Campus Connection

Being able to speak clearly and succinctly, effectively inform and persuade others, and move people to action are necessities for students and professionals in a wide array of fields including: law, public relations, politics, the sciences and sales. Further, learning to be an effective, ethical public speaker is one of the most empowering, rewarding goals one can set. Tony Docan-Morgan and Laura Nelson, both faculty in the Department of Communication Studies, have dedicated their careers to helping others become effective communicators. They recently published a book chapter examining the benefits of becoming an effective public speaker as well as practical tips students and professionals can put into practice. Some of their most practical speaking suggestions are summed up in eight principles:

Practical public speaking suggestions

1. Take an audience-oriented perspective. When preparing a presentation, it is important to consider the following questions: What does the audience know about my topic? What does my audience not know about my topic? What is their position on the topic? These answers can be discovered through speculating about listeners’ interests and attitudes toward the topic or gathering information directly from your audience to help craft your message. To put it simply, when you adapt your message to the audience’s experiences and interests, you will more effectively engage audience members and make them much more eager to listen to your ideas. 2. Have a purpose. Decide whether you want to inform, persuade, and/or entertain your audience. Effective speakers develop a specific purpose statement, share it with their audience early in their presentation, and ensure that their main points and evidence advance this purpose. 3. Organize your message. A basic, but often forgotten rule of thumb in public speaking is to tell the audience what you are going to tell them (introduction), tell them (body with 2-4 main points), and then tell them what you told them (conclusion). One of the most important considerations is how you organize the main points of your presentation. Common organizational strategies include chronological, by topic, problem-solution, and problem-cause-solution. 4. Engage your audience through language. Good speakers use creative and vivid language to evoke feelings and images in listeners’ minds. Describe sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and textures in detail. Consider sprinkling in alliteration (e.g., “today, there are more than fifty fabulous fruity flavors”), similes (e.g., “she was as tough as a drill sergeant in boot camp”), or metaphors (“given the increasingly deep and wide sea of messages we swim in today, it is ever more important to become an exceptionally good swimmer”). 5. Use strong supporting material. Supporting material can function to clarify the speaker’s point, make a point more interesting, and furnish a basis that enables others to believe the speaker’s point. Supporting material should be up-to-date, and come from credible, accurate, relevant, compelling and reliable sources. Examples include statistics, expert and opinion testimony, case studies, anecdotes, hypothetical examples, and personal experience. 6. Deliver strong. Many public speaking engagements call for a speaker to deliver extemporaneously, which includes using a conversational tone and occasionally referring to an outline with key words. Effective delivery requires preparation and practice. As you rehearse, consider the effects of your vocal volume, speaking rate, pauses, diction, tone, facial expressions, eye contact, and hand gestures. Each of these nonverbal cues work to contribute to the overall meaning of your message. 7. Manage your anxiety. “Stage fright” is a common reaction involving fear, apprehension, tension and nervousness. Studies show, however, that the best ways to decrease public speaking anxiety include relaxation exercises, deep breathing, visualizing success, positive self-talk and practicing. 8. Assess your message and solicit feedback from others. If you are uncertain about the effects of your message on an audience, consider collecting feedback from them after your presentation via an anonymous survey. Also consider opportunities for continued growth, such as audio- or video-recording and analyzing your performance, enrolling in a continuing education class, or seeking individual coaching from UWL’s Public Speaking Center.