Chapter 12
Good delivery is an art. An audience likes formality with the best attributes of good conversation. You need
to make the speech interesting with out distracting the audience. Make sure to have good vocal and facial
expressiveness.
There are 4 basic methods of delivering a speech.
1. Manuscript—read aloud from paper or teleprompter. This is verbatim. I hate these. Don’t read to me.
You generally have horrible eye contact. Unless you need absolute accuracy of wording, don’t do this.
If you are going to do it you have to do several things:
 Rehearse it out loud so it sounds natural
 Work on eye contact with your audience
 Make sure your speech is legible and easily read
 Talk to your audience, don’t read to them!!!
2. Memory—Only done on the shortest of speeches now. Totally from memory, these are difficult cause
what happens when someone distracts you? Do you have to start all over again? These are tough and
you can’t respond well to the audience.
3. Impromptu—presented with little or no immediate preparation. This is a fly by the seat of your pants
thing. Think free-style. There are several tips for doing an impromptu speech.
a. state the point to which you are responding
b. state the point you want to make
c. use whatever support u have to make your point Ex: testimony, or statistics
d. summarize your point
e. jot down a brief outline (so you can remember what your saying )
f. speak at a clear pace
g. have strong eye contact
h. use signposts ex: first, second, last
i. be sure to relax and remain calm!!!
Think of the “tell us what you are going to tell us, tell us, tell us what you told us” philosophy.
4. Extemporaneous—carefully prepared and practiced in advance. Presented from a set of notes but the
exact wording is chosen at the moment of delivery. YOU DON’T READ IT! There are several
advantages to this type of delivery. It gives you more control over your language and concepts than an
impromptu delivery. It lets you be more spontaneous and direct than a manuscript or memorized
speech. It encourages you to be natural in your gestures, voice, and ensures good eye contact.
Things to you need to learn to control:
1. Volume- adjust voice to the size of room and audience. Don’t be too loud, and don’t be too soft. Be
the baby bear and be just right ok?
2. Pitch- use this to interest or convey the meaning & emotion. This is the highness or lowness of a
speaker’s voice. You must vary it or you will end up sounding like Ben Stein on the dry eyes
commercial. You don’t want to sound flat and dull and lifeless.
3. Rate- keep a moderate rate of speed (not to fast, not to slow) The average person speaks between 120
and 150 words per minute. Alter the rate with the mood you are trying to create. Don’t speak so
slowly that people get bored or so fast that they can’t understand you…. Either way isn’t good.
4. Effective pauses -Pauses signal the end of a thought unit, give an idea time to sink in, or lend dramatic
impact to a statement. Avoid vocalized pauses at all costs. These are also called fillers. (um, uh, er,
like, etc.) These reduce your credibility.
5. Vocal variety- rate, pitch, volume, timing…. It is one of the most important elements of a speech. You
need to vary what you do in order to be a dynamic speaker.
6. Pronunciation- this could either help or reduce your credibility. Yet again, I must say it, if you don’t
know how a word is pronounced, don’t use it. Check the dictionary or another person.
7. Articulation- how crisply & distinctly we form our speech. Errors in articulation can be caused by
physical problems but most are caused by laziness. We have to figure out where we need to improve
and work on it.
8. Dialect- your accent, grammatical patterns, and vocabulary that is distinctive to particular regions or
ethnic groups. None is superior or inferior to any other one but you have to be careful if the audience
doesn’t share your dialect. They don’t pose a problem if the listeners are familiar with it and find it
appropriate to the occasion.
Physical Actions- play a major role in speech outcome. Research shows that hundreds of thousands of
messages are expressed through the physical body. These can communicate up to 80% of the messages
expressed.
There are four aspects of physical action that are really important to speakers.
