0021 10 Easy Public Speaking Tips for University Students
The Brief
Welcome back Ladies and Gentlemen to the Architecture Student Diaries where it is my mission to help you kill it in Architecture school whilst making you, the best you in the process. Does simply the thought of public speaking elevate your heartrate? Make you fret and feel anxious? Well, you are not alone. Glossophobia is the technical term for a fear of public speaking, and it is an extremely common trait amongst us with statistics estimating that roughly 77% of people experience some form of the fear. Unfortunately, at University, there is next to no chance that you will be able to avoid public speaking at least at some point through your degree in the form of assignment presentations, debates or in class activities. Therefore, it is crucial to your success at a tertiary level to defeat your fears and learn to nail your public speaking. In this class I will walk through 10 fool-proof tips to help you become a public speaking pro!
Below is a breakdown of what we will discuss in today's lesson:
How to Prepare for Your Speech
Notes and Prompts
How to Start Your Speech
Actions and Movements
What to do with Your Voice
Timing is Everything
What to Say
Audience Interaction
If Something Goes Wrong
Finishing Your Speech
Now, let’s get into it. Class is now in session.
1. How to Prepare for Your Speech
I’m not going to bother saying that you need to prepare for your speech and not just wing it because I would hope that you already know that. But, it is important to know how to prepare before presentation day and the below points will help you with this:
Know what you are trying to say, teach or explain:
Have a strong understanding of your topic and plan out the key points that you want to get across to your audience.
Plan the story of your speech:
How it is going to start, what is in the middle and how will you end it? Create a sequence for your information that works best to convey the overall point that doesn’t just feel like you are making lots of different statements.
White your script and practice it… a lot…:
Once you know your script, break it down into dot points of the sequence and the important things you need to make sure you say, or things that you keep forgetting. Now practice some more.
Record yourself practicing:
Listen to or watch the recording to see where you may be struggling, where you make strange faces or your concentration fades and work on fixes those problem areas.
If you can, exercise before you present:
Exercising releases the stress hormones in your body and allows to calm. If you do exercise though, take a shower before you present… no one wants a smelly, sweaty presenter…
Breath:
Before you go up, make sure you have taken some deep breaths and tried to centre your concentration on the speech rather than your anxieties.
Dress Appropriately:
I speak about how to dress for a presentation in my class Your First Review so go check it out for some killer tips.
2. Notes and Prompts
Notes and prompts can be very helpful for a speech, but if used incorrectly can turn a great speech into one to forget.
Prompts:
Sometimes you will have a specific criterion that you have to have ‘x’ number of PowerPoint slides to assist you, and sometimes you won’t be able to have any; it is important that you meet the criteria. However, if there are no criteria on this you need to ask yourself which one you are more comfortable with and which one do you think will make your presentation better? Is there a specific graphic that you want to show and talk about? Well then, you’ll need a slideshow behind you. Do you want the audience to just focus on you because you’re going to physically show an action or do something they need to be looking at? Well then don’t have a slide because it will distract them from what you are doing on stage. It doesn’t not matter which one of these you think is right for you because the answer is circumstantial but give it some thought and make the right decision. If you go with using a PowerPoint though, only use minimal words that assist in making your point and don’t use too many slides; remember, you’re the one presenting, not the projector.
Notes:
It’s okay to use notes if you need to but if you can avoid it, that’s even better. If you need to use notes make sure that you don’t just write down your whole speech and hold it in your hand, break it down into small parts and dot point form with key words that will help keep you on track. And in terms of what you use to put your notes on, don’t take in an A4 piece of paper, small que cards are the way to go; the smaller the better. Attempt to make them small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, this way if you are strategic the audience mightn’t even know you’re holding them.
3. How to Start Your Speech
This is going to be tough, but don’t talk straight away. A lot of people get nervous and talk right from the second they’re on stage, but unless you’re doing this for specific reason as you walk over to where you’ll be presenting, it’s better to take your time. Walk to where you want to present from, take a breath, make sure you’re ready, and then start. The audience will usually speak amongst themselves between presenters and not starting straight away allows them time for their conversation; their attention will naturally come back to you as they watch you cross the stage.
