Photo: TEDx VIT
Thy Do
Public speaking is no easy feat. Even the most confident and experienced speakers will struggle with anxiety before speaking publicly in front of a crowd. This is a natural and human response, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to combat this.
I like to think of public speaking as giving a performance. It’s so much more than just standing in front of a group of people and delivering a prewritten speech on a teleprompter or manuscript. There’s a level of preparation that needs to be done to give a convincing and moving speech. So, here are some tips to help elevate your public speaking from simply giving a speech to performing one.
1. Writing for the ear: Before thinking about standing up and giving a speech, you must first know what you want to say. Once you’ve come up with a general outline that details the different points you want to bring up, manuscript the speech to get a better idea for how you will actually give your speech. It is in this phase that writing for the ear is most important. What is writing for the ear? Well, in academic writing (e.g., essays or reports), we tend to write very formally, using long, complex sentences, big words, and even different outlining techniques when it comes to organizing points. Speech writing is different from this.
If you were to stand up and read an essay out loud, it wouldn’t sound like a speech. It would sound like you were reading an essay out loud. And this is simply because we don’t talk the way we do in essays in real life. Writing for the ear prepares a speech that can be listened to, rather than read. It helps speeches to sound more conversational in the sense that it can be easily picked up and understood by a general audience.
The first way you can start implementing writing for the ear is by simply reading your speech aloud as you write it. What this does is help you catch any wording or phrasing that may sound unnatural to the ear as you write. Alternatively, you can record yourself reading your speech aloud and listening back to it. This is similar in the sense that you would hear yourself speaking and can get an idea of which places in the speech may need more improvement. Another way to write for the ear is to simply say what you want to say out loud first, before even writing anything down. This way, you already know how you would say it if you were talking out loud, and in a way, it’s already written for the ear.
2. Stepping into character: The first thing to know when preparing to give a speech is what hat you need to put on as a speaker. Essentially, what character do you need to play in order to better convey your point or to appeal to your audience? The best way to know what “character” or “hat to wear” is to know what you as a speaker are trying to tell your audience. Are you giving a heartfelt eulogy or a political rally speech? Both of those scenarios create emotional environments.
At a eulogy, you would tend to speak softer, slower, really showing your pain and remorse for the lost. You would bring in elements of empathy and compassion for the audience who is most likely grieving as well. You want to relate to them and let your audience know that you understand them and their feelings and what they’re going through. Now, this environment would be far different from giving a speech at a political rally. In that case, the emotions would be high, the energy would be soaring, and it would get loud. Giving a speech in that scenario would warrant powerful messages, strong words, and bringing the masses together. It’s a far different approach than that of a eulogy.
It’s all about understanding the situation and knowing which character to step into. Now, don’t get this confused with faking emotion, it’s simply expressing the emotions that you already feel. Hence the performance aspect of speech. Which version of yourself will you bring to the performance?
3. Using Emotion: Now that we’ve talked about writing a speech and prepping for a speech, let’s get into the actual performance of a speech. The main difference between giving a speech and performing one is the emotion conveyed by the speaker. Which are you more likely to engage and believe? A speaker who speaks at one pace, is monotone, and doesn’t show a lick of emotion, or a speaker who shows changes in emotion throughout their speech and engages with the audience’s emotions as well? I would probably say the latter and I think most people would agree.
Not only is a performed speech typically more convincing to an audience, it’s also more engaging and interesting to listen to and watch. Emotions naturally create fluctuations in the way we speak. It affects the tone, volume, intensity, and even the speed with which we speak. All of these elements are so important to giving a convincing speech performance. Don’t be afraid to let emotion come through. Don’t be afraid to be dramatic.
We’ve gone through three methods for elevating your public speaking skills to a performance-level quality. We started with the writing and drafting phase of speech, which highlights writing for the ear and making your arguments sound convincing yet easily understandable and digestible for your audience. We then moved towards the prepping and practicing phase before you even give your speech, which addresses knowing which “character” to step into and understanding the mood and environment for your speech. The last method we discussed has to do with the performance aspect of speech, which focuses on using emotions to create a more convincing and engaging speech.
I hope that you can implement some of these strategies into your speech writing and delivery to help elevate your public speaking skills. And remember, a speech is more than just standing in front of a crowd and reading off a manuscript, it’s a performance! You’re front and center, don’t be afraid to take the spotlight.