Public Speech Updates Blog

Perhaps this homely metaphor will suggest how to begin the practise of consecutive thinking, by which we mean _welding a number of separate thought-links into a chain that will hold_. Take one link at a time, see that each naturally belongs with the ones you link to it, and remember that a single missing link means _no chain_.

Thinking is the most fascinating and exhilarating of all mental exercises. Once realize that your opinion on a subject does not represent the choice you have made between what Dr. Cerebrum has written and Professor Cerebellum has said, but is the result of your own earnestly-applied brain-energy, and you will gain a confidence in your ability to speak on that subject that nothing will be able to shake. Your thought will have given you both power and reserve power.

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Joint Methods of Delivery Blog

A modification of the second method has been adopted by many great speakers, particularly lecturers who are compelled to speak on a wide variety of subjects day after day; such speakers often commit their addresses to memory but keep their manuscripts in flexible book form before them, turning several pages at a time. They feel safer for having a sheet-anchor to windward--but it is an anchor, nevertheless, and hinders rapid, free sailing, though it drag never so lightly.

Other speakers throw out a still lighter anchor by keeping before them a rather full outline of their written and committed speech.

Daily Delivery Bulletin

Regardless of what the theories may be about manuscript delivery, the fact remains that it does not work out with efficiency. _Avoid it whenever at all possible._

Committing the Written Speech and Speaking from Memory

The method of writing and committing has been adopted by many noted speakers; Julius Caesar, Robert Ingersoll, and, on some occasions, Wendell Phillips, were distinguished examples. The wonderful effects achieved by famous actors were, of course, accomplished through the delivery of memorized lines.

The inexperienced speaker must be warned before attempting this method of delivery that it is difficult and trying. It requires much skill to make it efficient. The memorized lines of the young speaker will usually_sound_ like memorized words, and repel.

Effective Presentation Skills

Certainly there are occasions--among them, the opening of Congress, the presentation of a sore question before a deliberative body, or a historical commemoration--when it may seem not alone to the "orator" but to all those interested that the chief thing is to express certain thoughts in precise language--in language that _must_ not be either misunderstood or misquoted. At such times oratory is unhappily elbowed to a back bench, the manuscript is solemnly withdrawn from the capacious inner pocket of the new frock coat, and everyone settles himself resignedly, with only a feeble flicker of hope that the so-called speech may not be as long as it is thick. The words may be golden, but the hearers' (?) eyes are prone to be leaden, and in about one instance out of a hundred does the perpetrator really deliver an impressive address. His excuse is his apology--he is not to be blamed, as a rule, for someone decreed that it would be dangerous to cut loose from manuscript moorings and take his audience with him on a really delightful sail.

Speaking Skills Blog

The writer of this chapter once observed an instructor drilling a class in gesture. They had come to the passage from Henry VIII in which the humbled Cardinal says: "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness."It is one of the pathetic passages of literature. A man uttering such a sentiment would be crushed, and the last thing on earth he would do would be to make flamboyant movements. Yet this class had an elocutionary manual before them that gave an appropriate gesture forevery occasion, from paying the gas bill to death-bed farewells. So they were instructed to throw their arms out at full length on each side and say: "Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness." Such a gesture might possibly be used in an after-dinner speech at the convention of a telephone company whose lines extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but to think of Wolsey's using that movement would suggest that his fate was just.

Tips For Public Speaking News Blog

Now all this is not to say that you must not take some thought for your gestures. If that were meant, why this chapter? When the sergeant despairingly besought the recruit in the awkward squad to step out andlook at himself, he gave splendid advice--and worthy of personal application. Particularly while you are in the learning days of public speaking you must learn to criticise your own gestures. Recall them--see where they were useless, crude, awkward, what not, and do better next time. There is a vast deal of difference between being conscious of self and being self-conscious.

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Public Delivery Daily Updates Blog

You must not, however, begin at the wrong end: if you are troubled by your gestures, or a lack of gestures, attend to the cause, not the effect. It will not in the least help matters to tack on to your delivery a few mechanical movements. If the tree in your front yard is not growing to suit you, fertilize and water the soil and let the tree have sunshine. Obviously it will not help your tree to nail on a few branches. If your cistern is dry, wait until it rains; or bore a well. Why plunge a pump into a dry hole?

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Power of the Voice Bulletin

The foregoing examples are all monosyllables, but bad articulation is frequently the result of joining sounds that do not belong together. For example, no one finds it difficult to say _beauty_, but many persist in pronouncing _duty_ as though it were spelled either _dooty_ or_juty_. It is not only from untaught speakers that we hear such slovenly articulations as _colyum_ for _column_, and _pritty_ for _pretty_, but even great orators occasionally offend quite as unblushingly as less noted mortals.

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Tips For Public Speaking Update

Deliver the following with decisive strokes on the emphatic ideas.Deliver it in a vivacious manner, noting the elastic touch-action of the tongue. A flexible, responsive tongue is absolutely essential to good voice work.

_FROM NAPOLEON'S ADDRESS TO THE DIRECTORY ON HIS RETURN FROM EGYPT_

What have you done with that brilliant France which I left you? I left you at peace, and I find you at war. I left you victorious and I find you defeated. I left you the millions of Italy, and I find only spoliation and poverty. What have you done with the hundred thousand Frenchmen, my companions in glory? They are dead!... This state of affairs cannot last long; in less than three years it would plunge us into despotism.

