The importance of delivery

Have you ever heard the saying, "It's not what you say; it's how you say it?"  This is basically a statement about delivery, which certainly plays a vital role in any speech.  Think about times you have listened to speeches (maybe in class lectures, maybe at sports banquets, perhaps sermons in church, or commencement addresses at graduations).  What about those speakers engaged you, grabbed your attention, and made you WANT to keep listening?  Conversely, what made you want to bang your head against a wall just for something interesting to do?

Don't get me wrong:  a speech needs to be well written and strongly organized.  It's not the information we present alone that gets our audience's attention, however.  It's HOW we present it to them.  Take the following two speeches, for example.  Both are actually presenting valid information, but I would argue that one is WAY more engaging than the other.  Why?  

(As the Ferris Buellar excerpt is not close-captioned, the following is a transcript of the above clip.)

"In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... Raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. 'Voodoo' Economics."