Public Communication Center

“Preparing for a speech is one of the best ways to ensure you give an effective presentation.”

This statement is generally one of the biggest tips that is given in any classroom, website, or by a professional speaker. There are a large quantity of these basic tips out there so I thought I would give a few that are often overlooked and, in some cases, not even thought of.

1. Practice with distraction

We hear time and again that practice makes perfect, and in most cases this is true. Most of us, when practicing a speech, will do so in a quiet setting where we can concentrate on it until we have everything committed to memory. As we all know, inevitably while giving this speech (the one we have rehearsed in a nice peaceful setting), crashes, bangs, coughs, sneezes, and other distractions will occur, interrupting our tempo. Once you know the content and are comfortable with it, add a little distraction to test how well you are prepared. Turn on a television or rehearse with the radio on, anything that adds a little more challenge.

2. Exercise before you give your speech

Stress and anxiety can often lead to disaster while presenting your speech. If you google stress relief tips before a speech, you will get bombarded with hundreds of sites offering all kinds of different techniques on how to reduce these feelings, but honestly, it is almost impossible to feel stress and anxiety after a good workout. If you have time, do some exercises, especially the closer you get to speech day. You may also find that exercise time is also a good time to practice.

3. Ask for feedback

Yes, this one may be a bit traditional, but it does deserve to be repeated. If we are to improve anything we do in life we must seek that much hated constructive criticism. Public speaking is a skill that we can always improve on, and not just those who are new to giving speeches, even the professionals turn to others for critiques of their presentations. When you have completed a speech, ask those around you to give honest opinions of how your presentation went, and do not fear the criticism, it will only make you a stronger speaker.

4. Focus more on the voice instead of the message

The mistake that many public speakers make is that they tend to focus more on crafting the right message, creating “new” or “fresh” content to present to the audience. Problem is that this “new”, “fresh” content is anything but, the fact is that there is very little new advice that one person can give another. Generally speaking, the message has already been out there, how we personalize the message is what will make it resonate with the audience. This is the time to focus on you, what makes you unique, share experiences and use that insight to let the message come to life. Remember it’s not what we say, but how we say it.

5. Look at it from the Audience’s perspective

Tip #4 says to focus on you, relaying insight to the message, not to make the speech about you. Good public speakers do not ask themselves “how does this make ME sound” or “how will this make ME look” but instead try to place themselves in the mind of the audience, to those they will be speaking to.  When preparing a speech think about the people you will be addressing, determine what it is they might want to hear. Using this approach will not only make your speech more relevant to them but will also give you a feeling of confidence that you are presenting a message the audience wants to hear.

I hope these tips help you in your preparations for any public speaking assignment you have and look for more tips coming in the near future.

After Valerie’s last blog post about how to create a powerful conclusion, I thought, “What about the introduction??”

One of the most challenging parts of an effective speech is the introduction. Most of the time, we forget that the audience needs to be captured before we start presenting our content. We forget that, “Hi, my name is Erin and today I will be talking to you about…” does NOT capture the attention of your audience. Why do we forget this? Because it’s easier to start out with “Hi, my name is…” than finding an appropriate attention grabber!

The best piece of  advice I have gotten about this specific topic is, “We have been in class with you the entire semester… we’ve worked together… we know your name!!” Most of the time in your COMM 131 classes, you all know one another by the time you get up to give a speech. Or even if you are in an upper-level class, you know most of the people from having classes with them before. Surprise! The attention grabber at the beginning of your speech does not mean telling the audience something they already know! By starting with “Hi, my name is” you already lose the attention of your audience before you start.

So, you’re probably asking, “Okay, so how do I start my speech?” There are a ton of different ways! The most effective ways to catch your audience’s attention is through a startling statistic, a personal anecdote that leads the listener to the point you are making, a rhetorical question that gets the audience really thinking, a powerful quote, the use of humor or sarcasm (only use this if you know you will get a reaction from your audience), a progression of pictures and explanation of their story or situation, and so much more! This way, you will not only grab your audience’s attention, but you’ll make them feel like what you are going to say is important AND powerful. Try it. You’d be surprised at the reaction your peers and professor have to an introduction like this!

