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TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is Speaking? ......................................................................................................................................... 3
Objectives ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Rules of Effective Rhetoric ............................................................................................................................ 4
1. Preparation and Research................................................................................................................. 4
2. Establish a Clear Sense of Purpose ................................................................................................... 5
3. How to Research ............................................................................................................................... 6
4. Build an Outline................................................................................................................................. 7
5. Produce Your First Draft.................................................................................................................... 9
6. Edit and Proofread .......................................................................................................................... 10
7. Produce your Final Draft ................................................................................................................. 11
The Laws of Effective Speaking (The Performance) .................................................................................... 12
Law 1: Maintain Posture, Composure, and Confidence ......................................................................... 13
Law 2: Use Nods, Gestures, and Facial Expressions................................................................................ 15
Law 3: Utilize Voice, Volume, and Vivacity ............................................................................................. 17
Law 4: Establish the Right Rhythm/Tempo ............................................................................................. 19
Putting It All Together ................................................................................................................................. 21
What do I gain from becoming a better public speaker? ........................................................................... 22
A Meaningful Boost to Your Confidence................................................................................................. 22
Better Critical and Analytical Thinking .................................................................................................... 23
Higher Levels of Emotional Intelligence / Superior Communication Skills ............................................. 23
Effective Persuasive and Argumentative Skills ....................................................................................... 23
Successful Leaders are Often Successful Speakers ................................................................................. 24
Activities for Students (Prepared or Impromptu) ....................................................................................... 25

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WHAT IS SPEAKING?
(What do we mean by speaking in an academic or professional setting?)

The kind of speaking we are mostly concerned with in an academic or professional setting is
speaking that usually argues for a specific line of argumentation or informs the audience of a
specific issue. This mode of speaking is different from every day, regular speech and rhetoric; it
usually combines text and performance into one engaging, informative, and (sometimes)
persuasive whole.

OBJECTIVES
In this course, you will learn how to:

- prepare an auditory and visual presentation

- speak effectively in front of an audience
- connect with listeners in an informative and persuasive manner
- communicate ideas and clarify opinions and minutiae effectively
- employ the formal register
- conduct ethical research
- pronounce words properly
- use expressions wisely
- employ proper grammar and structure in presentations
- employ suitable and appropriate social conventions while delivering a presentation or a
speech
- harness the power of presence, confidence, articulation, tone, and body language

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RULES OF EFFECTIVE RHETORIC

1. Preparation and Research

If you are not familiar inside out with the content of your presentation, speech, or text; if you are
not acquainted with the context and the latest data on the topic of your choice; if you are not
well versed on the issue of your presentation, you will have a very hard time speaking. By
speaking, here, we are not referring to how you would normally
speak with your friends and family. Although the comfort with
which you speak with your friends and family members is “Best way to conquer
desirable, the rest of the characteristics are not necessarily stage fright is to know
desirable. We will be focusing on clear, effective, articulate, and what you’re talking
eloquent speaking that is characteristic of traditional orators and about.”
speakers. – Michael H. Mescon

Now, in order to speak comfortably, one has to have studied and

delved deeply into one’s topic of choice. While researching your
thesis or topic, you will most often come across more information than you will need for your
presentation or speech. It is always be wise to know which information is necessary and should
be included in your text, and which is subsidiary and thus should be overlooked or set aside.

As intuitive as it might be to highlight the importance of sticking to the main point and purpose
of a specific presentation or speech, it is sometimes easy to get distracted by subsidiary points
that might turn out to be distracting for the audience.

In the end, your text or presentation should not be an information dump; you should focus
more on what you intend to do with all of that information.

Your focus should be:

- What am I trying to prove by presenting all of this information?

- How do I interpret and analyze the information I am presenting?
- What can I conclude from the information I am providing?

Note: A text or presentation that only shares a set of data (no matter how large) would lose
points on development and analysis. One of the main purposes of a research paper or a
presentation is to showcase your capacity for information synthesis, analysis, and interpretation,
and not just a capacity for data collection and exposition. Any person could get access to same
set of data that you have at your disposal, but not everyone will make exactly the same
conclusions in exactly the same manner or method of analysis and interpretation.

