Public Speaking NOW

Archive for the ‘Public Speaking’ Category

Nobody is spared from speaking in public. Whether we like it or not, there will come a time when we have to speak in front of people. It could be in front of the classmates, officemates or people whom we do not know.

So when are asked to speak in a public engagement, here are a few tips to have better public speaking skills:

• Get as much information that you can about your topic. You are lucky if you are already familiar with the topic but if you are not, there are always sources where you can get information from.
• Practice your speech.
• It is always best to arrive earlier when your audience is just starting to come in. This is so you can be familiar with the audience. You can talk to them and be at ease with your audience. By doing so, you might be able to remove your stage fright because you already know your audience. Another reason why it is best to arrive early is because you will be able to practice your speech before anybody is there. You will be able to familiarize yourself with the place.
• Last but not the least, you should relax. Relax and have fun. This is an experience that you will remember forever and you want that memory to be a pleasant one. Besides, this experience will gain you better public speaking skills.

Public speaking is something we need to master at some stage in our lives. At one time or another we will be required to speak in front of people.

It could be kids. It could also be adults and sometimes it could be both. All you got to do is prepare. It is a given that preparation is the key to giving a great speech. Familiarize yourself with your topic at all angles so when questions pop out, you have an idea or an opinion on it.

We have all been afflicted with stage fright. At times we even get those uncontrollable shivers and trembles. Even the more experienced speakers get them. All you got to do is hold on to something such as your index cards if you have them or a pencil or a pen. Aside from controlling the shakes and preventing more from coming, it also helps in keeping you focused on your speech.

If you are not really good with words, it is best to read to yourself until you get the hang of how words should be pronounced. Reading the newspaper out loud helps, widening your vocabulary can help and you should at least have one new word that you use often per day. When your vocabulary widens, you can make great speeches. Not all of us can hire people to make speeches for us, thus having a wide vocabulary helps because you can make a great speech which helps you have better public speaking skills.

You can’t please all the people all the time, the saying warns, and it’s no less so in the public speaking arena. If your worst fear about public speaking is dealing with a difficult audience or audience member, then you might as well face it now, because it’s extremely likely to happen sooner or later.

This is a key step in handling fear of public speaking.

Fortunately, you don’t have to let the fear of dealing with a difficult audience stop you. And you certainly don’t have to let a disruptive and otherwise disrespectful audience member stop you. With the following methods and reminders, you can take charge of your speech from the beginning and maintain control and authority over your presentation through to the finish by handling fear of public speaking.

The first thing to remember is that you are not the only one disturbed by a disruptive presence in the audience. The audience is disturbed too. The vast majority of people you speak to sincerely want to hear what you have to say. Even if they’re present not completely of their own volition (as in a mandatory meeting for school or work), they’ve still made the tacit agreement in being there to at least allow you the courtesy and common decency of listening to and consider what you have to say.

A disruptive presence, therefore, is going to agitate them as much as it does you. That implicit sense of camaraderie with your audience should help you greatly in facing the disruptive presence.

If one or more people in an audience start to heckle you, interrupt you, or in any other way disrupt your speech, there are a number of practical measures you can take to deal with the situation, most notably the following:

* Begin your speech by asking people to raise their hand if they have a comment or question or inform them that ample opportunity will be designated at the end of the speech for same. If someone interrupts anyway, calmly remind them of your opening request.

* If someone gets confrontational or antagonistic with your point of view, you can either try and refute their arguments yourself, or – even better – you can open it up to the audience for debate. Typically, members of the audience will speak up to defend your point for you. Whether you convince everyone in the room of your position or not, your role as public speaker is simply to present your ideas clearly and coherently. Don’t let yourself be drawn into an argument with any one member of the audience and risk turning off the rest of the group as a result.

* If asked a question or presented with an unfamiliar argument to which you have no ready reply, humbly admit that you don’t know the answer to the question or haven’t fully considered the point presented enough to give an informed reply. If appropriate, promise to look into it and get back to the individual (or the entire group) at a later date. The audience will appreciate the humility and honesty, and will be more likely to trust the information that you do present knowing that you avoid pretending to know things that you don’t.

* Request the individual(s) come see you after the speech is done to discuss the issue further, as right now you have a lot of material to discuss and not enough time to adequately devote to their concerns in this forum.

* If appropriate, ask them to leave.

When dealing with a difficult audience, remember that the audience has a duty to you and each other every bit as much as you, the public speaker, has to them. Your responsibility only extends so far, and you cannot control another person’s behavior. People can be disruptive during speeches. Don’t take it as an indication of your failure as a presenter. Simply take it in stride, and forge ahead, armed with the suggestions in this article, confidence in your material, and belief in yourself.