1. Personal appearance- you always see the speaker before you hear them: Look Nice!
2. Movement (before, during, and after)- Don’t lean on the lectern, don’t sway back and forth, don’t lean
on the podium, and don’t rock the podium. Walk calmly and confidently to the podium, look poised
and confident no matter what, then walk calmly back to your seat. Fake it till you feel it. Remember I
can’t tell you are uncomfortable unless you show me.
3. Gestures- if make gestures don’t draw away from the speech. Don’t gesture in front of your face.
Don’t gesture to where it makes you look like you are flying away. Make natural gestures.
4. Eye Contact- use this gets the message over to the audience clearly. If you don’t have good eye contact
then your audience won’t think you are telling the truth or that you are trustworthy. Establishing eye
contact is one of the quickest ways to bond with your audience. It keeps the audience’s attention,
establishes credibility, and allows you to see and respond to feedback.
5 step method for improving delivery
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Go over your preparation outline aloud- lets you know whether or not it sounds the way you want it to
because sometimes things sound differently when they are written than when they are spoken. This
gives you a chance to revise your information as necessary. Practice it over and over again till you are
really familiar with it.
Prepare a speaking outline-increases the familiarity w/ your speech (guidelines in ch. 10) Slowly get
rid of all information you don’t need. NO Complete sentences unless they are quotes. Make sure that
you keep just enough to keep you going. Don’t cut out so much you don’t know what you are saying.
Practice it well.
Practice the speech aloud using the speaking outline- don’t worry about not getting it right the first
time, just gain control gradually (Practice Makes Perfect) Remember you can always add or take away
information. Practice in front of your friends or family. Practice on video or in front of a mirror. This
way you can see what you look like and if you can, use a video recorder or a tape player so you can
hear what you sound like. Check for nonfluencies or vocalized pauses ( ums, ers, you know what I’m
sayin’, etc.)
Refine and polish delivery- Make sure that you have done your practicing and that at this point it is
almost perfect.
Give a dress rehearsal if you can. Practice in the room or the place you are giving your presentation.
Work with the equipment available so you have made a trial run with everything.
START EARLY—There is no single session that will work. It must be done over and over again for
your presentation to really be good. Give yourself at LEAST a couple of days and more if you can in
order to have a good presentation.
Answering Audience Questions.
Ok, people. You won’t be doing this right now. Definitely not for the Informative and maybe not for the
Persuasive. IF you do this it is a lot more work and we need to review when I am talking to you too so you
can understand.
Many speeches have a question and answer session. This can happen at the end of the presentation or
during the speech itself. It depends on the type of speech you are giving.
There is a lot of preparation that is required for a question and answer session.
1. First you must think about possible questions and figure out the possible answers to them.
This includes writing out the answers.
2.
3.
The second step is to practice delivering the answers. Writing something out and then saying
it are two totally different things. Since all the answers will be presented orally then they
should be rehearsed orally.
Then you have to manage the question and answer session.
a. You have to tell the audience when the questions will be answered.
b. You have to look at the questions with a positive attitude. Look at the questions as an
effort by the audience to learn more. It’s a sign you are doing a good job and they want
to know more.
c. If someone has misunderstood you during your speech, this is a perfect time to clear up
any problems.
d. If someone is hostile and asks angry questions then you must answer calmly and
confidently. Don’t let them make you defensive or start an argument.
e. You have to listen carefully to what they are asking. Repeat the question out loud so you
are certain that you understand what you are asked. This also helps you to make sure that
everyone can hear the question.
f. Answers should be directed to the whole audience. This helps keep everyone interested.
g. Answer questions in an honest manner. If you don’t know the answer, say I don’t know.
h. Unless there is a moderator for the question period you need to limit the questions and
you are responsible for your own question and answer session. Usually it is best to allow
one question and one follow up question to each person. Avoid being diverted into a
personal debate with someone… its not worth it. When your time is running down, wrap
it up by answering one or two questions and then thanking the audience for their
attention.
Matter of clarification people. You don’t get to use the question and answer session as a way to make up
your time. Your speeches still have to be their time limit without the question-answer session.