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Part of Why commencement speeches face the worst listening conditions
Which commencement speeches are still worth reading
Some commencement speeches still repay reading decades later. Here are the ones with a verifiable ceremony, a recording, and a text that holds up.
Most lists of great commencement speeches rank texts that were posted online, not addresses that worked in a field. That is a different thing, and it is why the same few names recur.
The addresses below have three things in common: a documented ceremony, a recording or a contemporaneous press account, and a text that survives being read cold. Where the delivered version and the posted version differ, that is noted.
What to take away
- A speech belongs on a list only if the ceremony can be verified: date, venue, speaker, and an institutional or press record.
- George Marshall's 1947 Harvard address, John F. Kennedy's 1963 American University speech, and Steve Jobs at Stanford in 2005 are documented and recorded.
- Some famous "commencement speeches" were never delivered at a ceremony. Check the institution's own record before repeating the attribution.
- Rank by the conditions the speaker faced, not by which passage traveled furthest online.
Speeches that hold up, ordered by how much they reward a cold read
George C. Marshall, Harvard University, June 5, 1947. The address that became the Marshall Plan. Roughly twelve minutes, delivered outdoors in Harvard Yard. It is notable for how little of it is advice to graduates. The Harvard Gazette archive holds the text, and State Department histories quote the speech. Read it for how a policy argument is made inside a ceremonial form.
John F. Kennedy, American University, June 10, 1963. A commencement address that announced a shift in nuclear policy toward the Limited Test Ban Treaty. The American University archive holds the text and audio. Read it for how a ceremony carries a policy announcement without losing the audience.
Steve Jobs, Stanford University, June 12, 2005. The most-quoted commencement address of the internet era. It is one of the few where the recording is the primary document. Stanford posts both video and transcript. The three-stories structure is a useful case study for rhetorical devices, because the form does work the prose alone does not. Read it for how a personal story earns a general claim.
Barbara Jordan, Harvard University, June 16, 1977. A commencement address by a sitting member of Congress. She spoke at a ceremony where she received an honorary degree. The Harvard commencement archive holds the text. The address is a counterweight to the advice genre: Jordan talks about the obligations of citizenship, not careers. Read it for how a public official addresses graduates without career tips.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Harvard University, May 26, 2011. Delivered while she was president of Liberia. The address deals with the responsibilities of educated people toward countries not their own. The Harvard Gazette carries both text and video. Read it for how a head of state frames duty across borders.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Wellesley College, May 29, 2015. A commencement address that refuses the advice formula. Wellesley posts the transcript and video. Read it alongside the criticism it drew, which is part of the record. Read it for how a speaker can reject the genre's expectations and still hold a ceremony.
David Foster Wallace, Kenyon College, May 21, 2005. It is often circulated as "This Is Water." That is the title of the posthumous book, not the speech. The Kenyon Collegian published a contemporaneous account. The widely shared text is a reconstruction, and the distinction matters for anyone citing it. Read it for how a speech survives in a form its author did not publish.
Kurt Vonnegut, Fredonia State University, Fredonia, New York, May 1978. A short address, sometimes misdated to other years and other schools. The Fredonia archives record the ceremony date and venue. It is a good example of a speech that circulates more widely than the ceremony that produced it. Read it for how a short talk can outlive its occasion.
Toni Morrison, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, 2004. Morrison's address is often quoted from a transcript that has been lightly edited. Wellesley's archive records the ceremony date and is the place to check the wording before quoting. Read it for how a novelist handles the ceremonial slot.
John Roberts, Cardigan Mountain School, June 3, 2017. A middle-school commencement, which is why it is on this list. It is short, it was recorded, and it is a reminder that the form is not confined to universities. Read it for how a short address to younger graduates works.
The misattribution problem
Commencement addresses attract a specific kind of error. Texts circulate as famous speeches that were never delivered at any ceremony.
The best-known case is the "wear sunscreen" text, which was published as a newspaper column in 1997 and later attached to Kurt Vonnegut and to several other speakers. Vonnegut's own denial is on the record. The Chicago Tribune column by Mary Schmich is the origin.
The form invites this because everyone knows what a graduation address sounds like. Anything that sounds like one gets assumed to have been one.
So the first question about any entry is not whether it was good. It is whether it happened. Look for the institution's own record of the ceremony, a recording, or same-week local press. A text with no ceremony behind it is not a commencement speech, however widely it has been shared as one.
Why the most shared lines are the least reliable
The prepared text is not the delivered text. Speakers cut in the field, respond to the weather, lose a page. A line in the posted text may never have been spoken; a line that was spoken may not be in it.
Graduation lines are advice, and advice is portable. A sentence about how to live detaches from the ceremony, the speaker and the year, and reattaches to whoever is currently admired.
Institutions edit for publication. Local references, jokes about the president, a passage that misfired: these come out of the version that goes online, and the online version is the one everybody quotes.
For reuse, the words of a delivered address belong to whoever wrote them, and the recording to whoever made it. Shortness settles nothing.
Quoting a passage in commentary raises a fair use question. The Copyright Office calls it a case-by-case analysis on its fair use page, not a word count. The public domain speeches page covers status more generally. For anything you intend to publish, the U.S. Copyright Office is the authority and a qualified rights lawyer is the person to ask.
Reading a list you did not make
When you read a list someone else compiled, the questions below sort the ones that checked the record from the ones that copied a quote.
| Ask | What it reveals |
|---|---|
| Does the list name the ceremony date and venue? | Whether the compiler checked the record or only the posted text. |
| Is there a recording? | Whether the delivered speech can be compared with the posted text. |
| Does the list separate advice from policy? | Whether it treats all addresses as the same genre. |
| Are the sources institutional or press? | Whether the attribution is documented or repeated. |
| Does the list say what was cut? | Whether the posted text is the prepared text. |
| Is the speaker famous or is the speech? | Whether the list measures the speech or the name. |
Checklist for reading a list
- Does every entry link to ceremony record?
- Did compiler watch recordings or read texts?
- Any student or faculty speakers?
- Mostly one country's universities?
- Any entry for bad conditions?
- Distinguishes prepared from delivered text?
Building a list that means something
Organize by the constraint the speaker faced, and identify entries by ceremony rather than by line.
- Outdoor, poor amplification, large crowd. Speeches that survived the worst conditions in the genre.
- A short slot, strictly enforced. Where the running order allowed minutes, not a quarter of an hour.
- A student speaker. No fame to lean on, speaking to peers.
- An institution in difficulty. After a loss, a scandal, or a closure, where the usual formulas would have been offensive.
- A speaker with no connection to the place. The pure guest, who has to earn standing in the first minute.
- A speaker who refused the advice formula. Addresses that talked about something other than the audience's careers.
For each entry: institution, year, whether a recording exists, whether the posted text matches it, and what the conditions were. Then list the ones you could only read, and say so.
The speech analysis method covers how to compare entries within a group from recordings. The commencement speeches pillar describes the two channels the form is written for. For a neighboring ceremonial form with the same fixed slot and captive audience, see award speeches.
Common questions
How do I check whether a famous commencement speech was really delivered?
Find the institution's record of that year's ceremony, then a recording or same-week local press. If none of those mention the speaker, the text has a different origin, whatever the sharing says. The commencement speech article lists many documented ceremonies as a starting point.
Are student speeches worth listing?
They are the purest test of the form, given without fame under the same conditions. Their absence from most lists says more about the lists than about the speeches.
Why do so few lists mention weather or length?
Because the compilers read the texts. Anyone who has watched a recording of an address delivered in rain to a crowd seated for two hours would rank differently.
