrespectful to the audience’s time and attention.  The audience may feel its time is being wasted and become frustrated or resentful towards the speaker.

How Can Speakers Know How Long Their Speech Will Be?

Speakers can use  several methods to know how long their speech will be .

One common method is to use a  speech converter, a tool that converts the written text of a speech into an estimate of the time it will take to deliver the speech.  These tools typically take into account factors such as the number of words, the reading speed of the speaker, and pauses and breaks in the speech.

Another way to estimate the length of a speech is to  practice delivering it.  Rehearsing the speech several times and timing each run-through gives the speaker a good idea of how long the speech will take to deliver. The actual delivery time may vary slightly depending on the delivery speed and the level of audience interaction.

In addition, some speakers prefer to use  timing cues  during the speech to help them stay on track. These cues may include using a stopwatch or timer, having a moderator give a signal at critical points in the speech, or using visual aids such as cue cards or slides with time markers.

How Do You Convert Words Into Time For Speech Delivery?

Speech calculators  typically work by using an algorithm that considers various factors, such as the average reading speed of a person, their speaking pace, the number of words in the speech, and any pauses or breaks included in the text.

Generally, a person’s average speaking speed is about 130 to 150 words per minute (wpm) . Based on this average speaking rate, speeches containing 40 words would take less than a minute to deliver, while lectures containing 100 words would take around 40 to 50 seconds.

A 500-word speech would take around 3½ to 4 minutes to deliver, while an address containing 750 words would take 5 to 6 minutes. A 1000-word speech would take about 7 to 8 minutes.

To calculate the number of words to speak in an hour, we use the average reading speed of 130 to 150 words per minute.

• Assuming a speech rate of 135 words per minute, a speaker would say about 8,100 words in an hour.
• Assuming a speech rate of 150 words per minute, a speaker would say about 9,000 words in an hour.

Use this easy time calculator to work out your word count for a specified number of minutes:

How Much Time Does It Take To Use SIides, Charts, And Other Visuals?

The time frames for using slides, charts, and other visuals in a speech depend on the  complexity of the visuals , the amount of information being presented, and the audience’s familiarity with the subject matter.

Generally, it’s best to keep visuals concise and to the point. Visual aids should  support the speaker’s message and not detract from it . A good rule of thumb is to limit visuals to no more than  one slide or chart per minute of speaking time.

When creating slides or charts, keep them simple and easy to read. Use large fonts and clear, contrasting colors to ensure the information is easily visible from a distance . Practice the timing  of each slide or chart beforehand so the delivery flows smoothly and doesn’t detract from the overall message.

A simple chart or graph may only take a few seconds to present, while a more complex one may take up to a minute or more . Factor in the time it takes to set up the visual aids, such as connecting a laptop or adjusting the projector.

The Importance Of Practicing Your Speech With Visuals

Practicing your speech with visuals is important because it allows you to ensure that the delivery flows smoothly and the visuals enhance the message.  It also helps you  avoid technical issues  and saves time during the presentation.

By practicing with the visuals, you can get a sense of how long each slide or chart takes to present and adjust your timing accordingly. Finally, practicing with visuals helps build confidence in delivering the message and enhances the overall impact of the presentation .

Why You Should Have A Plan To Shorten Your Speech If Necessary

Having a plan to shorten your speech length is necessary because  unexpected events  can occur during a presentation, such as technical difficulties or a change in the event schedule. It also allows you to adjust your delivery to keep the audience engaged and prevent them from losing interest.

It also allows you to adjust your delivery to keep an audience engaged and prevent it from losing interest.

By having a plan to shorten the speech, you prioritize the most relevant points and ensure that the key message is delivered. It shows professionalism and respect for the audience’s time by providing a concise and effective presentation.

Adam Howarth

Adam covers the topic of Public Speaking for Digital Authority. From his first experience of oratory with his school debating society to his more recent experiences of promoting the local business scene in Wrexham, Wales, he has always been involved in public speaking.

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Speech Length Calculator

Author: Calculator Academy Team

Last Updated: July 31, 2023

Enter the total number of words, and your words per minute speech speed into the calculator to determine the total length of a speech.

• Standard Notation Calculator (Word/Number to Standard Notations)
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Speech Length Formula

The following formula is used to calculate the length of a speech.

• Where T is the total time
• W is the total number of words
• SS is the speaking speed in words/min

To calculate the speech length, divide the total number of words by the speaking rate.

Speech Length Definition

A speech length is defined as the total time it takes to perform a speech or presentation.

Speech Length Example

How to calculate speech length?

Measure the total number of words in the speech.

Determine the average speed at which you speak.

Calculate the time of the speech using the equation above.

A speech should be as long as it needs to be to convey the information being presented. No shorter and no longer than that exact length. What that length is, is a little hard to determine. If you get your point across concisely and quickly, it can be good enough.

Free Online Words to Minutes Calculator

How long should your 5 minutes speech be? How many words should your essay be to take 5 minutes reading?

To find an answer, you need words to minutes calculator. IvyPanda Experts prepared this post, where you will find 10 free words to minutes converters, find out how to measure your speaking rate, and how long your X-minute speech has to be.

🏆 Top 10 Free Words to Minutes Converter

🎤 how long does a 4-minute speech have to be, ⏱ how to measure your speech length, 1. speech in minutes.

This is a free-to-use speech calculator to measure how long it takes to deliver your speech. To use this tool, you need to enter the word count and choose the reading speed: from slow (100 words per minute) to fast (160 words per minute). No registration is needed.

2. Words to Time

Words To Time as an ad-free text to speech calculator that will provide you with the number of minutes immediately. You can type the number of words you want to convert or paste your text and grab the result. Don’t forget to pick up the reading speed!

3. The Word Finder

This is a free speech length estimator. No sign-up, no ads, or captcha. Type the word count, choose speaking speed, and grab the result immediately. There are also available various cool apps like Font Generators, Backwards Text Converter, Time Calc, etc.

4. EdgeStudio

Edge Studio, the voice recording company, developed a free online script timer. Depending on the data available, you can put the words count, paste your text, or type the average words per line. You will get a result instantly after you click the button “Submit.” On the tab “Statistics,” you can find out stats about reading speed, word, and line count.

5. Copywritely

At this website, you can measure the time of reading your text within a couple of clicks using its words to minutes calculator. Paste your text, and at the bottom of the field, you will see the word count and the approximate speech time.

The tool is available in English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch. Also, there are available Grammar Checker, Alphabetizer, Words to Pages, and other apps that will become handy for any writing purpose.

6. Read-O-Meter

Read-O-Meter is a simple and hassle-free word to minutes calculator to estimate the reading time. All you have to do is just type or paste the text you want to calculate the speech or article length and press the button “Estimate Reading Time.”

7. TheVoice Realm

This speech length calculator was designed by the online voice casting company. To use it, you need to paste your text or the word count and find out the estimated time. The page also contains background information about the speaking speed and how many minutes in 300, 900, and more words.

To use the Words to Time Conversion tool, you need to know the word count of your text. To get the estimated speech time, you need to type the number of words and adjust reading or speaking time, and you will get an immediate result. The tool is free and contains no ads.

9. Debatrix

This is another ad-free word to minute speech calculator to find out how long your speech will take. To measure the estimated time, you need to paste the text. The online app will count the number of words and speech duration.

10. TextConverter

The website provides plenty of tools that will be useful for students, SEO specialists, and writers.

Choose the text type: speech or locution, reading rhythm, and get the estimated time for your project. The app also will count the number of words and characters.

On the website, you can also find other utilities: Text Randomizer, Upper and Lower Case converters, E-mails Extractor, Hashtags, etc. The site is available in English and Portuguese languages.

Why do we need to measure the reading or speaking time?

There can be a variety of reasons. For example, you should prepare a 5-minute speech, or your post should not exceed 10 minutes of reading.

Speaking or reading time depends on the person who is going to read the text. Below, you will find a table that will help you quickly determine the duration of the content. The table is divided into two parts. The first one gives you reference information of minutes to words conversion. The second one shows the inverse correlation.

This table provides only the estimated information. The actual speech duration depends on your speaking pace, pauses, and so on. Below you will find out what impacts and how to measure your speaking rate.

Keep reading!

In this post, we will share with you how to measure how long your speech will be. Also, you will find out what impacts your speaking pace and how to practice it.

Determine the Word Count

First things first, so let’s determine the number of words you want to turn to minutes. If you use the Microsoft Word or Open Office, you will find out the word count on the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

In Google Docs, you can click Tools>>Word Count, or use the shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+C. If you use other word processors, refer to the help system of the tool.

Determine the Speech Pace

If you don’t know how many words you speak per minute, there are a couple of options to find out it. Check them below!

Use the sample text. Here is how it works: take your sample text, start the timer, and begin reading it aloud. When the minute is up, use your word processing app to figure out how many words you read. This will be your speed of speech.

Record yourself. Another way to find out your speaking pace is to record your speech. Set a timer for a minute, read any text, or talk about any topic while recording it. Then, listen to it and count the words you spoke. You can count it manually or use the software, for example, IBM Speech to Text calculator .

What Impacts Your Speaking Rate?

The speaking rate is individual. There are many factors that influence it. Here are some of them:

• Pauses, and rhetorical devices. The more it has, the slower your speaking rate will be.
• Condition of the speaker. If you’re angry, excited, or in a hurry, you will probably speak faster than usual. On the other hand, when you are tired, it makes it harder to speak quickly.
• Urgency. Here’s the deal: in emergencies, we are more likely will speak quicker than in a calm environment.
• Mental issues. Some mental conditions may lead to a slower or faster speech rate.
• Audience and event. For example, if you are recording audio for a radio ad, you will speak faster, since you are limited by the time. Another example is when you are trying to explain the complicated term to students. More likely, you will slow down your speech. During the presentation, you can also make pauses while changing the slides or checking your notes.
• Environment. Yes, your background directly impacts your speaking pace: your dialect, family, culture, friends, and neighbors, etc.
• Words and content complexity. The long and complex words also impact your speaking pace, making it slower. The same can be said about complex content—it requires more time to deliver it to the audience. Remember about this if you are limited by time.
• Language. Depending on the language you speak, your speaking rate will vary. In 2011, the University of Lyon researchers asked volunteers to read twenty texts in their native languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Italian. The purpose of studies was to find out how the density of syllables impacts the rate of communication.

Here’s what they found: the Mandarin language is the slowest one, with 5.18 syllables per second. However, it has the highest information density. The fastest language is Japanese, with its 7.84 syllables per second rate. English language speaking rate is 6.19 syllables per second.

Another interesting fact about the speaking rate is the world record shattered by Steve Woodmore . He articulates 637 words in one minute!

If you are wondering about the average speaking rates, check the table below:

Source: National Center for Voice and Speech

But what about reading? Is the reading pace the same as speaking?

On average, people read 180-300 words per minute. However, speed readers can read 1000+ words per minute.

How to Practice Your Speaking Rate?

You might have met people called a motor-mouth — they speak too fast, and words seem rocket out from their mouths. Others, on the opposite, speak too slowly. You can compare them with sloths from the movie Zootopia:

Both these cases can be fun for a while. However, the too fast and too slow speech will make the listeners lose their interest.

The solution is to practice your speaking rate, making it flexible, and adapting to your audience’s needs.

Below, you will find five easy exercises that will help you to develop a flexible speaking rate:

Read children’s books aloud.

Here’s the deal: when you read stories to a child, you might notice that some passages require you to speak faster, while others must be read at a slow pace.

Read a story several times aloud to become familiar with the text and its passages. If it is possible, record yourself. Then, try reading the text and change the pace. Listen to the records to hear the differences. Think of how the speaking rate impacts the comprehension of the text.

Read scientific reports.

You may find this exercise boring, but yet it will be helpful for delivering complex things in your future speeches.

First, pick up the newspaper or magazine. For example, you can try a Science magazine website — there are plenty of interesting topics, reports, and articles to discover. After you select the report, read it silently to familiarize yourself with the material. The next step is to read it aloud (don’t forget about recording yourself!), noting which parts of the text should be read at a slow pace, and which — faster.

You can extend this exercise and image that you read the article to someone who knows nothing about this topic. Listen to the records and pay attention to the changes you made.

Read your own class speeches.

Make a series of experiments with one of your old class speeches. First, record it delivering the speech at your normal speaking pace. Check the time it took to deliver.

The next step is to mark down some passages to read at slower and others — at a faster rate. Now, read it aloud again while adhering to the marks. Listen to the records; note how changed the time and overall speech comprehension.

Listen to various speakers.

Watch the movie, listen to the news on TV, and watch the classical play. Compare the speech rates of the speakers. You will notice the rhetorical devices they use and how effective their speech is. Then, experiment with your own speech and see how it changes.

Read texts you are familiar with.

Read the text you already know at a quicker or slower pace than usual. Record yourself and play it back. Note the places where your speaking rate was effective and where it wasn’t. Then, mark these places and reread the text again, implementing these changes and recording yourself. See how your speech has changed.

These simple exercises will help you to produce effective speeches for various audiences.

There are a couple of things you need to remember when you speak:

• Fast speaking indicates urgency, passion, and emotions. If you want to stimulate and excite the attention of your listeners, speak quickly. However, you should remember that after a couple of minutes of listening to fast speech, it becomes overwhelming.
• Slow speaking, on the other hand, indicates the seriousness of your point, its importance. Use this approach to grab the attention of your audience. The slow pace also will help them to easier process the information you want to deliver. Similar to fast speaking, too slow pace in your entire speech also can overwhelm and bore your listeners.

How to Make the Speech Memorable

Pace yourself to highlight the most important parts of the speech, and your audience will memorize what you said. The key to any great speech is the retention of the audience. Check the IvyPanda expert advice to make your talks memorable :

• Tell stories. Interesting examples not only illustrate your speech but also help listeners to recall what you said. Humor and short stories from your life will also help you to grab the attention of your audience. Important notice: tell only relevant ones and don’t overuse them.
• Use pauses and breaks. Just like a novel is broken into chapters and paragraphs, pauses in your speech serve as a signal of the end of one point and transition to another.

Use simple and short sentences and phrases. Short sentences and simple language will help you to maximize the engagement and comprehension of your audience. Avoid complex words unless you are talking about specific tech terms in front of the professionals in this sphere.

• Engage your audience with questions. At the beginning of the speech, ask your audience a question or two. This method will give them a hook and grab their attention.
• Review your speech after you wrote it. Check if everything is clear. Rehearse it in various rates and note places where you need to speed up your speech and where to slow it down.

Now you know how to find out the length of your speech, have all the tools to convert words to minutes, and advice on how to practice your speaking rate. Don’t forget to check our other tools to write outstanding speeches.

Updated: Oct 25th, 2023

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When you are working on a 5-minute speech, you may want to know how many words you should write. This page contains links to 10 free online words to minutes converters. Here you will also find tips on how to measure your speaking rate and how to make your speech memorable.

Convert words to time

Word per minute speech

Enter the number of words in the box below to find out how many minutes it will take you to give your speech.

Word Counter

Paste your text here to find out the word count

Word Count: 0

Online Stopwatch

Time your speech on a timer for the actual time it takes you to deliver your speech, practice.

Our tool comes in handy when you are preparing for a speech or creating a presentation. The length of your speech depends on the amount of text and your speaking or reading speed.

Speech time calculator

Know how many minutes takes to read a text..

Words Count: 0

Characters Count: 0

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How Many Words Are in a Speech?

How can you measure your spoken words per minute.

To quickly know what your speaking rate is, write a 650-word essay and then get out a stopwatch. Time how long it takes you to speak all of the words in the essay.

Once you’ve finished, divide the word count (650 words) by the number of minutes in decimals (30 seconds = 0.5 minutes) and you’ll get an estimate of your words per minute speaking rate.

For example, if it takes you 4.5 minutes to speak 650 words, you would do 650 divided by 4.5 and get 144 words per minute.

Word Count per Speech Length

To quickly find out how many words a typical speaking length requires, see the table below. You can quickly map word counts to typical speaking rates:

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Speech Length: How Many Words Is A 5 Minute Speech

• October 21, 2023

Table of Contents:

Word count metrics for memorable speeches, a comprehensive guide to writing and delivering impactful 5 minute speeches, 1- dynamics of speech length, 2- the importance of timing in speeches, 3- engagement and audience attention, 4- timing tips for keeping audience engagement, 5- decoding the 5 minute speech, 6- word count guide for a 5 minute speech, 7- factors influencing speech speed, 8- examples of 5-minute speeches, 9- how to write a 5 minute speech, 10- planning and structuring your speech, 11- speech writing tips and techniques, 12- perfecting your 5 minute speech delivery, 13- practice makes perfect, 14- speech delivery techniques, use a conversational tone, maintain eye contact with your audience., modulate your voice, faqs about 5 minute speech, how many pages is a 5 minute speech, how many words per minute in a speech, how much does it cost to write a five minute speech, conclusion:.

Experience the whole article by listening!