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Public Speaking Using Pitch Blog

Avoid pitching your voice too high--it will make it raspy. This is a common fault. When you find your voice in too high a range, lower it. Do not wait until you get to the platform to try this. Practise it in your daily conversation. Repeat the alphabet, beginning on the lowest scale possible and going up a note on each succeeding letter, for the development of range. A wide range will give you facility in making numerous changes of pitch.

Do not form the habit of listening to your voice when speaking. You will need your brain to think of what you are saying--reserve your observation for private practise.

Presentation Skill Training Fundamentals Bulletin

The final fundamental requisite for a good voice is forwardness.

A voice that is pitched back in the throat is dark, sombre, and unattractive. The tone must be pitched forward, but do not _force_ it forward. You will recall that our first principle was ease. _Think_ the tone forward and out. Believe it is going forward, and allow it to flow easily. You can tell whether you are placing your tone forward or not by inhaling a deep breath and singing _ah_ with the mouth wide open, trying to feel the little delicate sound waves strike the bony arch of the mouth just above the front teeth. The sensation is so slight that you will probably not be able to detect it at once, but persevere in your practise, always thinking the tone forward, and you will be rewarded by feeling your voice strike the roof of your mouth. A correct forward-placing of the tone will do away with the dark, throaty tones that are so unpleasant, inefficient, and harmful to the throat.

Fluency in Public Speaking News Blog

What advantages has the fluent speaker over the hesitating talker?
What influences, within and without the man himself, work against fluency?
Select from the daily paper some topic for an address and make a three-minute address on
it.
Do your words come freely and your sentences flow out rhythmically? Practise _on the
same topic_ until they do.
Select some subject with which you are familiar and test your fluency by speaking
extemporaneously.
Take one of the sentiments given below and, following the advice given ,
construct a short speech beginning with the last word in the sentence.

Machinery has created a new economic world.

The Socialist Party is a strenuous worker for peace.

He was a crushed and broken man when he left prison.

War must ultimately give way to world-wide arbitration.

The labor unions demand a more equal distribution of the wealth that labor creates.

Inflections in Public Speaking Info Blog

SELECTIONS FOR PRACTISE

_CHARLES I_

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, after having, for good and valuable consideration, promised to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generation.

--T.B. MACAULAY.

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Pauses in Public Speaking Helpful Hints

Bring out the contrasting ideas in the following by using the pause:

Contrast now the circumstances of your life and mine, gently and with temper, AEschines; and then ask these people whose fortune they would each of them prefer. You taught reading, I went to school: you performed initiations, I received them: you danced in the chorus, I furnished it: you were assembly-clerk, I was a speaker: you acted third parts, I heard you: you broke down, and I hissed: you have worked as a statesman for the enemy, I for my country. I pass by the rest; but this very day I am on my probation for a crown, and am acknowledged to be innocent of all offence; while you are already judged to be a pettifogger, and the question is, whether you shall continue that trade, or at once be silenced by not getting a fifth part of the votes. A happy fortune, do you see, you have enjoyed, that you should denounce mine as miserable!

--DEMOSTHENES.

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Tempo in Public Speaking Helpful Hints

In the following, speak the words "long, long while" very slowly; the rest of the sentence is spoken in moderately rapid tempo.

When you and I behind the Veil are past, Oh but the long, long while the world shall last, Which of our coming and departure heeds, As the seven seas should heed a pebble cast.

In the following selections the passages that should be given a fast tempo are in italics; those that should be given in a slow tempo are in small capitals. Practise these selections, and then try others, changing from fast to slow tempo on different parts, carefully noting the effect.

No MIRABEAU, NAPOLEON, BURNS, CROMWELL, NO _man_ ADEQUATE _to_ DO ANYTHING _but is first of all in_ RIGHT EARNEST _about it--what I call_ A SINCERE _man. I should say_ SINCERITY, _a_ GREAT, DEEP, GENUINE SINCERITY, _is the first_ CHARACTERISTIC _of a man in any way_ HEROIC. _Not the sincerity that_ CALLS _itself sincere. Ah no. That is a very poor matter indeed_--A SHALLOW, BRAGGART, CONSCIOUS _sincerity, oftenest_ SELF-CONCEIT _mainly. The_ GREAT MAN'S SINCERITY _is of a kind he_ CANNOT SPEAK OF. _Is_ NOT CONSCIOUS _of_.--THOMAS CARLYLE.

Steps to Speaking Success Blog

It is impossible to lay too much stress on the necessity for the speaker's having a broad and deep tenderness for human nature. One of Victor Hugo's biographers attributes his power as an orator and writer to his wide sympathies and profound religious feelings. Recently we heard the editor of _Collier's Weekly_ speak on short-story writing, and he so often emphasized the necessity for this broad love for humanity, this truly religious feeling, that he apologized twice for delivering a sermon. Few if any of the immortal speeches were ever delivered for a selfish or a narrow cause--they were born out of a passionate desire to help humanity; instances, Paul's address to the Athenians on Mars Hill, Lincoln's Gettysburg speech, The Sermon on the Mount, Henry's address before the Virginia Convention of Delegates.

Toastmasters Info Blog

Illustrations without number might be cited to show that in all our actions we are emotional beings. The speaker who would speak efficiently must develop the power to arouse feeling.

Webster, great debater that he was, knew that the real secret of a speaker's power was an emotional one.

Speech Info Bulletin

The spirit and the language of force are definite with conviction. No immortal speech in literature contains such expressions as "it seems to me," "I should judge," "in my opinion," "I suppose," "perhaps it is true." The speeches that will live have been delivered by men ablaze with the courage of their convictions, who uttered their words as eternal truth. Of Jesus it was said that "the common people heard Him gladly." Why? "He taught them as one having _AUTHORITY_."