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Steve Jobs Speech Analysis

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Steve Jobs, a world class tech guru, and Neil Gaiman, a Newbery medal winning author, were both tasked with the similar job of writing and delivering a commencement speech to university graduates. Steve Jobs’ speech occured at the highly esteemed, prestigious university of Stanford, while Neil Gaiman delivered his speech at the University of the Arts. Both speeches carried a very similar message; Jobs’ speech urged students to “find what they love” and all will fall into place, and Gaiman’s speech advised students to take risks and do whatever it takes to do what they love. However, whilst Gaiman is able to use varying structure throughout his speech to develop his messages that he wants to the graduates to take away along with relatable evidence graduates, Jobs’ incredibly simplistic structure and evidence that is foreign to most students do not allow for him to effectively reach his students. Steve Jobs’ speech fails to reach the Stanford graduates as it consists of three stories that are identical in structure filled with examples foreign to his audience in his attempt to inspire Stanford’s class of 2015 to do what they love and trust that everything will work out. All three of his stories - one about “connecting the dots,” another about “love and loss,” and final story about death - unfold the exact same way: first, he recounts to a time in which he was younger. Then, he tells a seemingly somber story to the audience., Each story also ends the exact same way, where the

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