When it comes to public speaking or presentations, understanding the concept of speech length is critical. The common question is, “How many words in a 5 minute speech?” It’s an interesting query, pointing towards the essence of timing and pace in speeches. 

In this article, we’ll delve into the intricacies of length, including factors that influence it and how to gauge the ideal number of words for a five-minute discourse. Whether preparing for a business presentation, a school debate, or a toast at a wedding, knowing how to manage your length effectively can be a game-changer.

Speech length isn’t just about counting words but also understanding the speech rate. According to various studies, the average speaking speed ranges from 125 to 150 words per minute (wpm). But this isn’t a hard and fast rule. Several factors can influence the speed at which a person speaks, including their natural speaking style, comfort level, and type of communication. For instance, a nervous speaker might rush through their points, while an experienced speaker might take their time, utilizing pauses for effect.

One might wonder why we stress timing in speeches. The answer lies in engaging and keeping the audience’s attention. We live in an era of short attention spans, where every second counts. A speech that drags on can lose its impact, leaving listeners bored or disinterested. In contrast, a speech that’s too rushed might leave the audience confused and unable to keep up. Therefore, balancing the timing and pacing of your speech is essential in delivering an effective presentation. The optimal length allows for a comfortable pace that aligns with the listeners’ attention span.

Understanding your audience’s attention span is paramount when it comes to speeches. It is reported that the human attention span is about 10-20 minutes long, depending on interest, distractions, and individual variations. Therefore, a 5-minute speech is an excellent duration to maintain audience engagement. If you’re looking for techniques on how to memorize a speech fast , we have resources that can help. It is short enough to keep the audience from losing interest and long enough to allow the speaker to deliver a compelling argument or tell a captivating story. 

Crafting an engaging speech isn’t just about the content; it’s also about managing your speech length. Breaking your speech down into digestible segments can help maintain audience engagement. Instead of providing an information overload, deliver your points concisely, and take regular pauses. This gives your audience time to process and absorb the information. Furthermore, using a conversational tone can make your speech more relatable, helping to keep your audience engaged throughout.

A 5-minute speech, given the average speech speed, can fit approximately 625 to 750 words. But remember, this is just an approximation. Each speaker is unique, and so is their rate of speech. Some people naturally speak faster, while others prefer a slower pace. Your comfort level, the complexity of your topic, and your audience can all impact your speaking speed.

An effective way to plan your 5-minute speech is to estimate the number of words it should contain. Here’s a rough guide:

• Slow speakers: 100 wpm, approximately 500 words in 5 minutes.
• Average speakers: 125-150 wpm, about 625-750 words in 5 minutes.
• Fast speakers: 200 wpm, nearly 1000 words in 5 minutes. Remember that these numbers are approximate and can vary based on several factors.

Speech speed can vary significantly from person to person due to language fluency, nervousness, and the nature of the communication. A speaker might talk faster due to nervousness or excitement, or they might speak slowly to emphasize points or create suspense. Moreover, a speaker might adjust their pace based on audience reactions. Knowing these factors can help you manage your length and deliver a successful presentation.

Examples of impactful 5-minute speeches abound in history. For instance, Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic ‘I Have a Dream’ speech lasted just over 5 minutes, as did Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. These speeches show you can deliver powerful messages within a brief period, provided you manage your speech length effectively.

Writing a 5-minute speech might seem challenging, but it’s a skill you can master with some practice and guidance. If you’ve ever considered taking your skills to a professional level and want to become a speech writer , there are steps you can take to make it a reality. Begin with a clear objective for your speech, and make sure every word you pen down serves that goal. 

Be concise and straight to the point. Also, consider your audience when crafting your speech. A complex topic might require simpler language to ensure comprehension, while an educated audience might appreciate the use of technical terms or industry jargon. Moreover, you can always have the option of speech writers for hire and get help from them.

Structuring your speech correctly is critical to effectively managing length. If you’re intrigued by the art of speech and its potential career paths, learn about how to become a speech therapist . Start with a strong and engaging opening, followed by your main points, and conclude with a powerful ending reinforcing your message. A well-structured speech keeps the audience engaged and helps you stay within your time limit. Remember, every word counts in a 5-minute speech, so avoid unnecessary fluff and focus on the message you wish to convey.

• Keep your sentences short and clear.

Short sentences are easier to speak and understand. They keep your speech crisp and to the point.

• Use bullet points to organize your thoughts.

Bullet points can help you break down complex ideas into digestible pieces, making it easier for your audience to understand and for you to speak.

• Avoid jargon or complex language.

Unless it’s necessary for your topic or audience, avoid complex language. Simple, everyday language makes your speech more relatable and easily understood.

Creating an impactful 5-minute speech isn’t just about the words you write – it’s also about how you deliver them. If you need assistance in creating impactful written pieces, you can always hire a book writer or explore our professional ghostwriting services . Speech delivery can make or break your presentation, regardless of how well-written your speech might be.  Therefore, understanding and perfecting the art of speech delivery is crucial.

The key to perfecting your 5-minute speech? Practice. And lots of it. Rehearsing your speech multiple times helps you get comfortable with the words and also helps you understand how to manage your speech length effectively. By practicing, you can gauge whether you need to slow down or speed up, take more pauses, or emphasize certain points more.

Here are some tips to improve your speech delivery:

This makes your speech sound natural and engaging. It also helps manage your speech length, as you’re less likely to rush or slow down too much.

This helps keep the audience engaged and gives you feedback on how well your speech is being received.

This helps keep your audience interested and makes your speech more dynamic. Changing your pitch, tone, and volume can emphasize certain points and manage the overall speech length.

The number of pages in a 5-minute speech depends on your speaking pace and formatting choices. Here’s a breakdown:

• Average speaking pace: 100-120 words per minute
• 5-minute speech word count: 500-650 words
• Pages at 12pt font, single-spaced:  1-1.5 pages

Remember, this is just an estimate. Consider these factors for more precise results:

• Your actual speaking speed:  Time yourself delivering your speech to gauge your pace.
• Font size and spacing:  Larger fonts or double spacing will increase page count.
• Visual elements:  If you include slides or images, they won’t add to page count but affect delivery timing.

The average English speaker utters approximately 130 words per minute. A brisk speaker may reach up to 160 words per minute, while a more deliberate speaker might use around 100 words. Understanding your natural pace is key to delivering a well-timed and engaging speech.

A five minute speech would be around 500 words to 650 words.” Writing a 5 minute speech typically ranges from $250 to $300, influenced by factors such as complexity, writer experience, and customization

Understanding speech length and managing it is a valuable skill in public speaking. If you need to have your skills or achievements documented, Wikipedia writers for hire can help. Keeping your speech within the optimal length can maintain audience engagement and effectively convey your message. 

Whether you’re a fast speaker or slow, a seasoned orator, or a novice speaker, mastering the art of the 5-minute speech is a skill that can be honed with practice and understanding. Remember, it’s not just about the number of words but how you use them that counts.

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How to Add Length to a Speech

Last Updated: January 26, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Lynn Kirkham and by wikiHow staff writer, Aly Rusciano . Lynn Kirkham is a Professional Public Speaker and Founder of Yes You Can Speak, a San Francisco Bay Area-based public speaking educational business empowering thousands of professionals to take command of whatever stage they've been given - from job interviews, boardroom talks to TEDx and large conference platforms. Lynn was chosen as the official TEDx Berkeley speaker coach for the last four years and has worked with executives at Google, Facebook, Intuit, Genentech, Intel, VMware, and others. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 15,928 times.

When you’re giving a speech, it often feels like it happened in a flash—so what do you do if you need to slow things down? Adding length to a speech is something many speakers and presenters have to do, and, thankfully, they’ve provided quite a few tips. In this article, we’ll share with you the best tricks to make any presentation longer.

Things You Should Know

• Prioritize speaking slowly and clearly, and state your key points multiple times throughout your speech.
• Add length by including stories, examples, facts, and quotes in your speech to back up your main points.
• Use a visual aid like a powerpoint or a handout to add time and audience engagement.

Speak slowly and clearly.

• Try not to sacrifice enthusiasm for speed. [1] X Trustworthy Source American Psychological Association Leading scientific and professional organization of licensed psychologists Go to source You can still be ecstatic and passionate while speaking clearly.

Repeat your important points.

• Although repetition is good, try to avoid repeating things back to back. This could tire out your audience.
• Key ideas and themes are great words and phrases to recap throughout.
• An excellent example of repetition is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream , where he reiterates the famous lines, “ I have a dream that my four little children will… I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia… I have a dream today!”

Pause for dramatic effect.

• Think of your speech as a performance. If it were a play or movie, where would you see a dramatic pause?
• Count out your pause in your head or tap your finger at your side.
• Emphasize your pause by saying something like, “Now, think about that.”
• Mark in your speech where you’d like to pause dramatically. This will help you while practicing and can be a physical reminder during your speech if you're using cue cards.

Add an extra story or example to your speech.

• Write your story out on paper outside of your speech to flesh it out. [4] X Research source
• The story or example doesn’t have to be personal. It could be a metaphor, allegory, or even a reiteration of a well-known tale.
• Make your story extra dynamic by tapping into the feelings and senses of the moment. What was the weather like? Was there air blowing into the open window? Make your story as descriptive as you can so it sounds rich and interesting.

Use facts and quotes in your speech.

• If you’re directly quoting someone else, say “quote” before stating the quote and “unquote” after the quote’s final word.

Connect with the audience during your speech.

• Ask members of the audience to raise their hands if they’ve done X, Y, or Z.
• Toss in an energizing stretch break or audience-participation activity during the middle of your speech (this is great for a younger audience).
• Practice audience connection techniques in front of friends or family to test what works best for your speech.

Sync a slide presentation to your speech.

• Make sure to practice with your slideshow before presenting your speech, noting when you need to click over to another slide.
• Try to avoid reading directly from the slides. Your speech should already explain what’s on the screen. [7] X Research source

Play a video during your speech.

• Pick a video that has something to do with your speech. You want the video to add to your speech, not take away from it.
• Place your video at a point in your presentation where it’s natural. For example, don’t stop in the middle of a story to show the video version of what you’re describing. Play the video before or after you’ve said something important.

Walk around while giving your speech.

Time your speech while you practice and present.

• Practice your speech using different rhythms and pauses, and note what helps you stretch the time without awkward pauses.

Give the audience a handout during your speech.

• Try to walk and talk while you do this, so there isn’t an awkward silence drawing out the time.
• Hand out your resource during a lull in your speech or towards the end before a Q&A.

Take questions from the audience.

• Aim for leaving about 15 minutes at the end of your presentation for questions.
• Try bringing up your key points again if no one has any questions right away.

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/02/tips-speaking
• ↑ https://mannerofspeaking.org/2019/11/12/pauses-in-a-speech-why-when-and-how/
• ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/316145
• ↑ https://www.fau.edu/honors/undergraduate-research/documents/general-guidelines.pdf
• ↑ https://hbr.org/2013/06/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation
• ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/07/26/12-public-speaking-tips-to-make-your-speech-more-impactful/

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How Long is a 3 Minute Speech? Tips for Writing a Short Speech

What could be more nerve-wracking than standing in front of a room full of people and giving a speech in three minutes? It is no surprise that this can be a stressful task for many people. The good news is that most audiences are ready to listen and understand, if you know how to make your points in a clear, concise, and impactful manner.

But that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? How do you effectively deliver a 3-minute presentation and make sure your message gets across? Well, fear not, in this post, I will be breaking down how you can create an effective 3-minute presentation and tips that you can use to maximize the impact of your speech. So put away the fear and let’s get started!

Quick Answer

How many words can I write in a 3 minute speech? Answer: The number of words for a 3 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 300 and 480 words in your speech.

Calculating Speech Length in Minutes

The precise answer to how long a 3 minute speech is can vary depending on the speaker, their speaking rate, and length of words used. It’s important to consider these factors when preparing an effective presentation . While the conventional wisdom might be to assign a fixed word count per minute, the reality is that it takes more than this to calculate an exact speech length . Subject matter is one factor to take into account when calculating speech length. Complex topics require more words and use of larger vocabulary which will naturally increase the length of time the speaker needs to explain the material. Additionally, if there is content specified by a speaker for a 3-minute presentation, that can also affect the actual length of the speech. On average, one sentence will take about three seconds to deliver, so every extra sentence or phrase will add approximately six seconds to your presentation time. To ensure that your 3-minute speech includes all information needed without taking too much time from other presenters speaking after you, practice delivering your speech out loud and adjust as needed. The pros of using a fixed word count per minute approach are numerous. This method allows for easier calculation of speech timing and for comparison against other speakers in terms of number of words spoken. A disadvantage would be that if a presenter uses larger words or has generally slower delivery with longer pauses between sentences or sections, then the estimated “3 minutes” could be inaccurate; meaning less time available for other speakers or related activities. By considering subject matter, language choice and level of detail, presenters should have a better understanding on how to effectively gauge their intended speech length beforehand. This leads into an important measure of success in any given presentation – that being words per minute estimations which we’ll cover in the following section…

Words Per Minute Estimations

Words per minute estimations are key when it comes to preparing a 3-minute speech. Speaking faster than your natural delivery can hinder the effectiveness of a presentation. However, understanding the industry standard of words per minute can help speakers find the right tempo for their presentations. According to some sources , the average person speaks approximately 125 words per minute, making a 3-minute presentation around 375 words. Plans and speeches should be rehearsed in advance to ensure that they fit and exceed the word requirement. While you should practice going over the time limit, keep in mind that it is best practice to finish presentations at or before the allotted time. On the other hand, there is debate around whether simply filling up a speech with words that do not serve any purpose creates a more improved speech. Speakers must remember that quality matters over quantity when it comes to giving a presentation. While it is important to be aware of how many words are being spoken per minute, fillers such as “um” and “like” decrease performance quality and effectiveness of a presentation. It is essential to factor in tempo along with content breathlessness when delivering a powerful presentation. Therefore, it is important for speakers to practice their speech while focusing on both its content and delivery rate so as to achieve maximum impact. Preparing an effective 3-minute speech requires a combination of quality material and proper timing. The next section will cover tips on how one can prepare an effective 3-minute speech.

Preparing a 3-Minute Speech

As with most speeches, those that are three minutes in length must be planned ahead and prepared carefully. The goal of this section is to provide tips and advice that will help the speaker craft an effective 3-minute speech. First and foremost, speakers must decide on their topic . A specific focus should be chosen, as topics that are too broad will be difficult to cover in such a short time frame. Using any research materials needed, the speaker can begin gathering key points and facts about their chosen topic to include in the speech. Speakers may also have to consider time management when constructing their 3-minute speech. It’s important to use the allotted time for the best outcome, which may involve condensing sentences or eliminating examples that don’t fit into the final draft . If necessary, speakers can even work with rhythm and dramatic pauses to create more impactful and memorable moments within their 3-minute window. Finally, the speaker should practice delivering their 3-minute speech. It’s important to know what points they plan on emphasizing, when they will pause, how they will move while they are speaking, and how to vary their pitch and vocal delivery to capture audience attention—but all within the three minutes of allotted time. The more practice given to 3-minute speech preparation, the better chance of successfully delivering an effective presentation on one’s chosen topic. Armed with these preparation tips for crafting a 3-minute speech, speakers can proceed towards structuring their speech accordingly in order to maximize its creative potential and reach its intended purpose. The following section will address structuring the speech itself so that it packs a punch within a short window of time.

Structuring the Speech

A well-structured speech is a key part of delivering an effective presentation. When planning a 3 minute speech, selecting a structure to guide the flow of information can be essential in ensuring an effective outcome. The first factor in structuring a 3 minute speech is deciding whether to present in a chronological order, or alternatively divide into thematic elements. If a chronological approach is chosen, this allows the audience to gain insight on how ideas have developed over time and provides continuity between points. Conversely, when choosing to split the speech according to theme this allows for greater focus on specific topics and highlights any similarities or differences between them. Closely linked to the type of structure chosen, it can be beneficial to consider utilising subheadings, especially if the speech has been divided into thematic elements. Subheadings are also helpful for maintaining focus on the main point and ensure each idea is adequately covered within your time limit. However, too many subheadings may result in an overly structured presentation which could be distracting for the audience. Alternatively, little or no subheadings may mean that the content feels disjointed and difficult to follow. As such, finding the right balance is essential for ensuring successful communication. Finally, whilst considering how long each element should be within your speech, setting yourself a word target can also help achieve this balance. After deciding how long each major element will take up there are often nuances within these sections that would benefit from some additional elaboration. By setting yourself a total number of words you will become more aware of how much detail there needs to be within those subsections and ultimately produce a better outcome overall. Having established the structure of your 3 minute presentation it is now important to consider what content should fill it. Moving forward we will discuss how to choose an appropriate topic that suits both you and your audience…

Choosing a Topic

Choosing a topic for a 3 minute speech can be daunting. It’s important to consider the audience, purpose, and context of the speech when selecting your topic . Your aim should be to select a topic that will interest and engage the audience. Try to pick something that you are passionate about and ensure it is appropriate for the occasion. When debating topics, think carefully about both sides of the argument so your presentation can be balanced and comprehensive. Drawing on both sides of an argument demonstrates good critical thinking and builds respect from your audience. Also you may have to overcome initial opposition or skepticism from members of your audience. This technique encourages full discussion and understanding of a topic, allowing the audience to process both perspectives before coming to their own conclusions and making decisions. Finally, if you decide to debate a topic, consider ending your presentation with a call to action for your audience — this could be encouraging them to take action on what they have learned in your speech or engaging in further research, amongst others. Now that you have chosen a topic for your 3 minute speech, it’s time to move onto finding supporting ideas which will bring depth and clarity to your presentation.

