In almost all cases I encounter, people actually speak much more coherently when they speak slower. Either use the extra time to think of what to say,
I don’t have much practice with public speaking, and I’ve tried this. To speak slowly while you think about what you’re going to say next takes practice. When I try this, I’m likely to confuse my thoughts with my current speech.
or insert a few judicious pauses for the same effect.
And this is what I’ll actually do: pause a bit between sentences, so that the audience can think about what I just said, and I can think about what to say next. Much easier than trying to talk and think at the same time.
To speak slowly while you think about what you’re going to say next takes practice.
There’s your problem right there. Optimally, public speaking should require very little on-the-spot thinking with respect to word choice. Depending on exactly how important (and predictable) the subject matter is, you should have a relatively set vocabulary and set of concepts you wish to discuss. There’s being competent at public speaking, and there’s being good at public speaking; this comment is about how to do the latter.
Before I get started: one general useful piece of advice: if giving a speech, your first few sentences matter far more than everything else, because people will decide whether or not they want to listen to you and will frame their understanding based on it.
If you’re giving a speech, you should have a moderately detailed bullet-point outline of what you’re going to say, and you should have thought (or actually spoken) your way through it in advance. (Often many, many times)(In some cases, and for some people, it’s ideal to have a verbatim script. But such circumstances tend to be relatively rare.) When you are actually speaking, you shouldn’t need to think too hard about your exact word choices. For relatively high-stakes public speaking, I will have thought the issue over so many times it takes some effort to prevent myself from saying what I’ve been thinking of saying at a hundred miles an hour. In other words, if you’re doing serious public speaking, you should be clear enough on what you want to say in advance that you can afford to devote a significant amount of your mental effort to your tone, movement about the stage, and speed of speech. This is admittedly advanced-level, but it’s how one excels.
When answering questions (as opposed to controlling exactly what you say) it doesn’t change much. 90% of questions can be easily anticipated. The remainder, you pause a bit before answering (or, if appropriate, reframe (honestly) to make easier to answer, “If I understand your question, you’re asking _”).
If you’ll forgive a rudimentary sports metaphor: when you’re throwing a ball, all you want to have to think about is where you want it to end up and how fast you want it to get there. Knowing how to position your arm and move your wrist and rotate your shoulder should be second-nature. You get them in line by practicing them before game day. Similarly, quality public looks off-the-cuff and conversational, but reflects a great deal of preparation and mental weight-lifting that prepare the speaker to communicate effectively.
[I’d certainly be willing to expand this into a top-level post if anyone thinks such would be useful. Public speaking skills are surprisingly rare; I believe this is because they require practice and people identify as being bad at them and avoid said practice.]
A useful additional trick is to practice a few generic units of body language, such as walking thoughtfully across a stage or making eye contact with several audience members, until it looks and feels natural to do them. You can drop them into the stream when you need to give yourself a longer break, and they will usually “read” as part of your presentation.
I don’t have much practice with public speaking, and I’ve tried this. To speak slowly while you think about what you’re going to say next takes practice. When I try this, I’m likely to confuse my thoughts with my current speech.
And this is what I’ll actually do: pause a bit between sentences, so that the audience can think about what I just said, and I can think about what to say next. Much easier than trying to talk and think at the same time.
There’s your problem right there. Optimally, public speaking should require very little on-the-spot thinking with respect to word choice. Depending on exactly how important (and predictable) the subject matter is, you should have a relatively set vocabulary and set of concepts you wish to discuss. There’s being competent at public speaking, and there’s being good at public speaking; this comment is about how to do the latter.
Before I get started: one general useful piece of advice: if giving a speech, your first few sentences matter far more than everything else, because people will decide whether or not they want to listen to you and will frame their understanding based on it.
If you’re giving a speech, you should have a moderately detailed bullet-point outline of what you’re going to say, and you should have thought (or actually spoken) your way through it in advance. (Often many, many times)(In some cases, and for some people, it’s ideal to have a verbatim script. But such circumstances tend to be relatively rare.) When you are actually speaking, you shouldn’t need to think too hard about your exact word choices. For relatively high-stakes public speaking, I will have thought the issue over so many times it takes some effort to prevent myself from saying what I’ve been thinking of saying at a hundred miles an hour. In other words, if you’re doing serious public speaking, you should be clear enough on what you want to say in advance that you can afford to devote a significant amount of your mental effort to your tone, movement about the stage, and speed of speech. This is admittedly advanced-level, but it’s how one excels.
When answering questions (as opposed to controlling exactly what you say) it doesn’t change much. 90% of questions can be easily anticipated. The remainder, you pause a bit before answering (or, if appropriate, reframe (honestly) to make easier to answer, “If I understand your question, you’re asking _”).
If you’ll forgive a rudimentary sports metaphor: when you’re throwing a ball, all you want to have to think about is where you want it to end up and how fast you want it to get there. Knowing how to position your arm and move your wrist and rotate your shoulder should be second-nature. You get them in line by practicing them before game day. Similarly, quality public looks off-the-cuff and conversational, but reflects a great deal of preparation and mental weight-lifting that prepare the speaker to communicate effectively.
[I’d certainly be willing to expand this into a top-level post if anyone thinks such would be useful. Public speaking skills are surprisingly rare; I believe this is because they require practice and people identify as being bad at them and avoid said practice.]
A useful additional trick is to practice a few generic units of body language, such as walking thoughtfully across a stage or making eye contact with several audience members, until it looks and feels natural to do them. You can drop them into the stream when you need to give yourself a longer break, and they will usually “read” as part of your presentation.