It is important for every businessman and manager to learn how to communicate their thoughts and ideas effectively.

You need to learn how to make a presentation using a variety of tools. One of the essential skills that a leader should have is presentation skills. Having great presentation skills will get you accounts, find you a great job and it might even help you land that promotion.

There are many reasons why people hesitate when it comes to making a presentation. Two of these reasons are low self-esteem and previous bad experiences or lack of. To help you develop the presentation skills that you have always wanted to have, remember that your audience is not out there to judge you but to listen to what you have to say.

Actually, there are three basic things that you need to know and they are essential to developing the presentation skills that you have always wanted to have: learning how to use visual aids, rehearsing the presentation itself and believing in yourself that you can do it. It is also important that you should learn how to manage your fear. Fear can cripple anybody but the trick is not to let it rattle you and cause you to panic. Actually, if you think about it, fear can be used in a good way. You can channel that energy to make you concentrate. Just take a deep breath before you start, collect yourself and make your presentation.

Supposedly it’s the number one fear most people have - speaking in public. More than heights, spiders, or failure, we fear getting up in front of our fellow human being and giving a talk on some subject or other. Why does that terrify us so?

In this article we will show how beating your fear of public speaking is easily achievable.

For whatever reason, getting up in front of a group of other people, dealing with a difficult audience and presenting a talk on some subject or other stirs up great feelings of panic and anxiety in a great number of people. This article will examine that fear, why it appears and the way of beating your fear of public speaking.

What are people so afraid of? Common answers to that question include the following:

* freezing or “choking” – not being able to speak; * forgetting what you are supposed to be saying/what comes next; * being heckled or insulted and while dealing with a difficult audience; * people talking over you, not paying attention to you; * the presence of people in the audience who know more about the subject you’re speaking about than you do; * being asked a question you don’t know the answer to; * giving wrong information; * boring people, putting people to sleep, causing people to get up and walk out; * being laughed at, appearing foolish, being humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed; * people noticing how nervous you are; * looking fat (or too skinny or bald or pale or ugly – take your pick); * sweating, fainting, shaking, twitching uncontrollably; * ruining your relationship with the host of your speech by doing such a horrible job and giving such an awful performance; * being compared with other speakers better, more entertaining and engaging, and more knowledgeable than you; * not being liked by the audience.

Almost all the fears people have of public speaking amount to the same essential fear – being judged. It all boils down to that. We don’t like to be judged and certainly don’t like our harsh judgments of ourselves. Public speaking seems to provide abundant opportunities for judgment, and so we tend to avoid it like the plague instead of focusing on constructive ways of beating your fear of public speaking.

Fear at its core is a survival mechanism. We need fear to keep us alive. In olden times, when our ancestors lived in the forests like savages, we needed fear in order to stay alive.  In urgent and life-threatening situations, the body produced hormones like adrenaline to spur us into some sort of immediate and decisive, life-saving action.

But a speech is not a life or death situation. Far from it. The unconscious reaction of the survival mechanism kicking into gear is uncalled for, it’s inappropriate and unnecessarily extreme for the given situation. So all we need to do is simply find ways in those situations to convince our body that we’re okay – this is the key step to beating your fear of public speaking. Easier said than done maybe. But completely doable nonetheless.

For most of us, speaking in public can be described as downright painful. It is not just the subject matter that a person is worried about as you can always do research on your assigned topic.

But it is the “speaking in front of a group” part that is the problem. However, a person needs to learn this skill no matter how painful it is because you can never go through life without speaking in front of a group of people. This is especially important if you want to be successful in your chosen career. Thus, in order to get rid of this fear it is important to attend a public speaking class. You will be able to learn how to do the required research on your given topic; how you should deliver your speech and the way you should interact with your audience. This is regardless on whether you have stage fright or not.

Just like any skill, public speaking is a skill that can be learned. The great thing about it is the more you practice, the more comfortable you are going to be. Just do not dwell on yourself and your nervousness. The more you think about that, the more you are making it harder on yourself. Think about your audience and what they would like to hear from you. Then, talk about it the best way you possibly can. Always make eye contact, smile and use a strong, clear voice. How you are going to do all these will be taught and practiced at a public speaking class.

It is a task faced by a student from elementary days to college days and even after. It can be used to convey a particular point of view or it can be used to explain a task. Whatever purpose writing an essay is for, it will still have the same format. Your reader will want to know what your essay is all about, how you have written it down and in what order your paper was written down.

