speech presentation tips

speech presentation tips

Effective Strategies for Delivering a Persuasive Speech Presentation

1. Introduction to Speech Presentations

Why you and your audience are there, your theme, the setting, time, and topic, can vary greatly. One person might be asked to speak to community residents about a fire and the accompanying smoke in a local business, another to participate in a round-table session for executives, specialists in employee health and safety, labor union representatives, news media people, and labor relations experts on the impact of a cigarette company causing cancer among its cigarette consumers. Every speech presentation will have many concerns and purposes that are often expressed as second-degree claims. For example, a motivational speaker was recently asked to help people put limits on how much information the brain could absorb, and still have it become knowledge. Hundreds of other specialists are continuously invited to give a second speech as a persuasive expert witness before the government, in court, at board meetings, and in many informal settings throughout the organization.

Every public speech presentation includes a claim or thesis statement. Because a claim should be both provable and debatable, it requires you to conduct a thorough literature review that is both original and specific. Formats and components of your claim will be presented, as well as the expectations of your audience. For example, your claim might include: “I will show that (pick one) an increased speed limit cannot save lives, reduce costs, or improve productivity,” “I will show that a jury award limit and the ability of insurance companies to cover losses assists medical practitioners,” “The value of the ESPN channel has been affected by its acquisition by Disney.”

2. Structuring Your Content for Impact

To get high marks in any speech, you need to have structure. A persuasive speech needs even more structure than an informative one. You need to have a clearly structured visual aid. When you present your visual aid to the group, you need to state and explain each point. Each one has to connect to your main topic. It’s your job to make these connections completely obvious and clear to the audience. Use a lot of rhetorical questions to make connections. For example, “It’s true that many people find the ‘vegetarian resource group’ for vegetarian support. But do you know about other benefits of these organizations?” As you present, explain when and where each point is true, citing examples or statistics to help illustrate its importance.

Is your speech riddled with jargon or academic-speak that the audience will be unable to understand? For example, will they understand what a “signifier”, “Klein bottle”, “mandala”, “satellite cable”, “screw drives”, or “xerography” are? Are your points clear enough for everyone in the audience to understand them? Do you refer to relevant people and events throughout your presentation, or do you assume everyone already knows what you’re going to talk about?

3. Engaging Your Audience Through Delivery Techniques

The term delivery refers to the way speakers choose to “deliver” their speeches when presenting. Note that presentation software can help but also hinders effective communication because presenters sometimes hide behind a screen and remote control, allowing their visual aid to substitute more effective and personal communication skills. Sincerity is the key to all surface behavior control yet delivery is so much more. Vocal tone, pitch, rate of speaking, fluency, and inflection are all part of delivery. Additionally, usage of filler words will pull the listener’s focus. The term delivery also encompasses the use of language, the speaker’s body language, and finally, effective visual aids. The delivery method is relaying information in an effective manner to the listening audience.

When delivering a persuasive speech, it is important to maintain your delivery techniques in order to build a rapport with the audience and to encourage them to respond to the message. This chapter will address the importance of effective speech preparation, knowing the audience, using effective nonverbal behaviors, managing anxiety, using visual aids, and using effective language in your delivery. Whether one’s goal is to inform, to entertain, or to persuade, the importance of speech delivery cannot be overemphasized. Speech delivery is one of the most obvious types of behavior displayed when speaking or presenting. It involves not only taking care to pronounce words clearly and in a pleasant manner but also the use of nonverbal cues such as gestures, postures, eye contact, and facial expressions. These are displayed when a speaker is engaging the audience.

4. Utilizing Visual Aids to Enhance Your Presentation

The most important issues are: – Ensure that the visual aids are large enough for your audience to see. Use contrasting colors. – Write in bullet form as much as possible. It will be easy to read and more effective. – Use pictures instead of words whenever possible. It will be faster and simpler when you are answering questions. – The ladder of abstraction will last longer with your audience if you talk about it because you relate events to your identified concepts as opposed to showing it visually. You will generically be more exciting by leaving the specifics to your questions and answers. However, be aware that developing a picture or visual is effective.

Visual aids are recommended to increase the effectiveness of your speech. You do not need to have a visual aid for every topic, but you should include visual aids for your most important points. Your audience will listen to your words and understand them more easily with the use of visual aids. You should practice with your visual aids so that your proficiency appears effortless to the audience, not forced or labored. Your main visual aids are your hands. When you are talking about the great difference in magnitude between Frances’ spending versus your own, by using a visual aid of your two hands you can quickly engage the audience. You literally uncover your point easily, efficiently, and memorably by showing that the span of Frances’ holidays is huge when laid over the duration of days in your own holidays. You stronghold yourself solidly by stating “And I, like many of you, have five days.”

5. Handling Q&A Sessions with Confidence

If the presenter’s preparation creates a communication barrier, it is a good idea to establish the global norm for the next Q&A session by reminding the host. With good preparation, the opponent can request the type of information that is likely to be requested by good questions during the speeches. Before asking questions, please study the material used in Chapter 5. The strongest attack against a presenter receives a persuasive argument. Strongly refuted activities allow defenders to win a unanimous decision. With good preparation and presentation, the presenter can set up the audience before they are asked.

When hosting a question-and-answer session following a persuasive speech, the presenter must be prepared to welcome inquiries from the audience with confidence and demonstrate sufficient knowledge to communicate with the audience. Speakers should field all questions calmly, clearly, and comprehensively, regardless of whether they are asked by their opponents or advocates. Accepting challenges from skeptical audiences in a non-confrontational, receptive manner will help the speaker overcome distrust of his/her position when trying to lend support to it.