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 2. Establish a Clear Sense of Purpose

A paper or a presentation without a clear sense of purpose, direction, and aim is very similar to
a product that no one knows what to do with or that no one can find a proper use for.

You can establish a clear sense of purpose by keeping in mind two essential ideas or questions:

1. What is my research question? What am I trying to explore?

2. What is my thesis statement? What am I trying to prove, given the information that I have
researched?

Research questions and thesis statements should neither be too specific (making it very difficult
to find any useful information on the topic) nor too broad (making it too difficult to contain and
answer within the scope of, for example, a 1000-word research paper or a ten-minute
presentation.

Here are some examples of weak research questions:

1. What are the effects of social media consumption on people?

2. What are the reasons behind the economic crisis in country X?
3. Has there been an increase/decrease in wealth worldwide?

These are weak research questions because they are either too broad to answer or too simplistic.

Avoid research questions that can be answered by a simple yes or no response. Remember, the
topic has to be debatable.

We can take those research questions and improve them:

1. How has the daily use of Instagram influenced the mental wellbeing of teenagers in the
past decade?
2. How have country X’s foreign/domestic policies contributed to its economic crisis in 20xx?
3. Has the increase of wealth in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts led to better living
conditions in the last ten years?

By making your purpose and aim measurable and quantifiable within a specific context or scope,
you make your purpose more identifiable and reachable.

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 3. How to Research

What are the steps the you should take while researching a specific topic?

1. Browse the web for reliable, academic webpages, articles, and academic papers published
in journals.
2. Every time you find information that might be useful in your argumentation or analysis,
keep tab of it:
a. Jot down the link.
b. If it’s a book, keep bookmarks.
c. Use post-it notes.
d. Keep an electronic document that contains a reference to (or a list of) all the
sources that you have found useful and intriguing and that you would like to
incorporate into you text.
e. You might not use all of the sources that you have found, especially if they are
repetitive.
f. It is not about the number of sources, but their quality.
g. Make sure your sources are reliable. Resort to well-established and well-known
sources: international and local governmental and non-governmental bodies,
academic and scientific journals, newspapers, and news websites. Do not resort
to personal blogs, opinion pieces, disreputable magazines, or the like.
h. Do not use sources that are produced by amateur or non-professional entities,
organizations, or persons. For example, personal blogs and opinion pieces are not
always best source of objective information.
i. Use websites like jstor.org to find academic journals and publications that offer
the kind of reliable information that you are looking for.

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 4. Build an Outline

An outline serves just like a map that gives you a sense of direction and progress. When you put
together a well-organized outline, you know how to go from point A to B and then C, and so on.
Without an outline, you could often find yourself stuck in the middle unable to move forward.
Oftentimes, you won’t be able to tell how you even got to the point you were arguing at any
given point. As is the case with narratives, a sense of how your paper or presentation is going to
look like at the end can be highly valuable.
Of course, outlines don’t need to be detailed; they are simply roadmaps designed to summarize
the main headlines that a particular paper or presentation is going to explore. Imagine a book
that does not have a table of contents; it would be very difficult to figure out what each section
or part of that book is going to discuss. By keeping the reader aware of the progress of your text,
you keep the reader engaged and focused.
A typical outline for a research paper or a presentation might look similar to the following:
1. Introduction:
a. Hook
b. Introduce the Problem and the Research Question
c. Thesis Statement: State the argument you will try to make in the course of the
paper/presentation.
2. Body
a. Section 1:
i. Background Information: discuss any relevant details that form the
backdrop of the issue of your paper/presentation
ii. Relevant Details: discuss any relevant details that the audience needs to
keep in mind throughout the paper or the presentation
b. Section 2:
i. Argument 1
ii. Evidence
iii. Analysis, interpretation, and discussion
iv. Counterargument 1
v. Refutation
c. Section 3:
i. Argument 2
ii. Evidence
iii. Analysis, interpretation, and discussion
iv. Counterargument 2
v. Refutation
d. Section 4:
i. Argument 3

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 ii. Evidence
iii. Analysis, interpretation, and discussion
iv. Counterargument 3
v. Refutation
3. Conclusion
a. Restate the Thesis Statement
b. Summarize Primary Arguments and Refutations
c. Point out unresolved issues (if applicable)
d. End on a reflective note (recommendations, questions to be explored, etc.)

