Skills for Presenting

Throughout my research, I found some skills to be helpful while giving speeches and arguments.

Many of the issues that come up throughout different speeches is that nervousness causes a involuntary change of breathing, rapidly increasing breath or lack of balance between each breath. When this occurs, it affects the speech making it seem unnatural due to pauses out of place to breathe.

In order to prevent this from happening, take calm monitored breaths before presenting. Then before starting breathe in, and exhale while speaking out. This will best apprehend uneasiness and unnatural breath.

Another issue that can be distracting while giving a speech is figiting and excess movement. This is caused by the adrenaline flow through the body and can be detrimental to the speech. Movements such as pacing or voice shakiness can distract the audience from the point of the speech.

The way to get rid of this to plant feet down and wiggle your toes to get the jitters out and then maintain a strong stance by having feet shoulder length apart and good posture. Having good posture shows that one has confidence in what they are saying and causes the audience to believe in more of what is being shared. Also an inviting posture attracts the audience to want to pay attention to the person speaking. When I gave a speech with a defensive commanding body structure, members of the audience picked up on that as a negative aspect of my presenting.

Nervous speakers often get tongue tied by saying the words too rapidly, which then confuses the audience and takes away from the argument at hand. In one debate, I spoke quickly giving off the sense of nervousness throughout. Although my arguments were stronger than those of my opponents, the audience still chose the winner to be my opponent due to the fact that I sounded weaker.

Apprehending this is simple, practice the speech. Learning the balance and importance of pauses throughout a speech can be greatly beneficial to persuading the audience. When writing a speech, put commas not only where it is grammatically correct but also when it is necessary for speaking as a reminder of when to pause. While reading a speech, try to maintain some type of balance throughout the flow of how you read each sentence, while still emphasizing on key words and phrases when necessary.

Altogether, these are the main concerns I found throughout my research and how to best overcome them.

They all are a part of maintaining my third answer which is having a clear and commanding presence while communicating.