Finding Supporting Ideas

Brainstorming and research are vital components for gathering the information needed to support a 3 minute speech. Asking questions can help identify topics and ideas to provide a focus for the presentation. Think about what the audience needs to hear and then decide which idea will be used as the center of discussion. Gather facts, figures, statistics, quotes, stories and anecdotes to substantiate the central idea. Additionally, consider points of view on both sides of the debate when appropriate. This will help strengthen the basis of evidence to better illustrate a point or opinion throughout the presentation. Use materials that are relevant, concise but still informative. It is important to have a good balance between material that’s interesting and familiar. As well as material that provides an argumentative edge so the audience has something new to think about after the presentation is finished. Thus it’s important to spend time evaluating all of the materials available that may be suitable in order to determine which pieces will provide maximum impact. Having strong supporting ideas can help make a 3 minute speech persuasive and effective. Here’s a few tips for finding great supporting ideas: 1) Research thoroughly – To ensure accurate information that gives authenticity to arguments 2) Brainstorm – Think critically surrounding common topics relating back to your main point 3) Debate both sides – Consider points of view on both sides of the debate when appropriate 4) Select materials with intention – Choose relevant, concise materials that provide maximum impact 5) Utilize multimedia – Media presentations such as videos, slideshows and graphics can bring extra interest and dimension With some brainstorming and careful selection of materials through a combination of research and thoughtful evaluation, finding effective supporting ideas for a 3 minute speech can be attainable! Now that we have discussed Finding Supporting Ideas for our speech, let’s move on to discuss Opening & Closing the Speech in our next section.

Essential Information

When preparing for a 3 minute speech, it is important to brainstorm for topics and ask questions related to the presentation. Furthermore, research facts, figures, statistics, quotes, stories and anecdotes to strengthen the basis of evidence and arguments. When selecting materials to support the speech, be sure it is relevant, concise but still informative in order to provide maximum impact. To ensure maximum effectiveness of the presentation, consider points of view on both sides of the debate, use multimedia such as videos and graphics. With careful research and evaluation when selecting materials one can be prepared to deliver a strong 3 minute speech.

Opening & Closing the Speech

When delivering a 3 minute presentation, opening and closing the speech effectively is critical to ensure the speech is impactful and memorable. An effective introduction grabs the audience’s attention and creates context, while a powerful conclusion provides a sense of completion and allows the presenter to leave a lasting impression. The introduction should be short, clear and interesting so that it immediately grabs the audience’s interest and sets the tone for the rest of the presentation. Presenters should consider using an anecdote or joke to draw people in, and be sure to include a succinct overview of what points will be discussed during the rest of the presentation. It is important to stay within time limits while still ensuring that the main idea is expressed in an appealing manner. In contrast, some argue that with only three minutes allotted, it is better to save time by omitting an introduction all together. This approach can be beneficial in certain circumstances as it allows more time for covering relevant material. Additionally, experienced speakers may have no trouble grabbing the audience’s attention without needing any kind of introduction. The conclusion should summarize key points touched on throughout the presentation while reinforcing the main idea of the speech and leaving listeners with something to ponder. Presenters might close with their opinion on the topic at hand or use ending remarks such as “thank you for your attention” or “questions?” An effective closure will provide a clear picture of why this topic is important or relevant and might use props, visuals or sound clips to deliver a final statement about being heard. Similar to an introduction, some might argue that a conclusion is not necessary given that speaker has only three minutes overall. However, like an introduction, skipping out on a proper closure could be detrimental if not done well as it has potential to leave the audience feeling unfulfilled or confused about what was actually presented. In conclusion, it is important to abide by time constraints while also giving an effective open and close when preparing a 3 minute speech – whether this requires including both parts or depending on individual circumstance. Now that we have covered opening and closing techniques, our next section will focus on how to practice delivering this speech efficiently ahead of time.

Practicing the Speech

Speaking confidently and effectively in public can be intimidating for even the most experienced speaker. Before delivering a speech , it is important to practice numerous times to make sure that it is well rehearsed. This allows the speaker to become familiar with their material and identify potential areas of concern so that they can be addressed before delivering the speech. In addition to practicing aloud, writing out the entire speech is also recommended, as it gives the speaker a better sense of organization and flow. However, memorizing every line may not be necessary if the speaker has walked through their material multiple times with both written words and rehearsed aloud. The advantage of memorizing a speech word-for-word is that it allows the speaker to focus on their delivery and make sure they are speaking at an appropriate pace. This can be especially helpful when timing is an issue or when the allotted amount of time to speak is limited. On the other hand, having a memorized presentation can be dangerous as speakers may get lost in thought if they forget where they are or forget a word. Regardless of whether or not a speech is memorized in its entirety, all speeches should still be practiced several times in order for them to flow naturally and coherently. Doing so will minimize any potential errors or pauses during delivery and offer more confidence to the speaker. To further ensure an effective public presentation, all speakers should practice in front of an audience who can give constructive feedback on both content and delivery. Practicing this way helps speakers become more aware of parts of their speeches that need improvement so that these issues can be addressed before delivering the actual speech. By taking the time to properly practice one’s 3 minute speech, any presenter can deliver their material without feeling nervous or unprepared, making for a successful dialogue. With these pros and cons considered, now comes time to prepare for actually delivering the speech .

Delivering the Speech

Once you have written the speech and chosen your message, the next step is to decide how you are going to present the speech. Even a 3-minute speech can be intimidating, making it essential for presenters to practice their presentation in advance. Ready your voice and familiarize yourself with presentations mistakes so that you can avoid these pitfalls during your actual delivery. When delivering a 3-minute speech, focus on maintaining eye contact with your audience, using strong gestures to emphasize points, and speaking slowly but steadily in order to keep within the time limit. It is also important to know when to pause , as this can help draw attention to key points and help optimize communication of the content. In addition to how you deliver the speech, another area is focusing on what words to omit or add if something is taking too long or too short. Depending on the context of the presentation, there are several approaches presenters can take here – some opt for minimizing or reducing descriptions while others choose to replace or substitute certain words or phrases with newer styles of language. Ultimately, it is up to the presenter’s judgement on what changes should be made in order to ensure an effective and informative presentation within three minutes. Certain topics may require speakers to further analyze their material in order to determine what information should be included or left out within three minutes. Here, it is particularly useful for presenters to determine which aspects of their synopsis holds primary importance by jotting down points that could be used as main points or context highlights. In summary, delivering a 3-minute speech successfully requires expertise in budgeting one’s time while still managing to pass along all necessary information needed by both themselves and the audience. Effective delivery will also enhance engagement with your listeners while strengthening your own self confidence as a speaker. Moving forward, let’s discuss some additional tips for speeches of any length.

Additional Tips for Speeches of Any Length

1) Make It Interactive: Engage your audience in the speech by inviting them to act out certain ideas or roles, giving them handouts that contain specific instructions, or even allowing them to ask questions or participate in discussions. Studies have shown that people are more engaged when they are actively involved in a presentation, so give people something to do! Checkpoints in your presentation can be great opportunities for feedback from your audience that you can use to tailor your content and keep their attention. 2) Vary Your Delivery: Use different techniques to keep your audience’s interest. Consider changing the tone of your voice and/or changing your body language throughout the speech. Doing so will help make the talk more interesting and engaging for everyone. Additionally, varying the pace of the presentation can help you drive home key points and keep listeners on their toes. 3) Focus on Clarity: Communicate with clarity and ensure that each point is clear and concise. This is especially important with longer presentations as listeners may become lost along the way if the central messages aren’t made obvious. Research has found that people are more likely to remember stories than facts , so consider incorporating anecdotes into your talk for greater impact. 4) Use Visuals Wisely: Visual aids such as charts or slides can be a great addition to long presentations, helping you explain complex topics quickly and easily, but it’s important not to overdo it. Too many visuals can take away from what you’re saying and make it difficult for listeners to stay focused. Only use visuals when necessary – if there’s a lot of data involved, consider summarizing some of it instead of going into too much detail. 5) Stick to the Point: You may feel incredibly passionate about a particular topic and want to talk extensively about it – but try not to go off-topic since this could confuse or bore your audience . Keeping an outline nearby should help you stay focused, plus cutting out excess details will leave you free to elaborate on thoughts more connected to the main purpose of your speech.

Frequently Asked Questions and Answers

What types of topics are best suited to a 3 minute speech.

A 3-minute speech is best suited for topics which are brief and can be discussed in a short amount of time. It’s important to identify the key points that need to be covered within the allotted time frame. Consider keeping the topic as specific as possible – this helps to make sure all the key points are concisely discussed in the limited amount of time. Some examples of topics suitable for 3-minute speeches include: •Explaining a new product or service •Summarizing a research paper •Discussing the benefits of a particular solution •Outlining a well-known process •Highlighting recent advancements in technology •Providing a brief overview of an issue or current event •Giving an introduction to an unfamiliar concept. Ultimately, any topic that can be accurately presented and discussed in three minutes or less is appropriate for a 3-minute speech.

How much content can I fit into a 3 minute speech?

In a 3-minute speech, you can fit in quite a lot of content but only if it’s concise and well-constructed. To make the most of your time, decide on the main point you want to make, then use supporting evidence to back this up. You may also want to include some relevant anecdotes or stories to further illustrate your key points. When delivering the speech, practice pacing yourself and speaking clearly and confidently – this will make all the difference with how much content you’re able to get across. Ultimately, it comes down to how well you craft your message in such a short time frame; however, with careful preparation, you should be able to fit in a good amount of information that engages the audience.

How can I ensure my 3 minute speech is engaging?

When delivering a 3 minute speech, it is important to make sure your audience is engaged and attentive. To help ensure that your speech is engaging and effective, be sure to: 1. Focus on presenting your main points clearly and concisely. Make sure to choose words that are easily understood, and don’t be afraid to repeat yourself if needed. Keep your language simple , and avoid using abstract concepts. 2. Use stories, analogies or examples when introducing new topics or providing context for what you are talking about. This will allow the audience to better understand the content of your speech, while also making it more interesting and engaging. 3. Maintain good eye contact with your audience when speaking and use gestures when appropriate. This will show that you are confident and engaged in what you are saying. It will also help keep their attention on you rather than other distractions in the room. 4. Make sure to practice your speech beforehand so you can deliver it accurately, at a comfortable pace, and without running over time. Being able to gauge the allotted time of the speech and keep it within bounds will show the audience that you have prepared properly for the occasion. By following these tips, you can ensure that your 3 minute speech is both engaging and effective in communicating your key points to your audience.

How long is a 1 minute speech?

The number of words for a 1 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 100 and 160 words in your speech.

How long is a 2 minute speech?

The number of words for a 2 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 200 and 320 words in your speech.

How long is a 3 minute speech?

The number of words for a 3 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 300 and 480 words in your speech.

How long is a 4 minute speech?

The number of words for a 4 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 400 and 640 words in your speech.

How long is a 5 minute speech?

The number of words for a 5 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 500 and 800 words in your speech.

How long is a 6 minute speech?

The number of words for a 6 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 600 and 960 words in your speech.

How long is a 7 minute speech?

The number of words for a 7 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 700 and 1120 words in your speech.

How long is a 8 minute speech?

The number of words for a 8 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 800 and 1280 words in your speech.

How long is a 9 minute speech?

The number of words for a 9 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 900 and 1440 words in your speech.

How long is a 10 minute speech?

The number of words for a 10 minute speech will vary depending on the speaking speed, but generally you should aim to have between 1000 and 1600 words in your speech.

The Dynamics of Text to Speech Length: An Introduction

Table of contents.

In an era where digital content is king, the ability to convert text to speech (TTS) efficiently is invaluable. The term ‘text to speech length’ refers to the duration it takes for a written text to be spoken aloud using TTS technology. This concept is pivotal as it helps in tailoring content for various needs and platforms, ensuring that messages are conveyed clearly and within the desired time frame. Here, we delve into the world of TTS and its intricacies to help you understand and optimize speech length for diverse applications.

What Does Text to Speech Length Mean?

Text to speech length denotes the estimated time it takes for a specific number of words to be read aloud through TTS technology. This measure takes into account factors like word count, reading speed, and speech rate, which vary according to the context and the specific TTS engine used. Understanding this concept allows for precise planning and execution of spoken-word projects, from voice-over scripts to educational material.

Top 10 Use Cases of Text to Speech Length

• Audiobook Production: For audiobooks, text to speech length determines the total listening time, which is crucial for categorizing and marketing the final product.
• E-Learning Modules: TTS length assists in creating e-learning modules with set time frames, ensuring each lesson fits within the curriculum’s schedule.
• Public Speaking: Speech writers use text to speech length to craft speeches that fit into allocated speaking slots, from a concise 2-minute pitch to an elaborate 10-minute presentation.
• Voice-Over for Videos: In video production, syncing voice-over with visuals is essential, and speech length ensures the audio matches the video’s duration.
• Broadcasting: Broadcasters rely on speech time calculators to script segments that fit perfectly into their programs’ time slots.
• Customer Service Announcements : Text to speech conversion helps in scripting customer service announcements that are informative yet brief enough to maintain customer engagement.
• Accessibility Features: TTS length is significant in creating accessibility features for visually impaired users, timing the speech output to match user interactions.
• Language Learning: In language learning, speech length is used to provide learners with timed exercises that help them improve their speaking and listening skills.
• Podcasting: Podcasters utilize TTS length to plan episodes, ensuring content is neither too brief nor excessively long, retaining listener interest.
• Digital Assistants: For digital assistants, the length of TTS affects user experience; concise responses are preferred for efficiency, while longer explanations are needed for complex queries.

Crafting the Minutes: Text Length Considerations

How much text for a 1 minute speech.

Typically, an average person speaks at about 130-150 words per minute (wpm). Therefore, for a high-quality 1 minute speech, one would need a script of around 130-150 words.

Decoding the Duration: A 200-Word Speech

A 200-word speech at an average speaking speed would roughly take about 1.3 to 1.5 minutes, allowing for natural pauses.

The Narrative of 1,000 Words

A conversation or narrative of 1,000 words would typically span approximately 6.5 to 7.5 minutes, assuming a speech rate akin to natural conversation.

Reading Aloud: A 1000-Word Journey

An average person reads out loud at approximately 120-150 wpm, making the reading time for 1000 words around 6.5 to 8 minutes.

Boundaries in TTS Conversion

What’s the maximum tts length.

The maximum length of a text to speech conversion largely depends on the specific TTS service used; some may have limits due to processing power or design, while others are more flexible.

Free Tools: Words to Time Conversion

Yes, there are free tools available that can convert words to speech time, helping users estimate the length of their speeches or recordings.

Understanding Text to Speech Time

Text to speech time refers to the duration it takes for text to be articulated at a certain speed. Tools like the speaking time calculator, minutes calculator, and minutes converter are essential for this process, ensuring accuracy whether you’re preparing a 3-minute tutorial or a 5-minute speech.

Speechify Text to Speech

Cost : Free to try

Speechify Text to Speech is a groundbreaking tool that has revolutionized the way individuals consume text-based content. By leveraging advanced text-to-speech technology, Speechify transforms written text into lifelike spoken words, making it incredibly useful for those with reading disabilities, visual impairments, or simply those who prefer auditory learning. Its adaptive capabilities ensure seamless integration with a wide range of devices and platforms, offering users the flexibility to listen on-the-go.

Top 5 Speechify TTS Features :

High-Quality Voices : Speechify offers a variety of high-quality, lifelike voices across multiple languages. This ensures that users have a natural listening experience, making it easier to understand and engage with the content.

Seamless Integration : Speechify can integrate with various platforms and devices, including web browsers, smartphones, and more. This means users can easily convert text from websites, emails, PDFs, and other sources into speech almost instantly.

Speed Control : Users have the ability to adjust the playback speed according to their preference, making it possible to either quickly skim through content or delve deep into it at a slower pace.

Offline Listening : One of the significant features of Speechify is the ability to save and listen to converted text offline, ensuring uninterrupted access to content even without an internet connection.

Highlighting Text : As the text is read aloud, Speechify highlights the corresponding section, allowing users to visually track the content being spoken. This simultaneous visual and auditory input can enhance comprehension and retention for many users.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much text do you need for a 1 minute speech.