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 5. Produce Your First Draft

Having collected all the information and the sources that you would like to integrate into your
text or speech, start by producing the first draft of your paper/presentation.

1. Remember that any text or presentation always has three integral parts: a beginning, a
middle, and an end.
2. Beginnings, or introductions, in particular must be attention grabbing, prompting the
reader to continue reading or the listener to listen more closely.
3. The middle, or the body, is where all the information, argumentation, and analysis is
done. It is the core and the heart of your research or performance. The body is what
makes or breaks your presentation/paper. Make sure it is rich enough! Not just rich in
information, but also in analysis (which we will cover more closely in the handout).
4. The end, or the conclusion, is where you tie all the loose ends together and where you
offer a comprehensive conclusion, or reflection, on the argument that you have made.
Recommendations, suggestions, or calls for action can often be found in the final lines of
the conclusion.
5. Don’t worry about leaving behind some minor mistakes, errors, or missing details in your
first draft; you will go through and review it multiple times before you have a finalized
product worth sharing with an audience. By the time you produce your final draft, all gaps
will have been filled; all structural inaccuracies will have been resolved; and all language
mistakes will have been fixed.
6. With a clear purpose or aim in mind, make sure the ideas are progressing in the direction
that you set at the beginning of the writing process. Do not waver or digress from the
focus. If you are making a presentation on why people should or shouldn’t follow a Keto-
diet, you don’t want your presentation to turn into a lecture on the detriments of junk
food eating. Stay on course.

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 6. Edit and Proofread

Having produced the first draft, proceed to edit or proofread.

1. Fix any grammatical or structural mistakes. Use automated spelling and grammatical
checks to help you find these errors. They are usually signified by red or green underlines.
2. Make sure your diction (choice of words) is on point. Generally speaking, presentations
and research papers are of a serious nature, and so the formal registered should be used.
a. This does not negate the fact that you can use sarcasm or irony in the course of
the presentation or the paper to prove certain points or drive certain points home.
However, be very careful that your product does not turn into a bad piece of
comedy.
3. Make sure you haven’t misused any words, or that you haven’t used any terms outside of
their context.
4. Make sure your text or speech exhibits cohesion and a smooth transition from one idea
to the next. Signposts, or transitions, are essential in research papers, presentations, or
speeches, as they signal the speaker’s transition from one concept or idea to the next.
They help the reader or the listener to keep track of where you are in your text. Without
them, the audience can be easily lost, and the last thing you want is an uninterested
audience.
5. Make sure that you have provided all the necessary evidence for the arguments you have
made. Should you notice a shortage of evidence, or claims that do require evidence, add
the missing evidence. Should you notice a repetition of ideas or claims, remove the
redundant statements or ideas.
6. Sculpt your draft into its best possible form, and the only way to do that is by persistent
and repeated revisions.
7. Read your paper or perform your presentation in front of your peers, friends, and family
members. Take feedback, fix, and improve.

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 7. Produce your Final Draft

Consider the following for your final product:

1. If you are putting together a presentation, make sure you don’t write too many words on
the slides of your presentation.
2. Most of the words you are going to say should be written on a stack of cue cards that you
can use to recall the information or the arguments that you would like to make.
3. Slides that are riddled with words are boring, uninviting, and intimidating to the viewer.
4. No one wants to spend their time reading sentences off a slide while the speaker is
conveying the same information.
5. Slides should contain only headlines or main ideas, phrases, or statements that you are
using in your presentation.
6. As the speaker, you shouldn’t be reading off the slide. The slides are only there to
establish a sense of direction and progression.
7. It is okay to read off the cards, but you don’t want to be so preoccupied with your cards
that you do not give your audience their share of eye contact.
8. You also don’t want to turn your back to your audience every few seconds to read
something off the slides that the audience can already see. In all cases, there shouldn’t
be a profusion of information on the slides. As a matter of fact, try to avoid full sentences
on the slides, whenever possible.
9. Make sure you use visuals and audio material wherever and whenever necessary to make
your presentation more engaging. But be careful! You don’t want to substitute your
content for any third-party content. The audience is there to listen to you speak! Not
someone else!