When you’re ready to start, make sure you have a strong initial minute. The first minute in your speech is the most important, but strangely enough this doesn’t mean you need to say your best content in this minute. The first 10-30 seconds is when the audience will decide if they are interested in what you have to say or not so start with something big straight away; this could be a gesture or something that will get their attention. Use the first minute of your time to create a connection with the audience, interact with them and ask them a question; once they’re invested from this first minute you have their attention, and they will want to keep listening to your talk.
4. Actions and Movements
The way you physically express yourself during your talk is a make-or-break element to public speaking. The audience will often mirror your attitude during a presentation so if you appear shy, nervous, disinterested or annoyed during your presentation, your audience most likely will show these things to; so, it’s important to get your posture, gestures and engagement just right. The below information on posture, how to stand, and gestures is derived from a terrific group presentation that popped up on my LinkedIn one day; this video is of a student speech completed in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and called Make Body Language Your Superpower.
Posture:
In order to present good body language ensure you face your audience and not your PowerPoint presentation if you have one. Find the area with the most power in the room to focus your physical location during the speech, typically this is in the centre of the stage away from any distractions like a window. Feel free to move around this space throughout, but don’t move nervously and without purpose. Finally, keep your hands out of your pockets, off your hips and don’t hold your hands together in front of your groin, as these can come off as disinterested, overpowering, and nervous, respectively.
How to Stand:
To find the correct stance for presenting to appear professional, friendly and comfortable, follow these steps: Feet hip width apart, close your eyes and look to the ceiling, raise your hands up to the sky, let your hand now drop to your sides naturally, look forward and open your eyes. This is your natural power stance, always try to return to this from larger movements.
Gestures:
There are three gestures you need to know to be effective in your presentation; these are the give, the show and the chop. To do “the give”, put your arm out with a slight bend in your elbow and have your palms up; this is used to give a fact or an opinion. To do “the show”, act something out whether this be putting your fingers to your ear to pretend you’re on a phone call or bringing your hand to your chest to say you felt something in your heart; this is used when you want to further engage the audience with more detail than just words. To do “the chop” you simply chop the air by putting your arm out and raised up at a 45-degree angle and then karate chop it down, you can do this with both hands for stronger effect; this is to make a strong point or when giving a fact. It is important when you are gesturing to have your palms up (except for when doing “the chop”) as studies have found that if you are directing someone, 84% of people will typically comply if your palms are up, whereas only 52% and 28% of people will comply if your palms are down, or if you are pointing, respectively.
5. What to do with Your Voice
Speaking with confidence will come from practice, and the more you practice your speech the more confident that you will sound; so, keep practicing. The way that you sound and present yourself verbally is important in a presentation, so ensure that you speak properly and try to sound as well versed as you can; but this does not mean specifically go out to sound like someone else who is a better speaker than you. If you have an accent, don’t try to hide it, if you have a bit of a lisp, that is okay, if there is a big word that you struggle to say, try to find a synonym that is easier; don’t try to be something you’re not because unless you’re a trained actor, inauthenticity will usually show through. As long as you speak with the best diction that you can to ensure people understand the words you say, you avoid slang or curse words and you are confident in your message, this will be enough for the audience; so be authentic and be yourself. One key thing to remember though is the projection and pitch of your voice. Work on making sure that you project your voice loudly enough that everyone can hear you (but don’t shout) and try to have a steady pitch to your voice as variances in pitch and tone can come off as nervousness.
6. Timing is Everything
Timing is another crucial element to a successful speech. Rushed speeches are common for two reasons: the first being that many people have too much crammed into their script for their word limit and must speed up their words to fit everything in, the second is that when people get nervous, they tend to rush; in both cases this can be detrimental to your speech. Talking too fast will often lead to the audience disengaging due to not being able to keep up, or from your speech being so fast that you are not enunciating your words well enough to comprehend. Take your time while you are speaking and cut down your script if you need to. Slow down and use pauses in your speech, dramatic pauses have been used in speeches and performances for centuries to help make a point and allow the audience to think about what has just been said. Break up your content and let the audience think about each main point that you have just made before moving onto the next; this technique has been used by some of the world’s best speakers from Barak Obama, Steve Jobs and Brené Brown. Go and have a look at some of their Keynote talks online and you’ll see what I mean.