To determine the amount of text you need for a 1-minute speech in a text-to-speech (TTS) system, you can use the average speaking rate. Typically, the average speaking rate is about 150 to 200 words per minute. Here’s how much text you would need based on different rates:

• At 150 words per minute (wpm), a 1-minute speech would require 150 words of text.
• At 200 words per minute, a 1-minute speech would require 200 words of text.

How long is a 1,000 word conversation?

A 1,000-word conversation read by a text-to-speech program at an average rate of 150 to 200 words per minute would take approximately 5 to 6.7 minutes.

By dissecting each aspect of TTS and offering practical use cases, this article serves as a comprehensive guide to anyone looking to master the art of text to speech length. From speech writers to developers of TTS technologies, the insights shared herein are instrumental for crafting speech with precision and confidence.

• Previous The World of Digital Voices with Text to Speech Luffy
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Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

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Words To Time Converter

Estimate how many minutes your speeches, presentations, and voice-over scripts will take based on your words per minute rate!

Words per Minute: 183

How To Convert Words to Minutes Using This Tool?

If you have a certain number of words or a piece of text you want to time, you can either type in the word count or paste the text into the provided area. This tool will then calculate how long it would take to read that text out loud.

The talk time estimate is calculated using the average speaking speed of adults, which is determined to be 183 words per minute based on scientific studies. If you’re interested in how long it would take to read silently, it’s estimated at 238 words per minute ( This data is also backed by research )

You can adjust the slider to change the words per minute value, which will affect the talk time estimate. However, the silent reading time estimate remains fixed at 238 words per minute. 

For ease of use, we’ve also provided reference points for slow, average, and fast reading rates below the slider.

To begin anew, simply click the ‘clear text’ button to erase the content and restore the slider back to its original setting of 183.

I. Who is This Words to Minutes Converter Tool For?

If you are a student wondering how long is my essay or you’ve been tasked with writing a speech and need to know how many words to aim for and how many minutes will it take to deliver or perhaps you are a podcaster, just starting out, who wants the ability to easily synchronize music and spoken word without having to painstakingly calculate seconds between them, then this words to time converter (or speech time calculator-you may call it if you are a public speaker) is precisely for you! 

From now on, instead of spending long hours in front of the computer trying to figure out how many seconds it takes for one phrase or section of dialogue to end and another to begin, you can let our innovative tool do all the work and convert your text to time quickly and accurately. With this powerful tool at your disposal, whether you’re giving a TED talk or just need to nail a business presentation, your life will become a little bit easier.

So keep reading to learn more about what this fantastic words to minutes converter has in store for public speakers, aspiring students, and professional radio producers alike!

Whether you want to read the text silently or speak aloud, you can use this tool as both:

• Reading time calculator
• Talk time calculator

II.I Explanation of the Reading Time

Reading time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a written text silently while still comprehending its content. Based on an extensive analysis of 190 studies that involved 18,573 participants , research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 suggests that the typical silent reading speed for an adult individual is approximately 238 words per minute .

To convert word count to read time for a specific text, you can do so by dividing the total word count of the text by this established value of 238. Here is the mathematical equation for determining the duration of reading time in minutes:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238

II.II Explanation of the Speech Time

Speech time refers to the duration it takes for an average person to read a text out loud. Based on data from 77 studies involving 5,965 people , it’s been found that most adults read aloud at a speed of approximately 183 words per minute ( research conducted by Marc Brysbaert in 2019 ). To figure out how long it will take to read a specific piece of text aloud, you can divide the total number of words in the text by this average rate of 183 words per minute.

Of course, it’s important to note that talk time can vary depending on factors such as clarity of speech, pauses for emphasis, and use of visual aids. However, using this tool for converting the number of words to minutes can still provide a helpful guideline for planning and practicing your presentation. By having a better understanding of speech rates, you can ensure that your message is delivered effectively and efficiently.

III. Benefits of Using a Words to Time Converter

Time management in presentations.

Effective time management during presentations is crucial to ensure the audience remains engaged and the information is accurately conveyed. This is where our speaking time converter comes in handy. By using this tool, presenters can easily determine how many words they need to include in their presentation to stay within the allotted time frame.

Not only does it help with time management, but it also ensures that the pacing of the presentation is consistent, making it easier for the audience to follow. With the use of this tool, presenters can confidently deliver their presentations without the worry of running over time or rushing through it.

Estimated speech time for public speaking

Public speaking can be nerve-wracking, especially when you have too little or too much information to fill your time slot. You wonder only if there were an accurate public speaking time calculator available so that you could be able to allocate the appropriate amount of time to each section of your presentation, ensuring that you cover all the necessary points without rushing or going over time. 

Effective pacing is key in ensuring your message is delivered with clarity and impact.

Most public speakers target an average of 130-150 words per minute for their spoken content, meaning you should aim to limit your speaking time to roughly one minute per 130-150 words. While this may take some practice to achieve, the end result is a confident, well-timed delivery that keeps your audience engaged from start to finish.

Remember, in public speaking, less is often more—take your time to breathe and emphasize key points. Your audience will appreciate your thoughtful and measured approach. For that, you can use this tool and adjust your words to speech time.

Accurate estimations for audiobooks and podcasts

As more and more people turn to audiobooks and podcasts for their entertainment and information needs, accurate estimations of listening time have become more important than ever. After all, there’s nothing worse than settling in for a quick listen only to find yourself trapped in a story that goes on for hours longer than you anticipated.

That’s why it’s great to see publishers and podcast producers taking estimated reading time seriously, providing listeners with the information they need to choose the right content for their schedule. Whether you’re looking for a quick listen on your daily commute or a lengthy distraction for a lazy Sunday afternoon, accurate estimations using this speaking time calculator make it easier than ever to find the perfect content.

IV. Some Popular Speech Times

V. conclusion.

As the world becomes more fast-paced, time is a precious commodity. Determining how long your script will take to read, whether for a presentation or a video, can make a significant difference in engaging and retaining your audience’s attention.

That’s where our Words to Time Converter comes in handy. It’s a valuable tool for anyone working in various professions, from broadcast journalists to teachers to executives. No matter the industry, time is of the essence, and knowing how long your speech or presentation will take is crucial for effective communication.

The Read Time

Words to time converter, accurately estimate talk time for presentations, speeches and voice-over scripts.

Words per Minute:

Not sure about your reading speed? Get it tested with our Free Reading Speed Test

Learn to Speed Read with our Speed Reader

A tool to find out what any word count looks like: What does any word count look like?

Require a sentence count? Do try out our Sentence Counter

Also, convert text to speech with Read My Text

Does This Free Tool Convert Words To Time?

Yes, this tool essentially converts words to time by estimating speech time for texts of all lengths. This is ideal for people who want to calculate talk time for presentations, speeches and voice-over scripts beforehand

How Do I Use This Words To Time Tool?

• If you know the number of words, enter this amount in number format into the text area OR if you have a body of text, just copy and paste this onto the text area.
• The tool will automatically calculate the Talk Time based on your input. The default Talk Time estimate is based on an oral reading rate of 183 words per minute ; which is considered to be the accepted average for adults according to scientific research. Silent Reading Time is estimated based on a fixed reading speed of 238 words per minute .
• Drag the slider to change the words per minute value to see corresponding Talk Time estimates. This will not have an effect on the Silent Reading Time estimate as the reading rate is fixed at 238 words per minute. Slow, Average and Fast reading rates have been denoted in the above table for guidance.
• Press the 'clear text' button to empty the text area and reset the slider to its default value of 183.

Is 183 Words Per Minute An Accurate Measure Of Oral Reading Speed?

Yes, based on a paper published by Marc Brysbaert , the average speed for reading aloud is estimated to be 183 words per minute for adults. This value is based on 77 studies involving 5965 participants. The paper further states that reading rates are lower for older adults, children and readers with English as a second language.

What Is Read Time?

Read time is the time taken for an average person to silently read a piece of text while maintaining reading comprehension. Based on the meta-analysis of 100's of studies involving over 18000 participants, the average silent reading speed for an adult individual has been estimated to be approximately 238 words per minute (Marc Brysbaert,2019) .

The reading time of a piece of text can thus be deduced by dividing the total word count by this value of 238. Below is the mathematical formula for calculating reading time in minutes:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238

If the reading material consists of images or illustrations, we can assume that an average reader spends around 5 seconds per image, which is equivalent to 0.083 minutes. Hence, we can further modify this formula as below:

Reading Time = Total Word Count / 238 + (Number of Images * 0.083)

Simple Math Really! 🙂

How Long Does It Take To Read 1000 Words?

Assuming the average reading speed of an adult individual is 238 words per minute, it takes approximately 4 minutes and 12 seconds to read 1000 words.

Reading Time For Popular Word Counts (Table)

How long does it take to read 100 pages.

Assuming a page consists of 500 words, it approximately takes 3 hours and 30 minutes to read 100 pages.

Reading Time For Popular Page Counts (Table)

What is speech time.

Speech Time is the time taken for an average person to read aloud a piece of text. Based on the meta-analysis of nearly 80 studies involving 6000 participants, the average oral reading speed for an adult individual is considered to be 183 words per minute (Marc Brysbaert,2019) . The speech time of a piece of text can then be deduced by dividing the total word count by this value of 183. Again simple Math. 🙂

How Long Does It Take To Speak 1000 Words?

Assuming the average oral reading speed of an adult individual is 183 words per minute, it takes approximately 5 minutes and 28 seconds to orate 1000 words.

What Other Metrics Does The Read Time Provide?

In addition to reading time and speech time, The Read Time provides the word count for texts of all lengths.

Who Is It For?

The Read Time is an ideal free tool for scriptwriters, content writers, educators, students and just about anyone who wants to measure the number of words and reading time for texts of all lengths.

Is My Text/Data Safe?

thereadtime.com does not store or process any text/data on its servers while the computations are done purely on the client's browser.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Changes in the length of speeches in the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries: A mixed models approach

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Humanities and Performing Arts, De Montfort University, Leicester, United Kingdom

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation School of Humanities, Creative Industries, and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

• Kim Colyvas, 
• Gabriel Egan, 

• Published: April 21, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Since 2007 a number of investigators have compiled statistics on the length in words of speeches in plays by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries, focusing on a change to shorter speeches around 1600. In this article we take account of several potentially confounding factors in the variation of speech lengths in these works and present a model of this variation in the period 1538–1642 through Linear Mixed Models. We confirm that the mode of speech lengths in English plays changed from nine words to four words around 1600, and that Shakespeare’s plays fit this wider pattern closely. We establish for the first time: that this change is independent of authorship, dramatic genre, theatrical company, and the proportion of verse in a play’s dialogue; that the chosen time span can be segmented into pre-1597 plays (with high modes), 1597–1602 plays (with mixed high and low modes), and post-1602 plays (with low modes); that some additional secondary modes are evident in speech lengths, at 16 and 24 words, suggesting that the length of a standard blank verse line (around 8 words) is an underlying unit in speech length; and that the general change to short speeches also holds true when the data is viewed through the perspective of the median and the mean. The change in speech lengths is part of a collective drift in the plays towards liveliness and verisimilitude and is evidence of a hitherto hidden constraint on the playwrights: whether or not they were aware of the fact, playwrights as a group were conforming to a structure for the distribution of speech lengths peculiar to the era they were writing in. The authors hope that the full modelling of this variation in the article will help bring this change to the attention of scholars of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.

Citation: Colyvas K, Egan G, Craig H (2023) Changes in the length of speeches in the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries: A mixed models approach. PLoS ONE 18(4): e0282716. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716

Editor: Eugene Demidenko, Dartmouth College Geisel School of Medicine, UNITED STATES

Received: June 26, 2022; Accepted: February 21, 2023; Published: April 21, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Colyvas et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: There are two data files supporting this work. They are available from the Zenodo platform: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.6690135 and DOI 10.5281/zenodo.6690372 .

Funding: GE received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC): Grant AH/N007654/1. See https://www.ukri.org/councils/ahrc/ . HC received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC): DP160101527. See https://www.arc.gov.au/ . The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1 Introduction

1.1 background.

In this article we explore the question of variation in speech lengths in plays by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Our study joins a small but growing body of work aiming to reveal hitherto hidden patterns in the plays with quantitative methods, such as the association of certain stage properties with certain genres, or the fact that styles in prose and verse diverge in plays which mix the two forms, but do not differ between all-verse and all-prose plays [ 1 ], the differences between the language of male and female dramatic characters [ 2 ], the distinctiveness of the language of tragedy [ 3 ], and an excess of instances of the determiner ‘the’ in the play Macbeth [ 4 ]. This is a separate endeavour to quantitative work in attributing plays or parts of plays to authors where their authorship is disputed, but it draws on the same foundation, the availability of literary works in digital forms and computer-assisted analysis, and on the same principles of careful validation and openness to testing by others.

Drama is defined by the fact that actors impersonate characters and speak as if interacting in real time, one speaker yielding to another. In written form we have a series of distinct passages of continuous spoken language, which we will here call “speeches,” even though they may be far from speeches in the sense of extended formal orations, as in commencement speeches. Speeches in the sense adopted in this article are analogous to speaking turns in conversations in phonetics [ 5 p166]. A speech is conceived as the transcription of the spoken utterance of a dramatic character from the beginning of one of his or her turns to its end. Accordingly there are five speeches in the following extract from the opening of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet :

BERNARDO Who’s there?

FRANCISCO Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO Long live the King!

FRANCISCO Bernardo?

BERNARDO He. [ 6 ]

The speech in this sense is one of the fundamental forms of segmentation for a play. It would be easily recognised by audiences, as well as readers, and must have been much on the minds of the playwrights who used well-established manuscript conventions to distinguish one speech from the next, most commonly drawing a short horizontal line at the end of each one. In printed plays, the first line of dialogue of each speech was typically indented by several spaces, and this whitespace aligning with the speaker’s name in the left margin gave readers a strong visual indication of the work’s existence as fundamentally a collection of speeches.

In this paper we focus on one simple aspect of the dramatic speeches, their length. Comparatively long speeches, such as soliloquies and speeches reporting off-stage events, declaring sentiments, or attempting to persuade, naturally capture our attention, so we might assume this sort of length is dominant. However, there is another principle at work in speech length: to sustain audience interest, regular alternation between speakers is needed. Rapid exchanges between speakers are entertaining and informative, and complement the more developed set-pieces. Then there are questions also about how other factors affect speech length. Are speeches longer in tragedy than in comedy, for instance? Is speech length something that varies consistently and markedly between authors? There are also possible changes in speech length over time, which have been the subject of a number of recent studies.

Our unit of measurement for the length of a speech is the number of words it contains. Other measures, such as the number of syllables in a speech, could be used, but while the segmentation of written text into words based on punctuation and spaces is relatively straightforward, and can be automated, segmentation into syllables is much more ambiguous and subjective. Previous studies in this field are all based on length in words. (See the fuller treatment of this aspect in the Materials and Methods section below).

We focus on plays written in England in the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth century. Some hundreds of plays (many of them now lost) were performed in theatres in London and sometimes elsewhere between the beginnings of secular, English-language drama in the first half of the sixteenth century and the closing of the playhouses in 1642 at the start of the English Civil War [ 7 ]. William Shakespeare is the best-known playwright of this era but there were many more whose plays are still performed on stage and screen, as well as read and studied, such as Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Fletcher and Thomas Middleton [ 8 , 9 ].

In this paper we aim to model speech length variation in these plays as comprehensively as possible. Previously the change in mode has been reported but not tested by reference to any potentially confounding variables and no estimates of statistical significance have been offered. In our study, date, genre, proportion of verse, play type and author were used as part of a mixed modelling approach that allowed estimation of the size of the effect of each variable and hence it: provided a ranking of the importance of each on speech length; provided formal statistical significance to test what effects were likely to be real; and provided adjusted effects sizes, so that the magnitude of effects for each variable were not biased by the other variables in the model. For example, we found that the size of the time-based changes were not influenced by differences in the proportion of the different genres among the plays in each time period. We used the mean and median as additional summary measures of the speech length distributions for plays. We also carried out extensive visualisation of the data and models to help in understanding variability in speech length. This allowed us to identify the multi-modal nature of speech length distributions and their dependence on the proportion of verse in the play and (through cusum plotting) to identify key changes in the rate and direction of the variation of the mode of speech lengths over time.

1.2 Previous studies

In 2005 the German scholar Hartmut Ilsemann published a study analysing the lengths of speeches in plays written by Shakespeare [ 10 ]. Ilsemann observed that in these plays the most common speech length, in statistical terms the “mode” of speech lengths, changed abruptly around 1599 from ten words to five. He suggested that what lies behind the change is that with the move of Shakespeare’s company to the Globe Theatre in 1599 Shakespeare was suddenly able to control the staging of his plays. In a 2008 article he revised the numbers to 9 and 4 words respectively, since he found that he had been erroneously counting as the first word of a speech the name of the speaker added before the speech in early printed editions [ 11 ].