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THE LAWS OF EFFECTIVE SPEAKING (THE PERFORMANCE)

So, you have your presentation made and ready. You’ve avoided sentences on the slides and used
only headlines. You have your cue cards in hand with all the points that you want to cover. You’ve
done all the proper research. You’re comfortable with the material you are about to discuss
because you have familiarized yourself really well with its content; you’ve become a virtual expert
on the topic. You’ve rehearsed the structure of your text/presentation and its development from
introduction to conclusion. You’ve prepared any visual or auditory aids that you would like to use
as supplements. You have your catchy beginning. How do we then commence to speak?

A presentation is essentially a performance in which you try to connect with your audience and
through which you try to communicate your arguments and your thoughts to an audience that is
trying to figure out what important things you have to share with them. A presentation that
states the obvious or that just shares very well-established and common knowledge information
does not offer a reason enticing enough for the audience to follow. It is predictable and linear,
but you want to add some element of mystery to your presentation. You want to add your own
unique perspective to the topic.

To speak in the form of a performance, one has to keep in mind certain tenets of public speaking
or presentation making/delivery. In this part of the handout, we will be discussing the laws of
effective speaking.

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Law 1: Maintain Posture, Composure, and Confidence

Before we go into the first law of speaking, it is important to keep in mind that speaking combines
many different facets all of which hinge on the aforementioned importance of preparation ahead
of time. If the preparation is done properly, the rest should be rather accessible. It will require
practice, and you might not get everything right the first time, but with time and repetition, you
will find that you have in fact become an effective and eloquent speaker who succeeds in
connecting with his audience.

We begin first with a stress on body language: posture, composure, and confidence.

1. Stand up straight with your shoulders relaxed. Push your chest slightly forward. You don’t
want drooping or slouching shoulders or a hunched back while speaking: those are signs
of weakness, and you do not want to appear weak, hesitant, or second-guessing while
speaking.
2. Throughout your speech, you don’t want to fidget. You don’t want to skip or shuffle from
one foot to another like a pendulum. The audience is quick to catch nervous or tense
stances.
3. Movement is important while speaking, but it has
to be a planned and calculated kind of movement,
not a random and an uneasy kind of skipping “There are certain things
around. in which mediocrity is not
4. You do not want to be too fixed in your place; you to be endured, such as
don’t want to appear like a statue or a plank of poetry, music, painting,
public speaking.”
wood. You’re human. You’re animate. Bring the
humanity and animation to your body. - Jean de la Bruyere
5. Composure is about maintaining a state of calm and
confidence while addressing your audience. You
might start on a good note and in an impressive
manner, but you need to make sure that you carry yourself that way through the whole
performance. It is common to make some mistakes while speaking, but that is no reason
to succumb to tense nerves.
o Calm does not mean reticence.
6. Confidence should radiate from your body. You’ve done your research. You know what
you’re about to say, and you know how you plan to say it. You know where you’re going
with your presentation, and you should use that to your advantage. Carry yourself with
the confidence you need to deliver your presentation with charisma.

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 o Confidence does not mean arrogance. You don’t want a holier-than-thou
approach to your audience. Of course, you should know more than they do on the
topic, but that is no reason to hold a denigrating tone while speaking.
7. Don’t place your hands in your pockets. Don’t make any erratic or attention-diverting
movements with your body or limbs. Don’t twist, bend, or shake your legs. While this
might take some conscious effort at first to maintain, gradually, it will begin to come
naturally to you to perform in that way.

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Law 2: Use Nods, Gestures, and Facial Expressions

This law is very closely connected to the previous one. You have established and maintained a
state of composure and confidence. Your posture is as it should be, standing straight and tall. But
then what?

So, you’ve begun to speak, but you certainly do not want to look like a robot while doing so. In
the previous law, we briefly discussed the importance of calculated and planned motion or
movement. At no time should you seem at a loss for action. You can begin by taking simple
calculated steps at the front of the classroom (or on stage, depending on where you’re delivering
your presentation).

