How to Give a Speech

How to Give a Speech

(A script for an upcoming video)

Unless you are Jesus, Socrates or Shakespeare, you will need to write out your speech.  If it was good enough for Lincoln, it’s good enough for you.

No matter how good you are at speaking extemporaneously, a written speech will express your thoughts more clearly than speaking off the cuff.

This short video will give you some suggestions about how to deliver a prepared speech while maintaining as much eye contact with the audience as possible and without appearing to be reading a speech.

This is not to say that an extemporaneous speech is not the best form of speaking.  It is.  But it takes years of practice or rare talent to master that art form.  But life is short.  You can still deliver a prepared speech effectively, and with much less preparation, if you follow my suggestions.

A quick note about a hybrid form of speaking that I usually do in appellate courts.  Appellate judges hate it when you look down and read so I never deliver a prepared oral argument.  Rather, I usually have one page of notes with the key points I want to make.

So, there are three kinds of speeches:

1. prepared

2. with notes

3. extemporaneous

Never memorize a speech word for word.  Inevitably, under the stress of the moment, you will forget some of it and look like a deer in the headlights.  If you want to give a speech completely without notes, practice the speech in the mirror many times, while timing yourself.  This way, you know you can make your points without cluttering up your brain with the exact wording.

This video will discuss only a prepared speech.  Beyond being the best form to precisely express your thoughts, a prepared speech has these additional advantages:

1. You can publish the speech later verbatim.

2. You are assured that you will leave nothing out.

3. You can precisely time your speech as being cut off in mid-speech makes you look stupid.

This video will address only the physical aspects of how to deliver a prepared speech. We will not discuss the content of the speech, a gigantic topic for another day.

To do a proper prepared speech, you will need a proper podium.

The podium should be tall enough so that you don’t have to stare downward and lose track of the audience.  The goal is to have the best of both worlds, a text and eye contact.  The podium should be tall enough or be adjustable.

All decent podiums will tilt upwards and have a stopper on the bottom to hold your papers.

When you get invited to speak, ask if they have a podium.  If they don’t, you should probably speak based on notes that you hold in one hand.  Two sides of a business card will work. If you speak often, you should invest a couple hundred bucks in a portable podium or at least a light weight podium.

Along the same lines, if you have to hold a microphone, because there is no podium or mike holder, your options are to speak extemporaneously or hold the notes in one hand and the mike in the other.  Recently, I gave a prepared speech with a mike in one hand and my speech in the other.  For those circumstances, I used both sides of the paper and a reduced font.  It wasn’t ideal, but the speech was well-received.  Keep in mind that this was a very short speech and I would never have done this if the speech was multiple pages.  Also, I’ve been giving speeches for fifty years so this is not an advisable move for a beginner.

A weather tip.  This was an outdoor speech in the winter so I used construction paper against the wind.  It barely stood up against the cold breeze.  Copy paper would have been bad.

If you can’t reconnoiter the location of the speech in advance, at least get there early and survey the scene, especially the podium, mike, mike holder, lighting and even the temperature.  If people are too hot or too cold, they will think your speech is twice as long as it is.  Hot rooms make people sleepy and that ain’t good. If it’s stuffy in the room, crack open a window.

Make sure you have water or a drink handy, preferably under the podium.  Speaking makes you dry and being nervous makes you dryer.  Unless you are speaking for just a few minutes, a beverage is mandatory.

If the media is coming, their mikes and recording devices may present a problem.  They will often plop them on your podium, making it difficult for you to lay your speech out properly.  Unfortunately, unless you can push them aside, there is no easy solution to this problem.  In case of Murphy’s Law scenarios like this, it’s a good idea to be prepared to just use notes.

Now, let's get into the nitty gritty of the physical speech.

I have seen professors at a conference look down and read a typed, single spaced speech for thirty minutes and bore everyone to death.

This kind of torture of the audience is totally unnecessary.  No need to shoot yourself in the foot and spoil with bad technique the hard work you did to produce great content.

By the way, never hand-write a speech.  It’s just dumb and makes it hard to read.

And why single or double space a speech when you can do better.

So, triple-space every speech!

And use a large font.  I prefer a 14 point font for readability.  I prefer to use a Courier font.  One of the courts I practice in, the Second Circuit, requires this font because it is thought to be the most readable font and it has never failed me yet.

If you use this system, every page is about equal to one minute of talking.  Most speeches have a formal or informal time limit.  No one ever complained that a speech was too short, except perhaps the Sermon on the Mount.

Again, I have seen many speakers cut off in mid-speech because they have no timing system.  It’s another instance of shooting yourself in the foot.

I tend to be a prolix writer and on some occasions, I have been called on to deliver a speech based on a lengthy article I have written.  No sweat.  By formatting my essay as stated above, I immediately know how many pages I need to cut to meet my time limit.  I have reduced a speech by three times in little more than an hour.

It’s good to know how long the rest of your speech is so number each page top and bottom.  I like to do it by hand to make the numbers large but your computer can do the same.

If you find the audience restless in mid-speech, you can either pick up the pace or shift to a more emphatic delivery. Perhaps you can let them know that you have only X number of minutes left and then you will take questions.

On the other hand, if they love your material, you can slow down a bit.  Knowing how many minutes you have left will help you make these decisions.

I have seen many speakers waste a lot of motion and keep reminding the audience that they have a text in front of them by either picking up each page and flipping it over or picking up a sheet and putting it at the bottom—as if they will be graded on whether their speech is in order after they are done.  This is yet another instance of shooting yourself in the foot.

What I do is this.  When I am nearing the end of a page, I stealthily move the page to the left so that when I am done, the next page is on the right.  This way, the audience doesn’t need to ever see your text and if you deliver it well, some of the people might not even know you have a text hidden by the podium or they might think you have notes.  Another good way to keep it real is to extemporize outside your text briefly before returning to the text.

Eye contact.  This is critical and why some oppose prepared speeches.  By the why, some people just aren’t good writers so take their opinion with a grain of salt. But you can have it all, a text and eye contact.

Here’s my simple system.  First of all, you have already made your text easy to read so when you look down, you can easily see a whole sentence.  So put your left index finger on the page where you last left off, and look up and deliver the next sentence or two, with full confidence that you will not lose your place.  Then, repeat the process throughout the speech.  You can maintain eye contract with the audience and even extemporize a bit without ever losing your place.  In the worst case scenario where the finger slips, the text is so readable, you can recover your place in a few seconds.

CONCLUSION

Using these techniques will give you the confidence of knowing that every prepared speech you make will be delivered smoothly with plenty of eye contact and even with the occasional spontaneous remark.  You will then be able to focus all your efforts on the critical task of writing a speech that even Shakespeare might have admired.