Check out the article: “7 Memorable Ways To Open a Speech Presentation” under our Helpful Articles and Resources for more effective attention grabbers.

Check out our Quick Tip sheet about Introductions as well for some more help on introductions.

Are you really struggling with your introduction, especially coming up with an attention grabber? Make an appointment with the PCC and we can help you craft one!!

On speech day there is always at least one speech that goes like this. A student will have been talking for several minutes. The speech begins to wind down and the student just abruptly says, “uh, yeah. That’s it. Thank you.” and stands there awkwardly while the class claps. That student has probably lost all of the points from their conclusion. Let me fill you in on a few ways to earn back those conclusion points. There are three ways that Lyn Roseaman recommends concluding a speech.

First, you can create an impact with your conclusion. Be sure to state your conclusion clearly and use vocal variety to emphasize what was really important in your speech. By restating the purpose and summarizing the main ideas, you are making sure your audience really remembers that key information. Always remember, the final sentence of your speech is the last thing your audience will hear. Make it memorable by using a powerful quote or a strong statement that encapsulates what your speech was all about.

Second, you can achieve memorability with your conclusion. There are many ways to make your speech memorable. Repetition or parallelism of a certain phrase can make your audience remember every time you used that rhythm before. For more of a challenge, work humor or a story into your conclusion to leave your audience thinking about your deeper meaning. My personal favorite is bringing the speech full circle by referencing your attention grabber from the introduction. By referencing the introduction you are reminding the audience of how far the speech has come since then. You can also bring the speech full circle through the use of a prop or graphic. Show the same image at the end as you did the beginning to reinforce your message.

Lastly, you can build engagement and commitment. This tactic is suited best for a persuasive speech where you need to call your audience to action. The key is to make a connection between your audience and the action you want them to take. Why should the listener donate money to the charity you are promoting? You can use the words of a celebrity or historic figure to motivate them. For example, “Be like Abraham Lincoln who said ‘All I have learned, I have learned from books’ and help save the libraries.”

Even after reading all of this, you may think there still isn’t a conclusion that works for you. The good news is, this list isn’t exhaustive! If you find that none of these tips work for you, make an appointment with one of our mentors, so we can help you find the conclusion that works for you specifically.

The link to the article: How To End Your Speech With Impact

For more information on conclusions, check out Conclusion QuickTips!

 

 

 

In Valerie’s last blog post, “Our Mentors Advocating for The PCC at the Welcome Back Event!”, she spoke about the importance of advocacy across the Communication Studies Department, as well as within the PCC. Within our current political climate, advocacy has become a focus for many non-profits, community groups, and even individuals. Whether you choose to follow that inner advocate that we all have inside of us, or not, you are constantly advocating. How? By giving speeches.

Here at the PCC, we don’t just “help” students to perfect their speeches, rather we empower them with purpose. By giving your speech purpose, you can create change. You’ll find you become more excited about your speech by implementing some aspect of change, advocacy, importance, and/or substance to your speech.

I was once in a mentoring session, where my mentee showed me her introduction speech to the class. While her speech was great, in terms of direction, but she lacked purpose. As she showed me her PowerPoint and delivered her speech, I could tell she wasn’t excited. The one thing I did realize was that she loved animals, especially her own. After asking her a bunch of questions about herself, she mentioned that she had done a lot of volunteering for animals. A lightbulb went off. She realized that if she connected her volunteer work experience to her own animals, her speech would have purpose! We ended by talking about how she thought it was important that people volunteer, especially in the animal world. Here, what do we see? Advocacy!! She became enormously more excited just by adding that small purpose and advocacy to her speech. She later told me how much better she did on that speech than with the previous one! The power of advocating for something we believe in, we want to fight for, and what follows our personal values is so tremendous. Just by adding a little more personal purpose to your speech, you will amplify your love for public speaking.

