Find out whether your idea is as strong as your story

AskSpeech can help:

• TED and TEDx-style speakers
• Keynote speakers
• Founders
• Leadership speakers
• Commencement speakers
• Cultural commentators
• Conference presenters
• Speakers developing a personal insight or mental model

Use the report to examine:

• Is the central idea identifiable?
• Is the idea genuinely distinct?
• Do the stories develop the idea?
• Does each section materially advance the thesis?
• Are claims supported and responsibly qualified?
• Is audience attention sustained beyond the opening story?
• Does the conclusion resolve the message?
• Will listeners know what to remember or apply?

AskSpeech uses this category for inspirational or idea-driven public speeches whose main purpose is to explain or spread:

• An idea
• A mental model
• A personal insight
• A leadership lesson
• A cultural observation
• A new way of understanding a familiar subject

A speech primarily advocating civic, political, electoral, legal, or movement action is analyzed using the Political category instead.

Commencement speeches generally fit the TED-style category unless their main purpose is public-political advocacy.

Quick Verdict

A neutral summary of the talk's central editorial strengths and limitations.

Intended Audience

A description of the general public, professional audience, graduates, leaders, or idea-seeking listeners implied by the talk.

Key Quotes

Up to six transcript-grounded lines revealing the central idea, strongest insight, main weakness, practical implication, or turning point.

Strongest Elements

Up to three strengths showing what makes the talk clear, distinctive, credible, engaging, or useful.

Most Important Weaknesses

Up to three weaknesses showing where the idea becomes vague, repetitive, unsupported, underdeveloped, or disconnected.

Current Spine

A map of the idea as the audience experienced it:

• Opening hook
• Central thesis
• Major stories or arguments
• Development of the idea
• Practical or reflective implication
• Conclusion

Re-Spined

When the best material is present but arranged ineffectively, Re-Spined proposes a stronger order using the talk's existing ideas and stories.

The talk remains graded on the original version.

A TED-style talk is graded across seven categories:

• Originality
• Clarity
• Structure
• Practicality
• Engagement
• Depth
• Credibility

Originality

Evaluates whether the talk offers a distinct idea, synthesis, perspective, framing, or way of understanding the subject.

The topic itself does not have to be completely new.

Originality may come from:

• A fresh central insight
• An unexpected but defensible connection
• A distinctive framework
• A meaningful synthesis
• A familiar subject developed into a clear personal contribution

Clarity

Evaluates how understandable and conceptually precise the central idea remains throughout the talk.

It considers whether listeners can identify the thesis and understand how stories, examples, and supporting ideas relate to it.

Structure

Evaluates progression, proportion, connection, development, and resolution.

A strong structure does more than place several interesting sections under one broad topic. The sections must build a coherent line of thought.

Practicality

Evaluates how useful the talk's ideas are to its intended audience.

Practicality may involve:

• A concrete next step
• A usable framework
• A change in perspective
• A meaningful question
• An implication for leadership or life
• A clearer way to make a decision

The talk does not need to become a tutorial.

Engagement

Evaluates audience attention and connection across the whole talk.

One exceptional story is treated as one exceptional story. It does not automatically establish sustained engagement across the entire speech.

Depth

Evaluates how fully the central idea is developed.

It considers whether the talk goes beyond a memorable slogan or familiar observation and explores reasoning, causes, implications, tension, or complexity.

Credibility

Evaluates whether the audience has sufficient reason to trust the claims and reasoning presented.

It considers evidence, qualification, intellectual fairness, relevant experience, and the relationship between what is claimed and what the talk actually establishes.

The 1-10 score scale

Scores are displayed out of 10, with decimals when the judgment falls between two levels.

Read the scale this way:

• 1: Not functioning in this category; the transcript gives almost no usable evidence of the quality being measured.
• 2: Severe breakdown; there are fragments of intent, but the category mostly fails.
• 3: Weak; some relevant material is present, but major gaps or confusion dominate.
• 4: Underdeveloped; the category works in places but remains unreliable, thin, or poorly connected.
• 5: Mixed; the speech shows basic competence and clear limitations in about equal measure.
• 6: Adequate; the category generally works, but with noticeable unevenness, missing support, or missed opportunities.
• 7: Solid; the speech is effective in this category with specific areas to strengthen.
• 8: Strong; the category is consistently effective, with refinements needed more than repairs.
• 9: Excellent; the speech handles this category with unusual clarity, development, and control.
• 10: Exceptional; the category is handled with rare precision and effectiveness across the focused transcript.

A 0.0 can appear only when the transcript gives effectively no usable evidence for a category. The scale describes the public score; the report's reasoning explains why that speech landed there.

Overall score

The overall score is a holistic judgment of how well the speech accomplishes its category-specific task across the full focused transcript.

It is informed by the seven category scores and by the severity of the transcript evidence behind them, but it is not calculated by a hidden weighted formula.

Grading sequence

AskSpeech grades the focused transcript before writing the qualitative report. The category scores, reasoning, and overall score are selected from the original speech as delivered, then locked while the report explains them.

Re-Spined is produced only after grading. Its suggested rebuild can help revision, but it does not raise or lower the original scores.

AskSpeech does not grade on a curve or spread scores to match a preferred pattern. Two speeches with the same number can earn it for different reasons, which is why every score is paired with transcript-based reasoning.

The report evaluates the spoken message through the transcript.

It does not directly measure:

• Vocal charisma
• Stage presence
• Gesture
• Eye contact
• Facial expression
• Audience applause
• Visual storytelling
• Slide or stage design

The analysis focuses on whether the idea itself is clear, developed, coherent, credible, and memorable.