1. In real life, no one speaks without making any movements or impressions with their faces.
When we are shocked, we open our eyes and mouths wide. When we are angry, we frown
and we might slightly bare our teeth. When we’re happy or confident, we smile.
2. A natural smile at the beginning of your presentation can be aptly inviting. But you don’t
want to look like you’re forcing a smile onto your face. Nervous laughter should be kept
in check as well.
3. Head movements, or nods, should be used naturally as you progress through your
presentation. We use nods while speaking with others to indicate a point delivered or
made, or to establish a point of agreement. You don’t want a stiff and immobile neck or
face. At the same time, you don’t want to move your
head too often that you make yourself dizzy.
4. Use your hands and fingers to create measured,
reasonable, and organic gestures and gesticulations, “You can speak well if
your tongue can deliver
just like you use these features in everyday the message of your
conversation, discussion, or debate. As mentioned heart.”
earlier, our hands should not be hidden in our pockets,
– John Ford
but used whenever necessary to stress on certain points
or to highlight certain emotions. You don’t want stiff or
mechanically limb movement during speaking.
5. Staring at an audience all at one time can be intimidating. To reduce the anxiety, stare at
one person at a time. You can steal a glance at the audience as a whole by taking a
sweeping view of your listeners or viewers, but as you move through your presentation,
try to give each person some attention by looking at them. In the end, you are trying to
connect with your audience, and looking at the members of your audience is essential for
effective speaking. A speaker who avoids looking at his audience gives the impression that
he is not interested in his audience.

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 6. You do not want to turn your back to the audience unless absolutely necessary, and very,
very sparingly.

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Law 3: Utilize Voice, Volume, and Vivacity

Now, we get to the auditory part of our presentation delivery techniques and strategies.

While speaking, you don’t want your words to be mistaken for a mechanical reading of notes that
you’ve written down on your cue cards. A presentation or a speech is, essentially, a conversation
that you’re trying to have with your audience.

1. Your voice shouldn’t be flat and lifeless. You’re not simply relaying a text to your audience;
you’re trying to engage them in a discussion that means something to you on one level or
another.
2. It’s difficult for your audience to ascribe importance or value to your words if you yourself
aren’t doing so.
3. When it comes to volume, neither too low nor too loud
works. You have to find the right volume that is
sufficient for your audience to hear well. If your volume
“Let thy speech be better
is too low, of course, your audience won’t be able to
than silence, or be silent.”
pick up on what you’re trying to say. If you’re speaking
too loudly, that could soon turn into a frustrating – Dionysius of
Halicarnassus
experience for your audience.
4. Add life (vivacity) to your words. Enunciation, stresses,
and articulation are paramount. Remember a
conversation you had in which you were genuinely
passionate. Perhaps, it was a time when you were trying to argue for your favorite football
team, or when you were trying to convince your friends of a perspective that you hold
dear on a particular issue. That is very similar to what you want to do while presenting.
5. You can try a simple experiment in which enunciation or stresses could potentially change
the meaning of what you’re trying to say. Consider the following sentence in which the
underlined word is the one that is enunciated or stressed:
- I did not tell Rob. (but maybe someone else did)
- I did not tell Rob. (A stress on the fact that this is an action you did not do, very similar to
when you’re being accused of something of which you are innocent.)
- I did not tell Rob. (Rob concluded it himself?)
- I did not tell Rob. (but I may have told someone else)
We can see how stressing or enunciating different words could change the meaning
implied by these sentences.
6. Articulation is paramount. Articulation is clarity of speech. While speaking, you want to
make sure that your audience understands every single word you’re saying. Lost words
are lost meaning, and you don’t want your audience to miss any of what you have to

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 convey or communicate to them. Look up the pronunciation of words that you may not
be familiar with. If you come across a challenging word, rehearse it before your
performance and find the right rhythm that suits the expression you’re trying to make.

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Law 4: Establish the Right Rhythm/Tempo

Imagine if someone plays your favorite song on a 2x speed, or half the speed. That might not
sound very pleasant. The words might either be too jumbled or too dragged out. In either case,
the song might not sound pleasant or comprehensible to the audience. Each song is made to a
specific rhythm or tempo because it suits the context and the atmosphere of the song.