Think you need help finding your inner voice and inner advocate? Make an appointment with one of our peer mentors to help you search for that purpose that will make your speech that much better! 

We always think that our 131 speech class is a one and done thing. It’ll never actually help us in our careers, right? What is the point of taking this class, I’m never going to actually have to give a speech like this except for in this class!! This mentoring that I’m doing is really just a resume builder, it won’t actually be something I can do in real life!

This summer… those thoughts were proven wrong.

I stumbled across a text after a class last semester from an elementary school friend that I hadn’t talked to in years. She said, “Hey, Erin! Text me when you can I have an important thing to ask you.” Never did I think that reconnecting with an old friend would lead me to an internship with a sales consulting and talent management firm, Neuberger and Company.

Going into this internship, I realized that the biggest reason why I got hired was because I had experience in giving speeches. I had clear speech experience, along with mentoring experience. And what is the one thing that they do at Neuberger? Train and coach. A technical and fancy way of saying: teaching and giving speeches. Neuberger focuses on sales training and coaching, which I got to observe every Tuesday morning in their Foundations and Mastery training programs. The consultant always created an outline beforehand and would have to speak and teach for 4 hours. This is what their life is like. Who thought that you could actually have a job where all you do is professionally teach business owners how to grow their business?

My love for education and speech immediately formed together and I realized how special this place was. I learned the importance of being a good communicator, of being able to produce and write an effective outline, of designing a visually pleasing PowerPoint, of having practice and a process around speech making and giving, of the importance of asking for help and getting criticism from your peers/colleagues to improve yourself and your speech, of the realities of speech anxiety and the physical and mental wear and tear it can have on a person, and so much more. While Neuberger means so much more to me than speech giving and making, I quickly realized how truly important it is to learn how to give a good speech and be prepared. We tend to think that you don’t have to know how to make and give a speech in order to be successful in your career, but that is completely untrue, specifically for people looking to work in sales, business management, consulting, business development, amongst a multitude of other things. Most everyone will encounter a sales situation at one point in their life, which means they must be able to effectively and precisely present and close that sale and deal. And what does that involve? Oh, right… giving a speech!

My main purpose here is to tell from a firsthand experience that taking that 131 speech class seriously will do nothing but progress you forward, give you more serious experience, and turn you into a highly desirable candidate. And asking for help in that process will help you even more! Think of the mentors at the Public Communication Center as your colleagues in a work setting– we are here to listen, give advice, and make you the best you can possibly be. Being able to attend networking events, listen to consultants give training and coaching tips, and talk to business owners is something that has expanded the way I think about giving presentations and speeches. That can literally be my career!  Sometimes what you learn in class may actually be important one day… who would’ve thought!

Me at the Baltimore Business Journal’s Biz Mix networking event, where I got to talk to multiple business owners and sales people about Neuberger & Company!

If you want to learn more about my experience at Neuberger, need speech help, or want to talk about the importance of effective communication and speech organization and delivery, make an appointment with me at https://towson.mywconline.com/ or check out ways to make an appointment at the PCC under the Contact Us tab! 

One of the most popular methods of organizing a persuasive speech is to use Monroe’s Motivates Sequence. This method breaks down every part of a persuasive speech into smaller parts that combine to move an audience to immediate action. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence is only used in persuasive scenarios that need immediate action. Below is an infographic that details the steps in this method. If this is your first time using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence, it may be difficult to synthesize all of these ideas together. Come visit the PCC and our mentors can help you organize your persuasive speech Monroe style!

Starting a persuasive speech can be daunting. There are 5  different organization patterns that persuasive speeches generally follow. Our mentors have condensed the need-to-know information about those 5 organizational patterns. If you have any questions or want help choosing the right organization pattern for your speech, come visit the PCC!

The conclusion wraps up the speech, like putting a bow on the top of a present. The conclusion is often overlooked by the speaker. Once the speaker gets to the end of the speech they often just want to rush to get out of the spotlight–but wait! Your professors are also grading for a conclusion. It only has to be a few sentences, so don’t over look the conclusion!