7. What to Say
The obvious answer to this question is “the answer to your topic”, yes, I’ll give you that. But that isn’t what I’m talking about here; this is what to say other than just the facts and your arguments, this is things to say that will help you make your speech better. This can include asking the audience questions to get them interested and to gauge what your audience already know about the topic. Try to use humour throughout as this will allow the audience to relax, lower their defences and create a connection to you; but don’t just tell jokes, remember this is a proper speech and not a stand-up night at your local bar. Tell stories to your audience to draw them in: humans understand humans much more than they understand just plain statistics and facts, so if you can weave your answer into a story then there is much more chance that the audience will not only remember what you have said but genuinely connect and enjoy your speech.
8. Audience Interaction
The audience are the reason that you are making your speech. Think about it, if they weren’t there you would just be in an empty room talking to yourself; and as my father always told me: “talking to yourself is the first sign of madness”, so let’s try to avoid that, shall we? Make the audience the star in your speech, don’t ignore them. Instead, interact with them and make it about them; the reason that people make speeches is to teach and inform others, so your aim should be for the audience to go away from this speech feeling that you taught them something and brought something new to them. If you make a joke, let the audience laugh, or as it is called in theatre “ride the laugh”; let the laughing die down naturally and then start talking again. If you cut them off and talk over their laughter, the audience will feel like they aren’t allowed to laugh in your speech and so they won’t from then on and things will just be awkward; you don’t want that.
Eye contact is really important for a speech as well, even though it is scary and feels awkward. Look through the crowd before you start speaking and pick a person who seems happy and comforting at each main area of the audience: front left, back left, front middle, back middle etc. and try to move between those people throughout your speech, making eye contact with them each time. To the audience this will look like you are looking at everyone and they feel included. A good rule for eye contact is 3-5 seconds, this will feel like a long time when you are doing it but trust me it’s just the right amount.
Throughout your speech take note of the audience’s engagement levels and if they drift off, try to win them back. Surprise them by saying something they weren’t expecting, call someone out and ask them a question specifically, or change your style up and use humour; try to win the audience back, but don’t try too hard and do something silly that will hurt the overall impression of your talk.
9. If Something Goes Wrong
If something goes wrong in your speech, that is okay, humans make mistakes. Don’t let your mistake rule the rest of your speech though, laugh it off, keep going and don’t make a big deal out of it. You know your speech because you’ve practiced it and if you get something wrong just move onto the next part you remember or use your prompts if you have them. It is important to not stop and just give up. Finally, do not say sorry or apologise if you mess up or if something goes wrong, this will only cement the mistake in the audience’s memory, and they will remember the bad point more than the good parts. Whereas, if you don’t say anything, there is potential that the audience won’t even know that something went wrong.
10. Finishing Your Speech
The finish is the bit that people are going to remember the most, so finish strong. A good way to complete a speech, though is a very common technique, is to go full circle and bring something back up that you started your speech with. This might be re-visiting a fact or a story to make the point even stronger in the audience’s mind. How you finish your speech is up to you and your personal style, but it is important that is it memorable and puts your key points in the front of your audience’s mind. Also, always remember to say thank you to your audience at the end of your speech, because like I said above, they are why you are there, they are the reason that you created your speech and they deserve thanks for giving you their time and attention.
Final Notes
Public speaking can intimidate people, but it shouldn’t, because speaking is what people do best. Speaking is the route of what makes us different to the rest of the earths animals and why we have been able to create the complex and ever-expanding society that we have. I highly recommend spending time working on improving your public speaking because you never know when it will come in handy in life even outside of your education. If you plan to move into the professional working world, which I assume you all do because that is the point of attending University, you are going to need to know these above tips to progress in your career. If you have any other tips for public speaking that I missed, please pop them in the comments because I’m always looking to keep learning, too! In the meantime, make sure you like and follow The Architecture Student Diaries on Instagram and Facebook to make sure you get first access to all new TASD content!
Ladies and Gentlemen, class dismissed.
Iain Colliver, SONA, YBA, GKIHS