If you have any difficulty writing an essay, you are not the only one. Writing is a skill that is acquired and it gets easier if you do it often. Besides it is a great way to stimulate critical thinking. What will help you is a framework that will guide you in writing an essay.

Here are a few tips to help you get started: Firstly, you need to have plenty of materials if you want to write an essay. You have to have something to write about. Secondly, it is important that you should write a sentence outline that contains the thesis statement. Do not forget that your main body should always support your thesis statement. Lastly, your conclusion should be able to mention all the major points of your paper. Once done, read it out loud to yourself to make sure that it sounds ok. Always double check your work for wrong grammar and misspelled words. By following these steps, writing an essay will not seem so hard.

To assist you in better public speaking, no matter what level you’re currently at, we’ve divided our suggestions into two categories: public speaking preparation, and ways to better present it.

Preparation

For better public speaking, the speach must be understood, and you start that process not once you’re up there at the podium in front of your audience, but in the public speaking preparation. Certain elements attended to long before the pivotal moment arrives can help ensure that your speech is received and understood by your audience.

For one, you want to be clear in your own mind about the message or purpose of your speech. Why are you giving it? What’s the underlying point? The clearer you are with this information, the clearer the speech will be, and the clearer, therefore, the audience will be with your message. During public speaking preparation, keep it simple. Stick to one keypoint, if possible (or no more than several, if not), and tailor your speech accordingly. Make sure the audience walks away from your finished speech with, if anything, your message in mind. To achieve that, design your speech to convey that information in as plainspoken, clear, and concise.

Having said that, you also want your speech to be as vivid and descriptive as possible. That means using anecdotes, humor, examples, quotes, visual aids, and any other methods you can derive to paint a complete picture of your message. Combining this tip with the one above is simply a matter of sticking to one, two, or three main ideas and then coming up with as many diverse means to clearly and concisely convey them.

Presentation

Now that you’ve crafted a compelling, informative, and comprehensible speech to deliver, it’s time to make sure your audience can receive your message. The first and most fundamental element of this is to make sure that you enunciate your words carefully. Remember that you are not speaking to one person directly in front of you, but several-to-many people spread out across a wide area, whether a conference room, an auditorium, or an outdoor arena. Be sure that your words are being understood and you’re more than halfway to having your message understood as well. In addition to enunciation, it’s equally imperative to project. For better public speaking, do not rely on a microphone to carry your words for you, or you’ll end up sounding like a meek, insecure, and unprepared presenter with amplification. There are several ways to practice and develop the ability to project, namely abdominal breathing, speaking to the back of the room, and speaking confidently.

Breathing and projection can be trained, but confidence must be cultivated from within. Nothing makes a speech more impactful than a confident delivery, and nothing makes a speech bomb more than a lack of confidence in the delivery. If you’ve spent all this time preparing, developed a clear, concise, simple, and vivid presentation of your speech, then there’s no reason not to be confident. Having confidence in your material can help greatly in overcoming insecurity in your ability to present – and is not to be undervalued or underestimated.

Lastly, relax. Yes, we know – easier said than done. But taking your time, speaking slowly, taking frequent pauses in-between passages, breathing deeply and evenly, and leaving your hands free will all contribute to putting your audience at ease, building rapport between you, and allowing for better public speaking so that your message is received and understood.

In almost any speech it’s not only appropriate to take questions, but it’s advisable. Taking questions ensures that your audience genuinely receives your messages, with no lingering misunderstandings or confusions and is a key technique when learning how to close a speech.

This article examines the various ways of taking questions from an audience.

However much time you’re given to deliver your speech, allow at least 5 minutes at the end (more, depending on the length and complexity of your speech) for taking questions from an audience. Plan it into the writing and preparing stages so that you’re not pressured on the spot to rush through all you have to say or cut yourself short in order to compensate for the questions that will inevitably arise regardless of whether you’ve planned and allowed for them or not.

It’s a good idea to let your audience know from the outset that you intend to leave plenty of time at the end of the speech to answer any questions they may have. This lets them know from the beginning that any and all their concerns will be given their due time and consideration at a some point in the presentation which in turn compels them to give you the same quality of respect and consideration you’re giving them. It also goes a long way to preventing interruptions of your speech from people eager to get something cleared up or off their chests.

