2. Expand your Brief - For your next appearance, you can expand your presentation by talking about a subject you are interested and knowledgeable about. Seek to convince the audience that the subject is interesting. Your enthusiasm for the subject will be contagious and will win the audience over. The conclusion of your talk should answer the question "so what?" The audience needs to know why they should be interested.
3. Practice at Every Opportunity - The acquiring of any skill requires practice. All top athletes were once novices. It was through frequent practice that they moved from beginner to expert. To become an excellent public speaker also requires practice. But where can you practice? With a little initiative you can find meetings locally to yourself that would make ideal "practice fields" such as local clubs.
4. Invite feedback - On the way to any goal there is a need for feedback to ensure you are on course. One of the best ways to know where you can improve your performance is invite feedback. To be most effective it should be given and received positively. It is important to invite this feedback from someone who is knowledgeable but also supportive. Alternatively you can deliver your speech to your friends and family and ask for their comments.
5. Preparing What You Are Going to Say - Before you prepare your speech ask "why was I invited to speak?" Your speech should answer this question. And make sure you are knowledgeable in answering that question either through experience or research When you are taking your first steps in public speaking you may want to write out your speech word for word. If you do this, it is important that you edit the speech to change it from written English to conversational English. If you memorise the speech make sure it flows and does not sound stilted. However, this is not the best approach. It would be better to prepare an outline for use in your practice and the actual presentation. Like a live theatre importance it is important you rehearse and rehearse. The better prepared you are the more confident you will be.
These 5 steps will build your confidence and you will overcome the normal human anxiety that we all face when delivering a speech. Victory will be yours.
The process of developing the content of your speech is fundamentally important to effective public speaking. Meaningful content is critical to writing a great speech and without it the presenting skills of voice, language, body language and gestures are of little use to the listeners or the speaker.
The process of developing the content of your speech can be frustrating and use up a vast amount of time. But you can use a 4 step process to simplify and streamline the development of content for your speech.
1. Decide on the Purpose
The purpose of the speech must justify the time and energy put into it by you as speaker and by the audience listening to it. The speech purpose needs to answer the question "What will this presentation do for my audience? The considerations to keep in mind when deciding on the purpose are;-
(i) How will the presentation benefit the audience? (ii) Is it appropriate for the audience?
(iii) Is the speech being given for entertainment or is a specific action wanted from the audience
(iv) The circumstances and situation of the speech, e.g. at a charity fund raising event your talk will be delivered to raise money
2. Developing the Theme
Your theme should be stated in a clear, brief and meaningful statement. The theme chosen must be able to be developed to accomplish the purpose. To develop the theme you will need to keep in mind a clear picture of the audience and in your judgement
(i) Has the greatest influence on your audience
(ii) It can be developed successfully for your audience
(iii) It supports the purpose
(iv) The audience characteristics such as age, number, experience, attitude etc
3. Selecting the Style of The Presentation
The style(s) chosen to deliver your speech must support the purpose of the speech and it will determine the type of information you need to gather in the research step.
There are 2 criteria you can use to select the style of your speech:
(i) The purpose for speaking
(ii) Audience's attitude and understanding
The 5 styles that can be used in delivering your speech are:
(i) Humor - the principal idea is to entertain the audience
(ii) Narrative - used to tell a story of people, places and events
(iii) Exposition - used to describe, explain or demonstrate an idea
(iv) Argument - presentation of facts and other evidence to support your ideas
(v) Motivation - uses emotional appeals to the audience to take a certain action
Humor and narration are more likely to be utilised when the audience is to be entertained. Argument and motivation are usually used when a specific action is wanted from the audience.
4. Research
The goal of research is to uncover information to support and justify the theme and ideas of the speech. The first step in research is to develop a rough outline of your speech so that the research is properly focussed.
The primary source of information should be your own experiences. Once you have exhausted your experience, there are many other sources of information that can be utilised. The other sources include books, films, TV, interviewing other people and of course the internet. When using these sources it is important to use your judgement as to the validity of the information.
You will now have the content necessary to outline, organize and write and deliver your speech . Mastery of the process of developing the content will enable you to write and deliver a speech that is of benefit to the audience. With the knowledge that your content is valuable to your listeners your confidence will increase and you will enjoy the experience of public speaking more.
Edward Hope has sinced written about articles on various topics from Public Speaking, Public Speaking and Guide Guitar. Edward Hope is editor and publisher of the recently released ebook "The Art of Great Conversation." To claim your free preview visit