1. High speed usually indicates energy and a constant influx or flow of thoughts. Low speed
usually indicates that something of importance is being said. By playing with the speed of
your speech (spoken words), you can highlight certain parts of your presentation or text.
2. A certain overall rhythm ought to be established in your presentation. It should neither
go too fast nor too slow. Some parts might be covered somewhat quickly due to their
being lower on the ladder of importance, while other parts might need more time to be
fleshed out and explained properly and adequately.
3. As the author of your own presentation, you should be
able to tell the parts that need more time investment “The success of your
than others. By allocating the right amount of time to presentation will be
each part, you make sure that the message has been judged not by the
delivered effectively and efficiently. knowledge you send but
by what the listener
4. French Composer Claude Debussy once said, “Music is
receives.”
the silence between the notes.” We often fail to direct
the right attention to silence, and we believe that the – Lilly Walters
more we speak, the better our performance. But that is
not always necessarily true. Sometimes, certain pauses,
certain very well-measured periods of silence, can be very effective at delivering a specific
message. Utilize silence to your advantage to build up suspense or to let certain
information sink in for your audience. When used correctly, this technique can be very
useful.
o Be careful not remain silent for too long; otherwise, you may create prolonged
periods of awkward silence that eat away at the quality and effectiveness of your
presentation and speech.
5. Sometimes, we forget what we were trying to say, and we immediately succumb to
repeated bouts of “Uhm’s” and “Ahhh’s”. Try to minimize these occurrences by taking a
deep silent breath in which you recheck your cue cards so that you can offer the
smoothest transition from one idea to the next, or from one section of your presentation
to another.
6. Make sure you don’t stare at your cards for too long. This could easily be understood as
evidence of lack of preparation. Cue cards are just that: cue cards. They are meant to

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 remind you of the next point of discussion. It is not a script from which you constantly
read, nor a tool that you should constantly resort to. If you’ve rehearsed your
presentation well, your references to the cue cards should be minimal.
7. To take your presentation to the next level, try it without cue cards at all!

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

It can be safely said that if all the aforementioned elements are combined with great wisdom and
foresight, a speaker is bound to make a decent performance. Of course, no one is expecting
world-class oration or award-winning public speaking performances. But we do need to show
that we know what we are talking about, that we are capable of organizing our thoughts into a
cohesive, intelligible whole, and that we are capable of having this kind of conversation or
dialogue with an audience without crumbling into a mess of anxiety and nervousness.

Public speaking is a skill like many. With practice, improvement is bound to happen, but if the
only time you perform is when you are being graded, then you are bound to make mistakes that
you could have avoided by thorough and intensive training and rehearsal. By keeping in mind the
following elements, we can certainly elevate our public oratory skills to the next level:

1. Preparation and Research

2. A Clear Sense of Purpose
3. Cohesion, Structure, and Development
4. Posture, Composure, and Confidence
5. Nods, Gestures, and Facial expressions
6. Voice, Volume, and Vivacity
7. Rhythm/Tempo

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WHAT DO I GAIN FROM BECOMING A BETTER PUBLIC SPEAKER?

Clearly enough, there is a huge different between a person who knows how to attract people’s
attention by speaking, who knows how to speak articulately, effectively, and coherently, and the
one who doesn’t. In the future, you will be asked to deliver numerous presentations, not only in
college, but also in the workplace.

In various instances throughout your life, you might find yourself

staring at an audience that expects to connect with you in one way “Always give a speech
or another during a presentation, a lecture, or an explanation. that you would like to
hear.”
Audiences might be small or big; they might be made up of close
acquaintances or complete strangers; but regardless of that, you – Andrii Sedniev
can make huge, and long-lasting impression by portraying yourself
as a person who is not daunted by presentations and speeches.

To hone the skill of public speaking as early on as possible gives you leverage over others with
whom you are competing, either for a particular top-notch grade in a course or a classroom, or
for a potential position or a job at a company you would like to work with. In fact, speaking skills
can have life-changing benefits and can translate into effectivity in numerous facets of your life.

A Meaningful Boost to Your Confidence

Again, given the choice between a person with high levels of self-esteem and confidence,
appealing charisma, and engaging social skills, and a person who lacks these characteristics,
college professors or business professionals would always opt for the former when a challenging
task looms in the distance. And believe or not, challenging circumstances or instances that
require or necessitate solid speaking skills are aplenty, but good speakers are not. By gaining that
edge over the competition, you can stand out as a formidable speaker whose words are worth
listening and who deserves an investment in both time and attention. When you witness the
fruits of your hard labor, when you finally realize how effective of a speaker you are, this gives
you an immense feeling of self-satisfaction. Knowing that you can be put under the spotlight and
that you can manage yourself well under such pressure and such circumstances (especially when
it takes place around strangers) can be very empowering.

