Dove Essay

Right off the bat, Dove establishes a connection with her audience stating “This is personal”. Already she knows these listeners and has displayed a commonality to those doesn’t. Shortly after this, she talks about how she asked one of her classes what they would want to hear. This shows that she truly wanted to make her words count. In addition to this, and many other subtle hints of passion, she uses personal stories of her childhood to make the message more relatable.

The style of this speech is very unique. It is almost like it is catered to both those who care as much as her and those who don’t. There is a set format the speech follows: The main idea, in the form of a topic sentence, followed by a paragraph of expansion. This does a couple of things for the audience. First, it allows you to listen to about three total sentences of the talk and get a majority of the main ideas. It also shows that Dove isn’t trying to waste time or fill a word count, she has a message she cares about and she wants to get it out in the clearest way possible.

One of the most important things Dove does to make her writing impactful is she knows her audience. She knows “The last thing [they] want to hear is advice” and she knows what they know. Dove doesn’t introduce her listeners to completely new concepts, she takes ideas they are already familiar with and reinforces them. This shows the audience the importance of these things which are sometimes considered cliche rather than taken seriously. The other ingenious part of this is that it shows her listeners that she respects them. Validating their ideas serves as an expression of mutual understanding and ultimately makes Dove easier to accept.