In 2007 MacDonald P Jackson used a table of numbers which had been published by Ilsemann online to make a new index -- counts of the number of speeches of 3–6 words as a percentage of speeches of 3–10 words -- and showed that the change in mode in Shakespeare was progressive rather than abrupt [ 12 ]. Following Ilsemann, he used the number of words as the unit of measurement for the length of a speech, while discarding speeches consisting of only one or two words and all speeches with more than ten words. Jackson used this index to help establish the chronology of some plays and parts of plays where the date is disputed. In 2017 he presented a new index based on Ilsemann’s revised 2008 numbers [ 13 ]. Jackson’s focus is on the association between date and speech length and he does not refer to other variables that might have an influence or other causative factors.

In 2019 Gabriel Egan confirmed the Ilsemann numbers (as of 2008) by calculating them independently [ 14 ]. In the same year Pervez Rizvi counted speech lengths in a much larger corpus, 527 plays, extending the analysis to Shakespeare’s peers [ 15 ]. He confirmed the change from a mode of 9 words to a mode of 4 words in Shakespeare while showing that this is not peculiar to Shakespeare. This was evidently a pattern shared across the drama of the time.

Rizvi, following a suggestion in Jackson [ 12 ], linked the change in mode to a new propensity in Shakespeare to divide verse lines between two speakers—where part of the metrical line is spoken by the first speaker, and part spoken by a second or even a third. This change to writing more shared lines, as Rizvi and Jackson note, was discussed much earlier in books on Shakespeare’s versification by Marina Tarlinskaja [ 16 ] and George T. Wright [ 17 ], though neither investigator linked this development to any general change over time in the length of speeches. There are some discrepancies between their two counts, but they agree on the overall pattern. Lines shared between speakers were rare in Shakespeare’s earliest plays, making up two per cent or so of the total, but became more common in his middle period, and more common still at the end, with the last plays. Tarlinskaja and Wright differ a little in their counts, but both have the last plays averaging over fifteen per cent, and agree that the highest percentage is in Antony and Cleopatra , at 18.2 per cent [ 16 p137-8], or 17.2 per cent [ 17 p294-4].

These are important findings. Even nine words seems a short speech. Almost all previous commentary had focused on longer speeches where thoughts, arguments and narratives are given fuller expression. No-one before Ilsemann had identified a collective change to yet shorter speeches over the period. It is also unexpected to find Shakespeare, who is generally assumed to be exceptional among his peers, participating in this change, following the collective pattern exactly, in the same direction, at the same time, and to the same degree.

1.3 The present study

Previous studies have not considered some obvious alternative explanations for an observed marked change in speech length in English Renaissance plays around the year 1600. It is possible that genre differences may play a role. For instance, we might expect the rapid repartee of comedies to favour short speeches and the declamatory rhetoric of history plays to favour long ones, and if comedies are more common after 1600, and history plays less common, then that might explain the observed change better than a simple, across-the-board drift to shorter speeches. Other factors like the proportion of metrical verse in a play, or authorial differences, or differences in the nature of the theatrical companies—for instance, boys’ companies versus adult companies -- could be expected to play a role.

1.4 Findings

• that the mode of speech lengths in English plays changed from nine words to four words around the turn of the seventeenth century; and
• that Shakespeare’s plays fit this wider pattern closely.

We establish for the first time

• that this change is independent of some potentially confounding factors, in particular authorship, dramatic genre, theatrical company, and the proportion of verse in a play’s dialogue;
• that the time span can be segmented into pre-1597 plays (with high modes), 1597–1602 plays (with a mixture of high and low modes), and post-1602 plays (with low modes);
• that some additional secondary modes beyond 4 and 8 or 9 words are evident in speech lengths, at 16 and 24 words, suggesting that the length of a standard blank verse line (around 8 words) is an underlying unit in speech length; and
• that the general change to short speeches also holds true when the data is viewed from the perspective of the other statistical measures of central tendency, the median and the mean.

2 Materials and methods

2.1 corpus of plays.

We have 275 plays prepared from early printed and manuscript versions available for this study. We use the earliest printed version of a play, except where that version is manifestly truncated or corrupt. We avoid modern edited versions because these are available only for the more popular plays. Comparing early witnesses minimizes the effect of editorial intervention. The details of the transcriptions’ provenances are in the S4 File .

2.2 Variables

2.2.1 speech length..

Speech length is counted using the Intelligent Archive platform [ 18 ]. Our metric for the length of speeches is words. There would be some argument for using syllables for this purpose, since this is the basis of verse metre, and verse rather than prose is the dominant form in the plays. The difficulty here is making an accurate count of syllables as they would have been spoken. The early editions rarely follow the modern editorial practice of using punctuation to indicate omitted or additional syllables, as with "e’er" for "ever" and trisyllabic “buried.” To derive the syllabification thus presented to modern readers, editors assume certain metrical norms and make complex inferences about permitted departures from these norms; computer algorithms are as yet unable to replicate this editorial judgement. Thus we cannot yet reliably automate the counting of syllables in early printed editions of plays. In counting words we align ourselves with earlier studies, which have all used words as the measure of length, based on a relatively unambiguous segmentation that can reliably be detected from the punctuation and spacing in digital transcriptions of early editions.

We say “relatively unambiguous” because in the play texts we use for counting contractions are expanded, so that Horatio’s line “Not when I saw’t” becomes “Not when I saw it” ( Hamlet [ 6 ] 1.2.456). This means a variation in the number of words arrived at compared with counting contracted forms as single words. For some, but not all of the plays in our corpus, the XML mark-up also preserves the original version with contractions. We took ten randomly selected examples of these play texts and compared the word counts for the contracted and expanded versions. There were 7,125 speeches in all. 5,316 speeches are the same length in words in both versions. Overall there is a 1.9% difference in the two columns of speech lengths, based on dividing the difference in words by the average of the two counts.

2.2.2 Other variables.

We start with the date variable, which underpins our main hypothesis that speech lengths changed over time in the works studied. Surviving evidence of theatrical business practices -- most importantly the records of impresario Philip Henslowe -- show that professional plays were usually performed within weeks of being written, while the dates on the title pages of printed plays show that publication in book form typically followed some years later. Farmer and Lesser’s DEEP Database of Early English Playbooks [ 19 ] conveniently provides well-sourced dates of first performance (sometimes a best guess) and of publication for all printed plays of the period. For consideration of dramatists’ changing writing styles we focus on the date of first performance, since it is closest to composition, as do previous studies discussed above. For first-performance dates we use DEEP ’s data for printed plays, supplemented by other sources (typically modern scholarly critical editions) for manuscript plays.

We include four other variables in the study as potentially associated with speech length, and as possible confounds with date: author, genre, play type, and the proportion of verse lines to all lines in a play.

Authorship’s place as the pre-eminent determining factor in literary style has been challenged in recent decades, but quantitative studies have shown that it has a demonstrable role in the differences between literary works [ 20 ]. We rely on the DEEP Database [ 19 ] for authorial assignations of plays. Our metadata sources assign an author to most plays and categorise the rest as of uncertain authorship. We categorise each authorial team, whether single or multiple, as a separate author, group authors or authorial teams each with a single play together as a group, and similarly group plays of uncertain authorship together as a single category.

Dramatic genre is recognised by modern scholars as a primary influence on the styles of plays. Early printed editions highlighted genre, as for example in the ordering of the plays in the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623 into comedies, tragedies, and histories [ 21 , p166]. We put the genres in the DEEP Database into five groups: in the first, classical legend (comedy), comedy, domestic comedy and romantic comedy, which we refer to in the paper as “comedy”; in the second, tragedy (only), referred to as “tragedy”; in the third, allegorical history, biblical history, classical history, foreign history and history, referred to as “history”; in the fourth, tragicomedy (only), referred to as “tragicomedy”; and in the fifth, burlesque romance, classical legend, classical legend (pastoral), classical myth, domestic drama, heroical romance, moral, pastoral and romance, referred to as “other.” See the S4 File for play by play assignations.

Theatrical companies featuring only boy actors introduced a new satirical, learned and self-consciously theatrical style of play in the period 1599–1613 [ 22 ]. We include a variable for play type, referring to the category of theatrical company the play was first associated with, being boys’ professional companies, adult professional companies, and a third, miscellaneous category of amateur companies and plays not associated with any company, plays written to be read and not performed. We rely on the DEEP Database [ 19 ] for assignations.

The distinction between play dialogue in verse and in prose is, for the most part, obvious in the early printed texts by its representation in typography -- a line-ending being marked by whitespace and a beginning by capitalization of the first letter -- and was often commented on by the playwrights, and figures largely in modern discussions of the plays [ 23 ]. (Where early printed books have lines of verse incorrectly typeset as if they were prose, and vice versa, modern scholars can almost always nonetheless distinguish the two forms using their knowledge of the stress patterns in early modern English, and modern editions and studies make the necessary corrections.) There is reason to believe, therefore that the differing proportions of verse and prose in a play might have an influence on speech length as on other aspects. Our texts are not marked up to show which passages are in verse and which are in prose. The Catalogue of British drama volumes [ 24 ], however, provide figures for the proportions of verse and prose in a given play. We can use these numbers to group plays by their proportions of verse and prose.

2.3 Data files

Two data files were used for analysis, the larger with 212,547 individual speeches (identified by speaker) from 275 plays was computationally analyzed to produce for each play its mode, median, and mean speech length. These three statistics for each play were then added to the other metadata previously mentioned (date, genre, proportion of verse lines to all lines, play type and author) to produce a new summary dataset to be subsequently investigated for correlations between the metadata it holds. It is common in previous studies of speech length in these plays to use the mode as the summary measure (Jackson [ 12 ] is an exception mentioned in the Previous Studies section above) and we follow this practice. This is intuitively the obvious way to deal with the particular distribution of speech lengths, which has a long tail at the high end where the occasional speech is some hundreds of words long. A calculation of the mean would be skewed by such rare outliers to which the mode is relatively immune. We nonetheless present some results with the mean and the median of speech lengths to take advantage of the different perspectives they offer on speech length variation.

2.4 Statistical methods

We used the R statistical software environment [ 25 ] for analysis. A detailed report containing all results and commentary is provided in the S1 (the main analysis) and S2 (a subsidiary analysis comparing normal and Poisson distribution models) Files. In the S3 File we provide an examination of the distribution of 15 plays in which 2 or more modes were found and a discussion of the approach to decide on a single mode. We also include the data files ( S4 File individual speeches and S5 File summaries by play) and the R markdown scripts ( S6 – S8 Files) needed to reproduce the three detailed reports in S1 – S3 Files. Some results and explanations in the reports are referred to but not provided in the main text. We fit Linear Mixed Models (LMMs) on the play version of the data set using the lmer program with maximum likelihood estimation in the lme4 package [ 26 ] and the lmerTest package [ 27 ] to provide significance tests for the categorical variables. The outcomes assessed were speech length (as mode, median or mean) and verse-prose proportion. In each case, authorship was modelled as a random effect with the variables time period, genre, play type and verse-prose proportion (i.e. also being used as an explanatory variable) being modelled as fixed effects. Time period was a grouping variable derived from date of first performance using a cumulative sum (cusum) charting approach to identify step changes in the mode. Verse-prose proportion was categorised into bands to provide an alternative way of examining relationships associated with it. Diagnostic checks of the models were based on assessing the distribution of residuals and the distribution of the random effects. The emmeans package [ 28 ] was used for plots of Estimated Marginal Means (EMMs) and significance of differences between means. Statistical significance was set at the .05 probability threshold.

At an editor’s suggestion additional modelling for the mode was done using the Poisson distribution for the error term via a Generalised Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) using the glmer program as an alternative to the normal distribution used in LMMs. The goodness of fit of GLMM Poisson models (using identity or log links) was compared with the LMM models using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) of 10 or more lower to indicate a substantially better fitting model [ 29 ]. The process led to the identification of 2 influential plays that were very different statistically to the remainder and these were removed from all analysis so that the results reported below were based on 273 plays. This analysis also identified that the residual variability was not constant, so a relationship was developed for the residual standard deviation (SD) as a linear function of the absolute value of the residuals against predicted value [ 30 ]. This was used to create observation weights (w = 1/SD 2 ) that were applied in the LMM fitting process. Pearson residuals (residual/SD) were used to assess the effectiveness of the SD function used in the weighting. The result of the comparison was to confirm the normal distribution based LMM was a better fit for the mode and this was the model chosen for the mode analyses (as described above). The two influential plays that were removed were The tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary with an extreme outlier mode of 33 and Philotas by Samuel Daniel with a Pearson residual of 9. These plays were also excluded for the mean and median analyses. The process that led to these exclusions is documented in S2 File . There is literary support for excluding Elizabeth Cary’s play. Cary was a highly educated woman who moved in a narrow circle of aristocratic patrons of the arts, with no personal connections that we know of to professional, or even amateur, drama. Her play’s intended consumption seems to have been not in public performance but as a reading text for her circle, even if scholars have noted that it has some theatrical qualities that set it apart from the run of so-called closet drama [ 31 , 32 ]. Hence it is not surprising that it did not show the trends found in plays written by professional dramatists for performance on the London stage. The anomalous distribution of speeches by length in Philotas may be explained by the fact that it (like The tragedy of Mariam ) is an imitation of the plays of the Roman tragedian Seneca, which are characterised by long speeches of rhetorical persuasion and description [ 33 ].

2.5 Linear mixed model

A mixed model contains two kinds of effects: fixed and random. The variables modelled as fixed effects were listed above and chosen because of the interest in the specific values for different levels of those variables. Author, on the other hand, was modelled as a random effect as there was no specific interest in distinguishing between authors in this sample. Rather the interpretation of author variability will be wider, having application to all authors, not just those included in the study.

As residual variation was found to vary as a function of model predicted values a weighted analysis was carried out so that observations with higher variability would be down-weighted relative to those with lesser variability. In [ 30 ] various methods were surveyed for determining a function to explain how the standard deviation (SD) of residuals would vary with an explanatory variable. The method used in this study was to regress the absolute value of residuals on predicted value. The linear regression line describing the standard deviation of residuals (σ p ) as a function of predicted value was used to determine the weights used in the model, calculated as w = 1/σ 2 .

3.1 Mode of speech length and the time variable

Plotting the modes against year of first performance in our sample confirms the marked dip around the turn of the seventeenth century observed in previous studies ( Fig 1 ).

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Two dotted vertical lines border the period 1597 to 1602. The mode was jittered.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g001

To establish boundaries between the early period and what appeared to be a transitional period, and the late period, we plotted the mode observations in a cumulative sum (cusum) analysis. A cusum chart is used to interpret a process in terms of steps and helps in identifying the time at which step changes occurred. Cusum charts are usually plotted with time data that is obtained at regular intervals. The method has been adapted here to monitor the process of play production which is very irregular in terms of time. This does not invalidate the method, however, so long as the underlying process is operating at a steady level till a change occurs to a new consistent level after the change point. The plays were ordered by year and multiple plays written within a year can be considered as random samples within that year as they were ordered alphabetically based on play title. Therefore, the best that could be achieved by the chart with the play data would be to identify changes to the nearest year.

Fig 2 shows the results.

The approximately straight-line segments with different slopes indicate the time periods that are interpreted as steps. Time change points are where the line segments change slope. The lower plot is the mode data with the solid line showing the step function interpretation for the mean of the mode using the change points in the cusum plot.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g002

The first main segment of the cusum plot, observations 1 to 80 (ending at the second vertical dotted line) had a positive slope indicating the mode was at a level (step) above the arbitrarily chosen target value of 6. As the slope of the line was generally linear this indicated that the mode was stable. Within this first segment, however, two sub-sections can be identified. Observations 1 to 14 (years 1538 to 1583) appear to have a steeper slope so if this was treated as the first step the mode would be on average 9.9. For the second section of observations 15 to 80, the slope was less steep than the first section indicating a lower mode, mean of 8.5. However, this more fine-grained division is less consequential than the change to the second segment, where the slope is approximately horizontal, indicating the mean was approximately the same as the target level for the plot. This section covers observations 81–126 (years 1597 to 1602), with the mean of the modes being 6.1. Then there is a second large change point, at the beginning the of the final section, which covers observations 127–273 (years 1603 to 1642). In this section the mode was at its lowest level, with a mean value of 4.7.

For a quantitatively based segmentation of the time span, for later analysis, using these cusum results, we divided the overall time span into three sections, 1538 to 1596, 1597 to 1602, and 1603 to 1642. Table 1 shows how many (n) of the 273 plays fall into each period.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.t001

3.2 Mode of speech length, time segmented into three periods, and the verse proportion variable

3.2.1 three groups for proportion of verse lines..