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Better Critical and Analytical Thinking

By being a cognizant public speaker, a speaker who gauges audience reactions, who knows and
feels how well he or she is maintaining and retain audience attention, you develop the capacity
to know what works and what is effective during public speaking, what doesn’t. You learn to
analyze information more deeply, to draw sounder conclusions from a given set of data, and to
think more critically about topics or issues while sharing them with others.

Higher Levels of Emotional Intelligence / Superior Communication Skills

A person who knows how to connect with others and how to communicate efficiently with them
is far ahead in terms of emotional intelligence and communication skills than a person who does
not know how to carry out a conversation (and as we said, public speaking is a form of
conversation making and maintaining). Many forget that public speaking is in the end a dialogue
that you are trying to have; the only difference is that you’re having this discussion with a sizeable
number of people, not one or two.

Public speaking goes beyond just speaking from behind a podium or speaking from a stage.
Imagine you’re at college or at work, and you’re sitting around a table with your colleagues, and
it is your turn to speak and to make your point clear. You have only a few seconds to capture your
colleagues’ attention and to show them that you have something of import to share. If you are
to be taken seriously and if you are to be listened to, and if your words are to carry the importance
that they may intrinsically carry, effective speaking is a must.

Effective Persuasive and Argumentative Skills

Again, whether in academia or the professional world, quite often you’ll be asked to make an
argument and then defend it to the last breath; otherwise; why do you hold the beliefs or the
convictions that you do have? Failure to drive your ideas home and failure to make an intellectual
stand in front of others can sometimes indicate that you do not actually know what you are
talking about, and that someone else with better delivery skills might just be worth listening to
more. Whether you are writing a paper to your college professor or chipping a project proposal
to your boss, you not only need to be well prepared (go back to our section on research and
preparation) but also compelling enough in your speech so that your ideas appeal to an audience.
Keep in mind that not all audiences might be as benign as your high school mates might be. Some
audiences (again, small or large) might be difficult to deal with, and difficult to please. By
consistently practicing public speaking, you help set yourself apart from others.
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Successful Leaders are Often Successful Speakers

We cannot deny the close link between successful leaders and effective speaking skills. Think
back on some major figures of history, like Revered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, Winston
Churchill, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, J. F. Kennedy, and Nelson Mandela. They all managed
to rally people around them, to unite people, and to agitate emotions and motivation with their
speech alone. Of course, we do not need to be speakers on the level of these titanic, influential
figures of history, but we should at least be able to communicate ourselves as clearly and as
effectively as possible with the people around us. Yes, not everyone is cut out to become an
inspirational speaker (although that might be a great ambition to have, if not necessarily
desirable), but most people do have the ability to hone their speaking skills when faced with
everyday challenges and obstacles.

If you aspire to become a leader at the college of your choice, or at a workplace where you aspire
to succeed, speaking well can provide a ticket to higher levels of success.

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ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS (PREPARED OR IMPROMPTU)

1. Tell us about who you are and what you enjoy doing.
2. Tell us about where you come from and why it means something to you.
3. Tell us about a movie/TV show/book/song/play you saw/read/listened to, and why you liked
or disliked it.
4. Tell us about an activity that you like to partake in regularly and why it means something to
you.
5. Tell us about a person you genuine look up to and why he or she has that kind of impact on
you.
6. Tell us about an adventure you once experienced and what made it such a memorable one.
7. Tell us about where you see yourself in 10, 20, and 30 years from today.
8. What are some recommendations that you would give to someone who is struggling with
depression or anxiety?
9. What are some advice that you would give to someone who might not be feeling at home
within their school, college, or community?
10. What are some countries (or just one) that you would recommend visiting, and why?
11. What are some restaurants (or just one) that you would recommend trying, why?
12. What are some mobile phone applications that you use on a constant basis, and why would
you recommend them to others?

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