I just posted about the need for serious and thorough preparation in a speech/presentation.
I wrote earlier about President Obama and his editing of a speech draft. I had read that President Reagan had the same discipline, but did not refine my Google search terms well enough to find an image. Well, thanks to suggestions from Bob Morris, I used better words, and now we can see that both presidents were active with their editing pens. (side issue — we can also see the difference between a typewriter and a modern computer).
Here are a couple of samples of President Reagan’s editing:
And here’s President Obama’s:
And here is the lesson. The great speakers know that the first draft can always be improved, and they work hard at it. By the way, President Reagan wrote out many of his speeches in longhand, as did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
First Friday Book Synopsis 