As discussed in the Materials and Methods section above, we have for most of the plays a figure for the proportion of verse lines for the play, the remainder being prose lines. We divided the plays into four groups depending on their proportion of verse lines. The divisions were a compromise between keeping approximately similar numbers of plays in each group and maintaining a good spread of proportions within each of the categories. As can be seen in Table 2 , most of the 273 plays fall into a narrow range at the higher proportion end of the scale compared to fewer plays spread over wider range of proportions at the lower end of the scale, and a few plays for which this data was missing.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.t002

3.2.2 Histograms of modes in time period and verse proportion panels.

Segmenting the date of first performance of the plays into three periods and the verse proportions into four groupings makes it possible to visualize the interaction between these two variables. In Fig 3 we used the larger data set containing the individual speeches to produce histograms of the modes of speech lengths 1 to 30, divided into twelve panels. The four panels within each row of the chart are the four groupings of proportions of verse lines and the three panels within each column are the three time period groups. Thus each panel represents all the plays falling into a particular category for proportion of verse lines within a particular period.

The vertical markers are at speech lengths 4, 8 and 16.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g003

Within each panel we show by column height the percentage of speeches with one word, to the extreme left, then the percentage of speeches with two words, up to thirty words on the extreme right. The tallest of these columns is the mode, the value for speech-length found more often than any other value.

Overall it is clear the speech length distributions vary with both the variables. We first discuss the changes between the time periods, moving down the columns of the chart. In the top left component chart, plays with <0.30 verse lines before 1597, the highest column is the sixth from the left, speeches with six words. In the middle chart in this column (plays with <0.30 verse lines between 1597 and 1602) speeches with six words still have the highest percentage. Then in the bottom left chart (plays with <0.30 verse lines post-1602) the fourth column is the highest. The speech length mode has moved from six words to four words.

Moving to the far right column, speeches from plays with more than 0.90 verse lines, in the top chart (plays before 1597) the mode is 9 words, with a second peak at 16 words. Then in the middle chart (plays from 1597 to 1602) the mode is 8 words, with a second peak at 4 words, and a third peak at 17 words. In the bottom chart (plays after 1602) the mode is 4 words.

We now discuss the chart from the viewpoint of changing proportions of verse lines in plays. Looking along the first row of charts for the period before 1597, when the proportion of verse in a play is below 0.30 (top left panel) the distribution is a relatively smooth skewed shape. However, in the next 3 charts, with increasing proportions of verse lines within a play (0.30 to just below 0.70, 0.70 to 0.90, and more than 0.90) the single distribution appears to change into a mixture of distributions. An obvious and dominant distribution appears with a mode in the region of speech lengths 8 to 9. Interestingly a second but smaller distribution becomes obvious with a mode at 16 for the two highest verse groups as well as a third even smaller distribution with mode at 24. The separation of the distributions into mixtures with different modes as the proportion of verse in a play increases supports the notion these modes are related to the number of words in a line of verse. The dominance of the mode at 8 or 9 suggests a predominance of speeches of one metrically complete line of verse, with the other two peaks at 16 and 24 being related to two or three metrically complete lines of verse. That is, the preference for metrical completeness entails a preference for speech lengths that are whole multiples of about 8, which is the typical number of words in a line of the most common meter, iambic pentameter.

The pattern of modes changes dramatically in the bottom row of the chart, covering the period after 1602, where all three of the higher verse groups distributions have a single dominant peak with only a slight hint of the peaks at 16 and 24. The lowest verse group, < 0.30, which did not have a strong multi- peak distribution in the pre-1597 graph, shows a shift of its mode from 6 in the pre-1597 period to a lower value of 4.

The middle row of plots for the period 1597 to 1602 contains a mixture of the distributions of the earlier and later periods. The appearance of modes at 4 for the 3 highest verse groups, while other peaks at 8 to 9, 17 and 24 are still evident, is indicative of the transition between the pre-1597 and post-1602 distributions. This can be seen in Fig 2 where the mode is plotted over time. Clearly there is a mixture of modes in the transitional period with some plays having modes of about 8 and quite a number having modes of 4. After 1602 the predominance of plays with modes of 4 is apparent.

The multi-peak nature of the speech lengths distributions in the early and transitional periods is a finding new to this study. The most common verse type of the period is the iambic pentameter with ten syllables, though shorter lines and lines with extra syllables are permitted variations around this norm. A ten-syllable line may have ten words, if each has one syllable, but it would be more common to have one or more multi-syllable word and therefore nine, eight, or even seven words. Peaks of 4, 8, 16 and 24 words in Fig 3 suggest a link between the mode and half, one, two or three multiples of the pentameter line, suggesting that this unit figured in the compositional habits of the writers, and has an effect, although weaker, even in plays composed entirely or mostly in prose.

In summary the change from a multi-peak distribution in the period prior to 1597 to a primarily single-peaked distribution after 1602 points to a substantial change in the style of the writing that began about 1597 and was largely complete by 1602, irrespective of the proportion of verse lines in a play.

Given that the proportion of verse lines in a play is clearly a factor in the distribution of the modes of speech length, we explored the relationship between verse line proportion and mode of speech length more directly.

3.2.3 Verse proportions in the three time periods.

We ran a Linear Mixed Model (LMM) analysis with verse proportion as the outcome variable to see how it varied between the time groups. The time period effect was significant, F(2,254.1) = 7.2, p = .001. Examination of the plot of the Estimated Marginal Means (EMM) in Fig 4 shows that pre-1597 plays had significantly higher proportions of verse than later plays in 1597–1602 period for the post-1602 period (p = < .001 and .02 respectively). The mean proportion of verse in plays was about 78% before 1597, 59% in the transition period 1597–1602 and 67% after 1602. The post-1602 period was not quite different to 1597–1602 (p = .06).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g004

Was this change in verse proportion over time the underlying reason for the speech length changes observed in the mode and for median and mean? This question was examined by some additional data exploration in the following sections.

3.2.4 Chart of modes with proportions of verse in three time periods.

In Fig 5 , below, we plotted the proportion of verse within plays against the mode, for the three time periods. Overall there did not appear to be a consistent relationship between the proportion of verse and mode within each time period with the Generalised Additive Model (GAM) based smoothing lines within time periods being both close to linear and not varying much about the horizontal. This was investigated further statistically with LMMs treating proportion of verse as a linear predictor. The detailed results and discussion are available in the S1 File . Overall the conclusion was that verse proportion did not appear to be important for the mode. This was confirmed (see below) by modelling with additional explanatory variables.

A GAM smoothing line and 95% Confidence Interval was added within each time period.

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3.2.5 Verse proportion by time and genre.

Additional graphical exploration of the verse proportion over time (see the two part Fig 6 , below) reveals that quite a few plays in the period 1597 to 1612 (the transition period 1597 to 1602 and the following decade, as shown by dotted vertical lines) had verse proportions below 50% and that these were predominantly comedies. Comedies, and miscellaneous-genre plays, range from 0% verse—entirely prose—to 100% verse. After 1612, however, only a few comedies had verse proportions less than 50%.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g006

3.2.6 Verse proportion for comedies only versus speech length.

Comedy is the most common genre in the sample and shows the greatest range of verse proportion ( Fig 6(b) ). If there was a relationship between verse proportion and the distribution of speech length, we would expect it to appear within the comedy genre. In Fig 7 we plotted the mode, median and mean of speech length in comedies against verse proportion to test this.

The fitted line is based on a GAM smoother.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g007

The fitted GAM smooth lines in the plots suggest there was no relationship. We conclude that the time-based changes seen in the analysis were not related to differences in the ratio of verse to prose. It is the more fundamental changes in the form of writing that made for shorter speeches. There is a relationship between the peakiness of the mode of speech length and the verse in a play ( Fig 3 ), suggesting that writers respected an implicit standard of a half, one, two or three verse lines in the most common lengths of speech they wrote, but this is independent of the underlying tendency of writers to write shorter speeches in the transition period of 1597 to 1602 and then to continue to write speeches of the same (shorter) length for the rest of the period studied. This leaves date of first performance as the top-level predictor of the mode of speech length.

3.3 Mode and time period, genre, and play type

Having looked closely at the proportion of verse as a factor underlying the association of the mode of speech length with time period, and having found no significant relationship, we turn to two other factors, genre and play type.

By way of introduction, Fig 8 plots all the mode data by time period (see the three-way division in the horizontal axis in each of the component charts), genre (the five vertical pairs of charts) and play type (the two rows of charts).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g008

We note the absence of history plays in the play type category Other (comprising 59 Boys’ Professional and 20 Miscellaneous plays). That is, all the history plays were performed by adult professional companies. Tragicomedies were performed mostly after 1602, by adult professional companies, with lower modes. The lower modes after 1602 are evident in comedy and in tragedy in both adult professional and Other play types.

Using a linear mixed model (LMM) with author as a random effect and model weights based on an SD function for non-constant variance in the model residuals (comprehensively examined and explained in S2 File ), we modelled the variation in the mode to see if any of genre, play type and time period (all as main effects) were significant variables. Genre and time period were significant, genre F(4,268.8) = 4.52, p = .002, play type F(1,141.0) = 0.11, p = .74 and time period F(2,260.5) = 55.8, p < .001. Tests of model assumptions were carried out and found to be satisfactory (see S1 Fig 11 and S1 Fig 12 in S1 File [identical to Fig 10, below] and associated explanatory text).

From this model, estimated marginal means (EMMs) were calculated for each of the three main effect variables, as shown in Fig 9 . It can be seen that the differences between the EMMs for different genres or play types are relatively small compared to the differences between the time periods, being the dominant effect. Letters on the plot indicate categories that are different when the letters differ and not different when the letters are the same. For example, each time period was statistically significantly lower than the previous, hence the a, b, c progression in letters. For genre due to the complexity of the pattern of significance among the pairwise differences a significance level of .11 was chosen rather than .05 to make interpretation of the pattern simpler. Historical plays had the highest mode at about 7.5, being higher than the second tier group of comedy and miscellaneous at about 6.4 (b) with tragedy and tragicomedy being similar at the lowest level of about 5.8 (c).

Within each plot letters have been added to show which levels are statistically different, categories with different letters are different, letters the same not different.

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3.4 Speech length by author

In the model above author was modelled as a random effect so the variation in author means was estimated using a normal distribution (with σ a = 0.36). The assumption of normality of this random effect was well met (the two right hand graphs in Fig 10 ). The caterpillar plot at the left hand side of Fig 10 on the x axis shows the mean (Best Linear Unbiased Prediction, BLUP, the a l in Eq 1 ) for each author along with their 95% Confidence Intervals. These indicate the mean value (of the mode) for each author after adjusting for the fixed effects in the model. The differences between them can be used to assess author differences in speech lengths. They range from the lowest level of about -0.3 for the author with the lowest mode (John Marston) to the highest of about +0.4 for Richard Broome and the Uncertain authors category. As an example to help understand the author random effects, consider the EMM for plays after 1602. Without consideration of authorship, that is if we average over all authors, the EMM would be 4.8. If, however, predictions were to be made for the mean of the mode for specific authors in this period, then for John Marston it would be 4.8–0.3 = 4.5 and for Richard Broome 4.8 + 0.4 = 5.2.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g010

However, the choice of author as a random effect rather than fixed carries with it a wider interpretation. The individual author effects above were estimated using the BLUPs, however beyond this the set of authors is considered as belonging to a distribution of author effect. The standard deviation of 0.36 estimated for the author distribution coupled with the normal distribution as a model can be used to predict the likely range of effect for all authors, not just those included in the study. The estimated author effects (the BLUPs in Fig 10 ) would be considered to be part of a random effect normal distribution with mean zero and σ a = 0.36. Using the properties of the normal distribution we could say 95% of authors would be expected to have effects on the mode ranging ±1.96 x 0.36 = ±0.71, range 1.42, or 99.7% of authors would be expected to have a range of 3 x 0.36 = ±1.08. As the check of model assumptions for the random effect coefficients in Fig 10 showed good agreement with the normal distribution the model predictions for the range of all author effects should have good reliability.

Comparing the size of the author differences with a range of 0.7 (-0.3 to +0.4) with the decrease over time with a range of 3.7 (EMMs 8.5 down to 4.8) shows that the impact of the event that led to a general decrease in mode for plays before and after 1600 was much larger than individual author differences.

1597 to 1602 was the transition period. We were interested to determine whether some authors might have been pioneers in transitioning their writing to lower modes (4, 5 or 6).

Table 3 shows the number of modes at each value from 4 to 9 for the thirteen authors and authorial teams with plays in this period, along with the “Uncertain” category (those plays where the author was unknown).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.t003

Of the eight authors with more than one play in this period in our sample, five have plays both at the low end (modes of 4, 5, or 6) and at the high end (7, 8, or 9), so for them the pattern is mixed. Of the three remaining authors with more than one play, two, William Haughton and Thomas Heywood, have plays exclusively with modes of 7, 8 or 9, and one, Ben Jonson, has plays—in his case five of them—exclusively at the low end, with modes of 4, 5 or 6. Jonson is the only clear-cut pioneer in this group, though arguments might be made for Shakespeare also, with nine plays with shorter speech length modes and just one— Henry V (1599)—with a speech-length mode in the higher range. Most commonly, however, the more prolific authors had a mix of both lower- and higher-length speech modes.

The interest in speech length in early modern English plays began with Shakespeare [ 10 ]. In Fig 11 we plot the mode of speech length for Shakespeare plays with the mode of length for plays by his contemporaries.

The range for Shakespeare plays is 1590 to 1613; the range for plays by other authors is 1538 to 1642. The 1597 and 1602 boundaries are shown as dotted vertical lines.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g011

The transition over time for Shakespeare’s plays is very similar to that for other authors, with a sharp decline from predominant modes of 8 or 9 to a predominant mode of 4.

3.5 Analysis using only adult professional play types

The Adult Professional play type is well populated across the three time periods and the five genre groups. There is an opportunity therefore to run an analysis with only Adult Professional plays and exclude the influence of variations between Adult Professional, Boys’ Professional and Other play types.

Firstly a model with genre, time period and their interaction was fitted, the interaction being not significant (F(6,177.0) = 0.30, p = .93) so the model was simplified to a-main-effects-only model in which both genre and time period were significant (F(4,182.9) = 3.8, p = .005 and F(2,145.3) = 40.0, p < .001 respectively). Plots of the effects for the mode will be compared with that of the mean in the section 3.7.2 below.

3.6.1 Mean speech lengths and genre, play type and time period.

As the distribution of speech lengths is right skewed, the mean as a measure of central tendency will be more sensitive to plays with longer speech lengths than the mode or the median.

In Fig 12 the play means for combinations of genre, play type and time period are shown. The absence of history plays for the Other play type category is evident along with lower numbers of plays in the Other category (79/273 = 29%). Also the large spread in means for the Other play type for tragedies for the period prior to 1597 is noted. There were 9 plays with means greater than 70 ( Table 4 ), 8 out of the 9 being prior to 1597.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g012

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.t004

A full factorial LMM was fitted to examine all combinations of genre, play type and time period. All interaction terms were significant suggesting a complex interpretation. The model output is available in S1 File and the EMMs and Confidence Intervals are plotted in S1 Fig 15 in S1 File . Apart from the missing combinations the most notable feature was in the Other play type category where there were two instances of substantially higher means, for Tragedy prior to 1597 and Tragicomedy in the 1597–1602 period. In the same figure the equivalent model for the mode is plotted and all categories were effectively equivalent, none of the interaction terms for the mode were significant. This is notable, showing how the mean as a summary measure is picking up some different features of plays than the mode.

3.6.2 The mean of speech lengths and genre and time period for adult professional plays only.

Due to a number of missing combinations in the data complicating the interpretation, a simpler comparison was examined by excluding the Other play type category so that only Adult Professional plays were analysed. For the main-effects-only model genre and time period were significant (F(4,187) = 11.3, p < .001, F(2, 187) = 9.8, p < .001 respectively). Residual diagnostics were satisfactory for the mean model (S1 Fig 17 in S1 File ) and the random effect diagnostics were not performed as the random effect SD estimate was zero.

In Fig 13 the patterns of the genre and time period effects were compared between the mean and the mode (from the model in section 3.5) for the Adult Professional plays. Note the large differences in the summary statistics for the distribution of speech lengths. The modes range from about 5 to 8 whereas the means range from about 24 to 34, having higher values and a larger range. As these are not directly comparable some kind of scaling would be needed to bring the measures to a common basis. Borrowing from the concept of standardized effect sizes relative to the uncertainty in the means, as shown by the Confidence Intervals, the separation between the genres of comedy, history, and miscellaneous is larger than that for the mode. The letter notations for assessing which pairs are significantly different in the mean plot help to understand this, the genre of comedy being significantly lower than that of both history and miscellaneous for the mean and miscellaneous being significantly higher than that of history. In addition, for the mean the genre of comedy had the shortest speech length whereas for the mode the genres of tragedy and tragicomedy had lower modes. These differences in rank ordering are attributed to the greater sensitivity of mean to longer speech lengths compared to the mode. The mean and mode provide complementary views of the play speech length distributions and so each contributes to increased understanding of differences between the genres. For example with the EMM mean for comedy being lower than all the others it suggests that all speeches, short and long, were generally kept shorter in comedies compared to other genres for plays produced by adult professional companies. Also the time-period effect is shown more starkly with the mode, with the difference between the transition period 1597–1602 and the period after 1602 being more obvious than with the mean where the last two periods are not significantly different.