When the time comes for taking questions, do not be alarmed if it takes a while for the first question to be asked. This is normal. Oftentimes when the focus of a presentation shifts from the speaker to the audience, it takes several minutes for the audience to adjust to being the focus of the attention. Invariably someone (or several someone’s) will have questions and may just be in the process of imminently overcoming their shyness in getting up and asking them. And invariably, after the first one or two people have taken the initiative to get the question-answer session going, more will join in much quicker succession.

Each time a question is asked, repeat that question back to the audience before answering it. This is because not everyone will be able to hear what the questioner is asking. You want to include everyone in the group in the exchange, not just the questioner. Chances are several other people in the audience will have the same question in mind. And even those who don’t have the same question still want to be engaged in the experience. In leaving them out of the communication entirely by speaking directly and solely with the questioner you run the risk of creating pockets of distraction, boredom, and inattention in your audience. In public speaking you want to create a cohesive and symbiotic sort of collective attention. Putting your attention on only one segment of the audience encourages the other segments to splinter off.

Repeating each question asked will also allow you to be sure you heard it right, and provide the questioner with the opportunity to correct you if it turns out you did not understand the question.

In answering the question, see if you can find a way to tie the question back into the content of your speech. Often this will occur naturally, as many questions will be directly related to the material you just presented. But in the occasional instances where it’s not, do your best to find a way to make that question relevant to the essential message and purpose of your speech.

If you don’t know the answer to the question, don’t pretend you do. Don’t make up an answer so as not to look stupid. You do yourself and your audience a great disservice this way, and should you get found out you lose major credibility for any future speeches.

It’s far better to simply and humbly admit you don’t know the answer and ask if anyone else in the audience does. If so, allow them to answer and, in so doing, you facilitate a fantastic, organic exchange of information. If not, consider offering to research an answer to that question and get back to them somehow in the near future.

Lastly, if someone uses a question as an opportunity to be adversarial, take the higher ground. This is not the time to get into a heated argument or debate. Allow the person a reasonable amount of time to pose their question (provided it really is a question), then reclaim the floor and move forward accordingly. You can always acknowledge a disagreement of ideas and promise to meet up with the antagonistic individual afterwards for further discussion if they (and you) so wish. But don’t let a disruptive force break the flow of your speech in the guise of taking questions from an audience.

In this article we will describe 4 key effective public speaking tips. This will help those who are examining fear of public speaking by putting the fear in context.

Our four effective public speaking tips are listed below:

Remember that audiences have nerves too:

An interesting phenomenon about public speaking is that it’s not only the speaker who gets nervous. For whatever reason, it’s a fact of human nature that members of an audience get nervous too. Therefore, it is not only your job to calm yourself enough to give a good speech, to put the audience at ease as well, so they can enjoy listening to it. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as the case may be) the two are tied together. The first step to getting your audience to relax is to relax yourself. By the same token, however, the easiest way to make your audience nervous is to appear nervous yourself. In large part, your audience will emulate your own level of comfort and ease up there in front of them. So do your best, do whatever you have to do, to present yourself as relaxed, comfortable, and at ease as you possibly can.

Use visual aids:

People like to use their eyes. We like to look at things while we’re listening. That’s why TV is more popular than radio. And it’s why more people attend public lectures than purchase audio recordings of same. To capitalize on this tendency, incorporate visual elements into your speech. Be they slides, videos, charts, models, or props, find tangible, physical items that relate directly to what you’re talking about, support and back up your points, and can be seen clearly from where you’ll be giving your speech. When using visual aids, keep it simple. But by the same token, don’t detract from your actual speech with something too complex, involved, or technical. It’s still a speech you’re giving, and it’s still you that is and should be the central focus of attention throughout.

Hand out handouts:

Another form of visual aid that augments any speech is handouts, photocopied documents illustrating or summarizing one or more of the key points of your speech. Putting something tangible in the audience’s hands to take with them when they leave your speech is a way to help them take the message and purpose of your speech with them wherever they go next. But beyond that, as a reminder of one or more of the most salient points relayed, handouts also make the audience feel like they’ve just been given a free gift, a bonus for having come and sat through your speech. As such, it endears them to you even more and makes them that much more likely to recall what you’ve just told them.

Have fun:

Just because it’s humanity’s number 1 fear (allegedly) it doesn’t mean public speaking can’t also be fun. It should be fun. Communicating to other people something you’re knowledgeable and passionate about is fun, and can be enormously satisfying and gratifying. Don’t view public speaking as a chore, a responsibility, or something to “get through”. Think of it as an opportunity – to educate and inform, to persuade, to relate, to connect.

I trust you found these effective public speaking tips useful.