EMMs and 95% Confidence Intervals from the main-effect-only models. Within each plot letters have been added to show which levels are statistically different. Categories with different letters are different; when letters are shared between groups the differences were not large enough to achieve significance.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.g013

Although the median is typically intermediate in position between the mode and the mean for skewed distributions, fitting the equivalent main-effects-model to that for the mean gave very similar results. The statistical significance and EMM patterns were very similar to that of the mean. The statistical details are available in S1 File and the patterns compared in S1 Fig 19 in S1 File .

4 Discussion

4.1 importance of effects.

The LMM analysis provided a way to rank the importance of each of the variables modelled. The largest impact was attributed to change over the time period studied. Using the LMM model based EMMs the mean of the mode decreased from 8.5 prior to 1597 to 4.8 after 1602, a change of 3.7. The genre effect was the next most important with the largest difference in EMMs being between the highest for historical plays with a mean mode of 7.5 to the lowest for the tragedy and tragicomedies, about 5.8, which is a difference 1.7 and less than half of the change over time. Differences between authors were of a similar size to that of genre, however as author was modelled as a random effect rather than fixed the method of assessment was different. Using the normal distribution as a model for the variability between authors 95% of authors would be being expected to vary in the mean mode over a range of 1.4. The two other variables examined as part of the modelling process play type (Adult Professional compared to Boys’ Professional) and proportion of verse in a play were not statistically significant, suggesting small effects, perhaps close to zero.

One other effect is noteworthy: the proportion of verse in a play. Although this variable was not significant in the LMM mode analysis it had a noticeable effect on the shape of the distributions of the pre-1597 data. At high verse proportion percentages the distribution of speech lengths had multiple peaks (modes) suggesting that the verse structure of the writing was important. However after 1602 this effect had largely disappeared.

Examining the mean instead of the mode of play speech length using only adult professional plays showed similar patterns to that of the mode. However, compared to the uncertainty in the EMM estimates the time-period effect was relatively smaller and the genre effect was relatively larger with the largest difference being between historical plays and comedies. These differences probably reflected the greater sensitivity of the mean to longer speech lengths compared to the mode.

4.2 Speech lengths as experienced by audiences

Patterns of variation in speech length are of interest to literary scholars because of their role in the overall effect of plays on audiences and readers. To understand this better we can examine some examples of various-length speeches in context.

We can compare a passage from Shakespeare’s play The comedy of errors (1594) and another from the same playwright’s All’s well that ends well (1603) to see what happens in two passages by the same playwright, in the same genre, but with one some years further on in the evolution of English Renaissance drama, and on the far side of the change to shorter speeches. (In the quotations that follow, speeches counted as four words are in bold type).

The comedy of errors (1594) [ 34 ] III.ii.54-65

LUCIANA What, are you mad that you do reason so?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Not mad, but mated—how, I do not know.

LUCIANA It is a fault that springeth from your eye.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.

LUCIANA Gaze when you should, and that will clear your sight.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.

LUCIANA Why call you me “love”? Call my sister so.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Thy sister’s sister.

LUCIANA That’s my sister .

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE No,

It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,

Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,

My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,

My sole Earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.

LUCIANA All this my sister is, or else should be.

In the texts used for the data sets for this study, as discussed in the Materials and Methods section above, elisions are expanded for counting purposes, so that “That’s my sister” is changed to “That is my sister.” In our counts these eleven speeches are (9,9,9,9,10,10,10,3,4,35,9). They are all in verse, in iambic pentameter, with one line split three ways (Thy sister’s sister. / That’s my sister. / No…). The mode for speech length in this play is 9 (76 of 609 speeches, or 12.5%, are of this length; there are 95 unique speech lengths, ranging from 1 to 493 words). In the passage quoted here, there is a mixture of short and long speeches, with one-line speeches of 9 or 10 words accounting for five of them. The full one-line speeches give room for some complexity and detail—“What, are you mad that you do reason so?”—but do not linger long before there is a retort or new development from the other speaker. We cannot claim that this passage is typical of the speech-rhythm of the play, but it does give a sense of what a modal speech length of nine would mean: nothing unduly hurried; but not too static either.

We can contrast this with All’s well that ends well (1603). In this case there is a double mode, with 61 speeches each for speech lengths 4 and 5. There are 944 speeches in all, so these speech lengths each account for 6.5% of the speeches, and together for 13%. There are 115 different speech lengths in all, from 1 to 252 words. Consider the following passage from Act 1 Scene 1, in prose this time.

All’s well that ends well (1603) [ 35 ] I.i.162-185

PAROLLES Little Helen, farewell; if I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

HELENA Monsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

PAROLLES Under Mars, I.

HELENA I especially think, under Mars.

PAROLLES Why “ under Mars”?

HELENA The wars have so kept you under that you must needs be born under Mars.

PAROLLES When he was predominant .

HELENA When he was retrograde, I think, rather.

PAROLLES Why think you so?

HELENA You go so much backward when you fight.

PAROLLES That’s for advantage .

HELENA So is running away, when fear proposes the safety; but the composition that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing, and I like the wear well.

PAROLLES I am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect courtier; in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of a courtier’s counsel and understand what advice shall thrust upon thee; else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away. Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers; when thou hast none, remember thy friends; get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee. So farewell.

The speech lengths for these thirteen speeches are (15,9,3,5,3,15,4,7,4,8,4,33,84). The alternation is on the whole more rapid than in the previous passage, though the short exchanges (“Why think you so?” / “You go so much backward when you fight.” / “That’s for advantage.”) are mixed with longer ones. There is more variation in speech length. In the play as a whole, the mode for speech length is 4 words.

4.3 Stylistics of speech lengths

The change in most common speech length from 9 words to 4 words is a move from the predominance of full statements to the predominance of pithy summaries. In stylistic terms this is a move from informational and self-sufficient communication, in which a context is provided, to involved exchanges which assume shared knowledge. The first has high informational density and precise content, the second has more interactional, affective and generalised content. The first is more characteristic of writing and the second of speech.

Longer speeches make it possible and likely that the speaker will add more detail and specificity, so that statements require less completion by the audience. Short speeches tend to include more references to persons and things known to speaker and audience through pronouns and deictics. This contrast corresponds to the first factor in Biber’s factor analysis of a range of documents [ 36 ]—informational versus involved styles. Writing tends to have more of the first, since there is the opportunity to elaborate and edit, and the assumed audience is generally not present, and speech has more of the second, since the statement has to be completed in real time and the audience is generally present.

The underlying question is why playwrights changed in their practice. Here we can only speculate. One plausible hypothesis is that they learned progressively from one another how to represent more closely the speech lengths of everyday exchanges, and found that audiences responded well to these. As the heritage of early modern English drama grew, playwrights came to understand the special properties of the medium better and their styles moved away from an allegiance to writing and towards the dynamics of everyday speech. George T Wright, already quoted, discussing the increase in shared lines in Shakespeare’s dramatic verse over his career, offers an attractive explanation for Shakespeare’s change of practice: lines shared between characters “suggest the casualness of natural conversation” and Shakespeare included more as time went on from a “wish to present credible and credibly various language on the stage” [ 12 p140, p120]. The same might be said about the change to shorter speeches in general in the English drama of this period.

A change in the direction of closeness to natural speech has also been observed in Shakespeare’s metrical practice. Wright showed that in his early plays Shakespeare tended to finish each sentence at the end of a verse line and hence begin the next sentence at the start of a verse line, and that in multi-line sentences the ends of lines tended to align with the ends of phrases and clauses [ 12 ]. In this regard his early plays were typical of the collective practice. But Shakespeare led the field in certain connected deviations from this practice. Ants Oras traced the way that all dramatists’ plays drifted in their most commonly chosen position for a midline break -- such as a caesura, strong punctuation, or the splitting of a verse line between two speakers -- from the first half of the line (especially after the fourth syllable) when Shakespeare’s career began in the late 1580s to the second half of the line (especially after the sixth syllable) by the time Shakespeare’s career ended around 1613 [ 37 ]. Starting the second half of a line later tended to make phrases and clauses overrun the end of the line, and this enjambment diminished the noticeability of line endings in performance, and hence their significance to writers and performers.

The collective change to shorter speeches can also be seen as driven by fashion, as a structural variation which practitioners adopted as an attractive novelty. There are other examples of change spreading quickly across the English theatre of the time. The division of plays into five acts was introduced in the second decade of the seventeenth century and quickly became universal. Plays performed indoors were illuminated by candles, and these would need periodic attention to put out the ones that were smoking, relight those that had gone out, and where necessary to trim the wicks. Indoor venues such as the Blackfriars theatre always punctuated performances with four intervals during which the candles were tended, and at the Blackfriars the audience were kept entertained by a group of musicians visible in the balcony over the stage. Outdoor venues such as the Globe theatre used natural daylight and, having no need for intervals, performed plays as a continuous sequence of scenes. In 1610, Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, began to play at the indoor Blackfriars theatre in the winter while continuing to use their outdoor Globe theatre in the summer. The company decided to regularize the practices at the two venues, moving the Globe’s musicians’ room from inside the tiring house to the stage balcony, as at the Blackfriars, punctuating Globe performances with four musical intervals even though there were no candles to tend [ 38 ]. The King’s Men presumably found it convenient to perform the same way outdoors as indoors. Punctuating outdoor performances with four unnecessary intervals was quickly emulated by other companies that had no indoor theatres [ 38 ]. Every one of the 245 extant plays (whether printed or manuscript) from 1616 to 1642 written for London companies by 56 different authors is divided into five acts, showing that by 1616 the transition to universal use of intervals was complete [ 39 p4]. Thus we see that an innovation can rapidly spread across an entire industry, even when there is no practical reason for it.

Another way to think of a change in speech length is offered by the Russian literary scholar Boris Yarkho (1889–1942) [ 40 ]. Yarkho may well have been the first to consider the length of speeches in plays in a systematic way. He proposed an “index of liveliness,” being the ratio of the number of speeches to the number of lines in a play and calculated this index for the comedies and tragedies of the seventeenth-century French playwright Pierre Corneille, comedies having a higher index, and thus a shorter mean speech length. The move from a mode of nine words to a mode of four corresponds to a shortening of the average speech, and thus a move to more lively drama in Yarkho’s terms.

4.4 Implications for literary studies

We hope that this demonstration of the application of Linear Mixed Models to stylistic questions will prompt other studies in stylistics using this method. LMM can account for the influence of multiple variables on an outcome variable like speech length in a systematic way, allowing the researcher to determine whether a given factor like time period is indeed dominant. The concept of random effects is useful in the typical situation of literary studies where samples are not elicited by a process ensuring balanced stratification but derive from a dataset with inbuilt limitations and biases, such as the surviving written texts from a historical tradition.

In terms of implications for the specific field of studies of Shakespeare and his contemporaries three aspects stand out from the speech-length patterns we have discussed.

The patterns provide a new focus on shorter speeches, which turn out to dominate the speech-length distribution. This offers an important context for work on dramatic dialogue analysing briefer exchanges [ 41 , 42 ], which has emerged alongside the older tradition of commentary on longer speeches, such as soliloquies and speeches reporting off-stage events, declaring sentiments, or attempting to persuade. The findings also provide an important and well-founded context of change over time for these studies of dialogic interaction.

The second is that the direction of the change, towards dialogue with shorter speeches, seems intuitively to be an adaptation to a closer modelling of natural speech. In their book on stylistic patterns in early modern English drama, Craig and Greatley-Hirsch [ 1 ] described a collective and progressive drift in early modern English drama over the years 1585 to 1624 towards more informal and interactional dialogue, in that case based on frequencies of function words. This is consistent with the change in speech-length modes. Craig and Greatley-Hirsch did not argue that this is an improvement. One might well prefer early drama, with longer speeches, to later examples, but nevertheless the writers seem to have moved collectively towards verisimilitude, so that once the late style is experienced, the earlier one seems more removed from everyday reality.

The third is the reminder that all these dramatists worked under invisible constraints. Any playwright who wrote before 1597 tended to make the nine-word speech the most common type; any playwright who wrote after 1602 tended to make the four-line speech the most common type. This is in a sense no surprise. Fashions change, and writers like everyone else take advantage of the new possibilities created by the works of their immediate predecessors, and respond to what audiences have learned to want. Yet this influence from a common drift in style is easy to forget when focusing on a single work or even a single writer, and broad-based quantitative studies help in re-balancing commentary towards this wider collective context, towards remembering that a play’s place in the chronological sequence is a factor in its style, alongside as the more familiar considerations like its author. It is important to know that All’s well that ends well was first performed in 1603, as well as the fact that it was written by William Shakespeare.

Supporting information

S1 file. file with r script, output and text explanations..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s001

S2 File. File with R script, output and text explanations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s002

S3 File. File with R script, output and text explanations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s003

S4 File. Data file of all speech length values from all 275 plays.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s004

S5 File. Summary data file containing play mode, median and mean of speech length in words, with play metadata.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s005

S6 File. R Markdown file to reproduce the output in S1 File .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s006

S7 File. R Markdown file to produce the output in S2 File .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s007

S8 File. R Markdown file to produce the output in S3 File .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282716.s008

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Ocasio-Cortez, in House Speech, Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had called for a permanent cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, but had resisted labeling the conflict a genocide.

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By Nicholas Fandos

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned on Friday that Israel’s blockade of Gaza had put the territory on the brink of severe famine, saying publicly for the first time that the nation’s wartime actions amounted to an “unfolding genocide.”

In a speech on the House floor, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, forcefully called on President Biden to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel unless and until it begins to allow the free flow of humanitarian assistance into the Gaza Strip.

“If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes,” she said. “It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away.”

The comments were a sharp rhetorical escalation by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the de facto leader of the Democratic Party’s left wing, and they illustrated the intense pressure buffeting party officials as they grapple with how to respond to Israel’s war tactics and the deepening humanitarian crisis.

Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, defying party leaders, has been a proponent of a permanent cease-fire since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7, and has called for putting conditions on American military aid to Israel. But she had resisted describing the ensuing war, which has killed 30,000 Gazans and left the territory in ruins, as a genocide.

Israel has firmly denied that the term applies, and Ms. Ocasio-Cortez indicated in January that she was waiting for the International Court of Justice to render an opinion on a legal designation. Privately, she has expressed concerns to some allies that the highly contentious term would alienate potential supporters of a cease-fire.

Her position put Ms. Ocasio-Cortez at odds with several members of the progressive bloc she leads in the House, including Representative Cori Bush of Missouri. It also made her an unlikely target of some left-leaning activists: This month, a video went viral of protesters confronting her at a movie theater in New York City and demanding that she use the term.

Allies attributed her embrace of the term on Friday to the worsening humanitarian reality on the ground. The United Nations has warned that much of the Gaza Strip and its 2.2 million residents are now at risk of famine and has pressured Israel to let more food cross in via land.

“Honoring our alliances does not mean facilitating mass killing,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said on Friday. “We cannot hide from our responsibility any longer. Blocking assistance from one’s closest allies to starve a million people is not unintentional.”

The immediate reaction to her comments was muted, especially considering the gravity of her charge and how the congresswoman often inspires opposition on the right. The White House, which had been alerted beforehand about her speech, declined to comment, as did several staunch Democratic allies of Israel.

Mr. Biden and top Democratic leaders have insisted on Israel’s right to defend itself and have shown little appetite for curtailing military aid to the country. On the contrary, the administration is pushing for billions of dollars more in military assistance.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobby that has clashed with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, said that accusing Israel of committing genocide was an “obscene perversion of the truth.”

“It is Hamas that has a genocidal goal of destroying the Jewish people, and it is Hamas that is responsible for massive casualties by using Palestinian civilians as human shields,” Marshall Wittmann, the group’s spokesman, said in a statement that did not mention Ms. Ocasio-Cortez by name.

Some antiwar activists praised the speech, but others argued that Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was moving too belatedly.

“AOC is 30,000+ deaths too late to this,” Hafsa Halawa, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, wrote on X . “You want congressional heroes, Cori Bush is where you should look.”

The speech came at a precarious moment in the war. Officials fear the situation in Gaza could grow more dire if Israel follows through with an attack on the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where more than a million civilians have sought refuge.

The Biden administration has pushed Israel to forgo the attack. And after months of steadfast support for Israel, the president himself has become increasingly outspoken about the humanitarian crisis, introducing a U.N. Security Council resolution this week calling for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” in Gaza.

The resolution failed, but progressives aligned with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez have taken Mr. Biden’s firmer stance as evidence that their tactics are working.

She sought to increase that pressure on Friday, speaking not through social media or a news interview but a traditional four-minute speech on the House floor.

The remarks came just after the House voted on a $1.2 trillion government funding bill that would temporarily cut off aid to the main U.N. agency that provides assistance to Palestinians. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was among 22 Democrats to vote against the spending plan.

She began her remarks by invoking Mr. Biden’s own words from a 2011 speech when he was vice president, calling him “a decent man.” Mr. Biden said then that stopping genocides was “an achievable goal” while lamenting that too often real action came “too late, after the best and least costly opportunities to prevent them have been missed.”

Echoing those words, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez said the United States risked repeating past mistakes. She said relatively little about Israel’s bombing campaign or ground invasions, but referred specifically to a Biden administration plan to put a temporary floating pier off Gaza’s coastline to ease the transit of goods, warning it would be “too late” to stave off the worst.

“The time is now to force compliance with U.S. law and the standards of humanity,” she said, calling for the administration to “suspend the transfer of U.S. weapons to the Israeli government in order to stop and prevent further atrocity.”

“This is not just about Israel or Gaza,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez added. “This is about us.”

Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.

Nicholas Fandos is a Times reporter covering New York politics and government. More about Nicholas Fandos

Our Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

News and Analysis

Although the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that demands an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, it remains to be seen whether ​i​t ​w​ill have a concrete effect on the war .

Israeli troops and Hamas fighters waged deadly battles in and around two of the Gaza Strip’s major hospitals as the Israeli government came under growing pressure at home and abroad to moderate its approach to the war .

As the death toll in Gaza mounts, officials in Germany, a loyal Israel ally, begin to shift tone in a country where supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty. The worsening crisis has pushed them to ask whether that backing has gone too far .

A new Gallup poll showed that a majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s action in Gaza.

Internal Roil at TikTok: TikTok has been dogged for months by accusations that its app has shown a disproportionate amount of pro-Palestinian and antisemitic content to users. Some of the same tensions  have also played out inside the company.

Palestinian Detainees: Israel has imprisoned more than 9,000 Palestinians suspected of militant activity . Rights groups say that some have been abused or held without charges.

A Hostage’s Account: Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer, is the first former hostage to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted  during captivity in Gaza.

A Power Vacuum: Since the start of the war, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has done little to address the power vacuum that would appear after Israeli forces leave Gaza. The risks of inaction are already apparent in Gaza City .

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Kate Middleton 'Wrote Every Word Herself' in Speech Revealing Her Cancer Diagnosis, Source Says

The Princess of Wales shared her health news in a video released on Friday

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Kate Middleton 's announcement revealing her cancer diagnosis came from the heart.

“She wrote every word herself,” a palace source confirms to PEOPLE of the Princess of Wales' video speech, which was released on Friday and filmed two days prior in the gardens of Windsor Castle.

A family friend adds, “She wrote the words herself, delivered it personally and wanted to decide when the time was right to hit the world with this news.”

On Friday, Kate, 42, shared her cancer diagnosis in an emotional video message . She said she received the diagnosis following her abdominal surgery in January after post-operative tests "found cancer had been present” and is now in the “early stages” of treatment.

Prince William is said to be “extremely proud of his wife for the courage and strength she has shown not just this week, but since her surgery in January," a royal source says.

The insider added that William, 41, is protective of his family, stating, “Now more than ever he’s focused on ensuring his wife has the privacy she needs to fully recover and that his children are shielded from the understandable interest in the news that has been shared.”

On Saturday, the Prince and Princess of Wales said they were grateful for the wide support they’ve received following the princess’ cancer diagnosis announcement.

A Kensington Palace spokesperson said in a statement that Kate and William "are both enormously touched by the kind messages from people here in the U.K., across the Commonwealth and around the world in response to Her Royal Highness’ message."

Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty

"They are extremely moved by the public’s warmth and support and are grateful for the understanding of their request for privacy at this time," the spokesperson added.

In her speech on Friday, Kate began by thanking well-wishers for their support over recent weeks.

She then called her diagnosis a "huge shock" and said that she and William "have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family," referring to their three children: Prince George , 10, Princess Charlotte , 8, and Prince Louis , 5.

Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage?  Sign up for our free Royals newsletter  to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! Princess Kate added that "it's taken us time to explain everything" to their kids "in a way that is appropriate for them, and to reassure them that I am going to be okay."

The royal concluded her speech by acknowledging those also dealing with cancer. "At this time, I am also thinking of all those whose lives have been affected by cancer. For everyone facing this disease, in whatever form, please do not lose faith or hope. You are not alone." she said.

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I Listened to Trump’s Rambling, Unhinged, Vituperative Georgia Rally—and So Should You

By Susan B. Glasser

I’m sure you had better things to do on Saturday evening than watch Donald Trump rant for nearly two hours to an audience of cheering fans in Rome, Georgia. His speech was rambling, unhinged, vituperative, and oh-so-revealing. In his first rally since effectively clinching the Republican Presidential nomination, Trump made what amounted to his response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address . It’s hard to imagine a better or more pointed contrast with the vision that, two days earlier, the President had laid out for America.

And yet, like so much about Trump’s 2024 campaign, this insane oration was largely overlooked and under-covered, the flood of lies and B.S. seen as old news from a candidate whose greatest political success has been to acclimate a large swath of the population to his ever more dangerous alternate reality. No wonder Biden, trapped in a real world of real problems that defy easy solutions, is struggling to defeat him.

This is partly a category error. Though we persist in treating the 2024 election as a race between an incumbent and a challenger, it is not that so much as a contest between two incumbents: Biden, the actual President, and Trump, the forever-President of Red America’s fever dreams. But Trump, while he presents himself as the country’s rightful leader, gets nothing like the intense scrutiny for his speeches that is now focussed on the current occupant of the Oval Office. The norms and traditions that Trump is intent on smashing are, once again, benefitting him.

Consider the enormous buildup before, and wall-to-wall coverage of, Biden’s annual address to Congress. It was big news when the President called out his opponent in unusually scathing terms, referring thirteen times in his prepared text to “my predecessor” in what was, understandably, seen as a break with tradition. Republican commentators grumbled about the sharply partisan tone of the President’s remarks and the loud decibel in which he delivered them; Democrats essentially celebrated those same qualities.

Imagine if, instead, the two speeches had been covered side by side. Biden’s barbed references to Trump were all about the former President’s offenses to American democracy. He called out Trump’s 2024 campaign of “resentment, revenge, and retribution” and the “chaos” unleashed by the Trump-majority Supreme Court when it threw out the decades-old precedent of Roe v. Wade. In reference to a recent quote from the former President, in which Trump suggested that Americans should just “get over it” when it comes to gun violence, Biden retorted, “I say: Stop it, stop it, stop it!” His sharpest words for Trump came in response to the ex-President’s public invitation to Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries that don’t spend what Trump wants them to on defense—a line that Biden condemned as “outrageous,” “dangerous,” and “unacceptable.”

Trump’s speech made little effort to draw substantive contrasts with Biden. Instead, the Washington Post counted nearly five dozen references to Biden in the course of the Georgia rally, almost all of them epithets drawn from the Trump marketing playbook for how to rip down an opponent—words like “angry,” “corrupt,” “crooked,” “flailing,” “incompetent,” “stupid,” and “weak.” Trump is, always and forever, a puerile bully, stuck perpetually on the fifth-grade playground. But the politics of personal insult has worked so well for Trump that he is, naturally, doubling down on it in 2024. In fact, one of the clips from Trump’s speech on Saturday which got the most coverage was his mockery of Biden’s stutter : a churlish—and, no doubt, premeditated—slur.

And yet there was the G.O.P. strategist Karl Rove, writing this week in the Wall Street Journal that it was Biden who had “lowered himself with shortsighted and counterproductive blows” in his State of the Union speech. Trump’s entire campaign is a study in grotesque slander, but Rove did not even mention Trump’s Georgia rally while sanctimoniously tut-tutting about Biden. And I don’t mean to single out Rove; it was hard to find any right-leaning commentators who did otherwise. This many years into the Trump phenomenon, they’ve figured out that the best way to deal with Trump’s excesses is simply to pretend they do not exist.

Hanging over both speeches was the increasingly burning question of performance, as the country is now forced to choose between two aging leaders aspiring to remain in the White House well into their eighties. Trump has arguably lowered the bar for Biden, with his constant insults aimed at the President’s age and capacity, and Biden managed to clear it, turning his State of the Union into an affirmation—for fretting Democratic partisans, at least—that he has the vigor and fight to keep going in the job.

Trump’s appearance in Georgia, by contrast, reflected a man not rooted in any kind of reality, one who struggled to remember his words and who was, by any definition, incoherent, disconnected, and frequently malicious. ( This video compilation , circulating on social media, nails it.) In one lengthy detour, he complained about Biden once being photographed on a beach in his bathing suit. Which led him to Cary Grant, which led him to Michael Jackson, which led him back to the point that even Cary Grant wouldn’t have looked good in a bathing suit at age eighty-one. In another aside, he bragged about how much “women love me,” citing as proof the “suburban housewives from North Carolina” who travel to his rallies around the country. He concluded that portion of his speech by saying:

But it was an amazing phenomenon and I do protect women. Look, they talk about suburban housewives. I believe I’m doing well—you know, the polls are all rigged. Of course lately they haven’t been rigged because I’m winning by so much, so I don’t want to say it. Disregard that statement. I love the polls very much.

Makes perfect sense, right?

It was no surprise, of course, that Trump began his speech by panning Biden’s: “the worst President in history, making the worst State of the Union speech in history,” an “angry, dark, hate-filled rant” that was “the most divisive, partisan, radical, and extreme” such address ever given. As always, what really stuns is Trump’s lack of self-awareness. Remember his “American carnage” address? Well, never mind. Get past the unintended irony, though, and what’s striking is how much of Trump’s 2024 campaign platform is being built on an edifice of lies, and not just the old, familiar lies about the “rigged election” which have figured prominently in every speech Trump has made since his defeat four years ago.

Trump’s over-the-top distortions of his record as President—“the greatest economy in history”; “the biggest tax cut in history”; “I did more for Black people than any President other than Abraham Lincoln”—are now joined by an equally flamboyant new set of untruths about Biden’s Presidency, which Trump portrayed in Saturday’s speech as a hellish time of almost fifty-per-cent inflation and an economy “collapsing into a cesspool of ruin,” with rampaging migrants being let loose from prisons around the world and allowed into the United States, on Biden’s orders, to murder and pillage and steal jobs from “native-born Americans.” Biden, in Trump’s current telling, is both a drooling incompetent being controlled by “fascists” and a corrupt criminal mastermind, “weaponizing” the U.S. government and its criminal-justice system to come after his opponent. His campaign slogan for 2024 might be summed up by one of the rally’s pithier lines: “Everything Joe Biden touches turns to shit. Everything.”

Indeed, Trump’s efforts this year to blame Biden for literally everything have taken on a baroque quality even by the modern-day standards of the party that introduced Willie Horton and Swift-boating into the political lexicon. Consider their latest cause célèbre, the tragic recent death of a young woman, Laken Riley, in which the accused is an undocumented migrant. Trump explicitly blamed Biden and his “crime-against-humanity” border policies for her death. “Laken Riley would be alive today,” he said, “if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States and set loose thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals into our country.” Against such treachery, Trump offers a simple, apocalyptic choice: doomsday if Biden is reëlected, or liberation from “these tyrants and villains once and for all.” Wars will be ended at the mere thought of Trump retaking power; crime will cease; arrests will be made; dissenters will be silenced.

I recognize that a speech such as the one that Trump delivered the other night is hard to distill into the essence required of a news story. His detours on Saturday included complaints about Jeff Zucker, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Martha Stewart, Megyn Kelly, “the big plagiarizer from Harvard,” Ron “DeSanctimonious,” the Washington Post , “Trump-deranged judge” Lewis Kaplan, “the fascist and racist attorney general of New York State,” “corrupt Fani Willis,” Merrick Garland, and the F.B.I., which, Trump claimed, “offers one million dollars to a writer of fiction about Donald Trump to lie and say it was fact where Hunter Biden’s laptop from hell was Russian disinformation.” What was he talking about? I don’t know. The man has so many grievances and so many enemies that it is, understandably, hard to keep them straight.

But whether or not it’s news in the conventional sense, it’s easiest to understand the threat that Trump poses to American democracy most clearly when you see it for yourself. Small clips of his craziness can be too easily dismissed as the background noise of our times. The condemnation of his critics, up to and including the current President, can sound shrill or simply partisan. The fact checks, while appalling, never stop the demagogue for whom the “bottomless Pinocchio” was invented.

On Tuesday, days after this performance, Trump and Biden each locked up their respective parties’ nominations. The general election has now begun, and Trump, as of this writing, is the favorite. In the next few months, the Biden campaign and its allies plan to spend close to a billion dollars attempting to persuade Americans not to make the historic mistake of electing Trump twice. My thought is a simpler and definitely cheaper one: watch his speeches. Share them widely. Don’t look away. ♦

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Jimmy graham pens heartfelt speech to new orleans in cryptic instagram post, share this article.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jimmy Graham (@thejimmygraham)

This might mean goodbye. Jimmy Graham did everything short of saying he was retiring in a recent Instagram post . The New Orleans Saints legend thanked Saints fans and penned a heartfelt message to the city and the team, which is customary when a player is leaving a team. Seeing that Graham is 37 and already spent a year away from football, this feels like an implied retirement. Graham is also preparing to row across the Arctic in July 2025 , so stepping away from the game to prepare for that adventure seems logical.

After a seven-year hiatus, Graham returned to the team that drafted him back in 2010. It took the entire season to learn how to use him, but Graham excelled in his limited role once the Saints called his number. His 6 catches on the year all went for touchdowns or first downs. His impeccable effectiveness feels like a proper send off even though he didn’t even hit 100 yards receiving.

For clarification, Graham never said he was retiring. The message does feel eerily similar to a retirement speech. Maybe he left that out on purpose to keep us on our toes.

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With 19 Words, Louis Gossett Jr.'s Oscar Acceptance Speech Taught a Bittersweet Lesson

It's very short, but there's a line in it that caught my attention--and then had me looking up the story.

Louis Gossett Jr. died Friday at the age of 87. It's sad news. As people mourn, I'd suggest looking back to a specific line in the late actor's 1983 Academy Awards acceptance speech, which carries a hidden note of optimism that I think is very relevant today.

If you don't know Gossett, here's your binge-watching assignment: Start with the movie for which he became the first Black actor to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, An Officer and a Gentleman (it still holds up today), then go back and check out Roots , and work your way down his IMDB page.

A prolific performer with a 70-year career--Gossett was in The Color Purple last year, and he's in several other works that haven't even been released yet--it was at the suggestion of one of my editors at Inc. that I went back and looked at his Oscar speech.

It's short, but there's a line in it that caught my attention--and then had me looking up the story. It really comes down to these 19 words:

"I've got a spirit that guides me, starting with my great-grandmother who died at the age of 117."

Although he didn't have time to get into it on stage, Gossett explained his great-grandmother's story in an interview a few years later.

In short, her name was Bertha Ray, she had been born a slave, and she was one of the people who raised Gossett as a child. He also revealed that her exact age wasn't known, but that it has been somewhere around 115 or more:

"We started the family Bible after slavery was abolished. My great-grandmother remembered the Bible being started, which meant that she was a slave as a young girl. When she died, the Bible was at least 105 years old, so she must have been nearly 115 years old. Her daughter, my grandmother, died at 97, and her husband at 98. It was the older women who took care of the children, and the matriarch of my family was my great-grandmother. She raised us all, including all my cousins."

Elsewhere on an episode of PBS's American Masters , Gossett shared a photo of himself with Bertha Ray, and revealed that she had lived long enough to see him star in a leading role on Broadway in 1953--his first professional role.

I know that I can be a bit sentimental. But it's striking and bittersweet to imagine that even in the third decade of the 21st century, our collective American history is short enough that an acting icon who died a few days ago could have been raised, at least in part, by a woman who had experienced firsthand what it was like to have been enslaved in the United States.

It's also ironically hopeful, given what the horrors of slavery would have been like, to realize that Bertha Ray would have lived to see so many things she could never have imagined. And then, to be remembered to the world as she was via her great-grandson's speech.

Truly, Gossett had a heck of a career in film, on television, and on stage. Heck, when I went through my officer basic school for the army in 1999, his performance as the drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman was already so iconic that I remember my fellow soldiers imitating him (along with Ronald Lee Ermey's drill sergeant performance in Full Metal Jacket , of course).

Gossett knew Nelson Mandela, and he also talked about experiencing racism firsthand, including a story about how on his first trip to Hollywood, police arrested him and left him handcuffed to a tree for three hours.

This was for the crime, as he put it, of being Black and driving a fancy car. But he also seemed to have a strong capacity for empathy and even forgiveness.

And he credited his great-grandmother, Bertha Ray, as one of the people who led him to become what he was.

"We'd better take care of ourselves and one another better," he said toward the end of one of his last long interviews, with CBS Sunday Morning in 2020. "Otherwise nobody's going to win anything. We need each other, quite desperately, for mutual salvation."

Here's Gossett's Oscar speech from 1983:

This post originally appeared at inc.com .

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