Public Speaking Do and Don’t
 Take slow, deep breaths before you start to speak. Most people, when
they are tense, take short, shallow breaths, which only strengthen their
anxiety. Breathe from your diaphragm. Deep breathing breaks this cycle of
tension and helps calm your nerves. For example, take a breath at the end of
each phrase whether you need to or not. Use that opportunity to pause and
let the listeners absorb what you say.
 Work particularly hard on your introduction. Research has shown that a
speaker’s anxiety level begins to drop considerably after the first 30 seconds
of a presentation. Once you get through the introduction, you should find
smoother sailing the rest of the way.
 Don’t be afraid of what will happen if you make a mistake. The public
doesn’t know what you’re gonna say anyway. And making a mistake can
even make the speaker more human. Once you free your mind of these
burdens, you will find it much easier to move toward your speeches with
confidence and even with enthusiasm.
 Be at your best physically and mentally. It’s not a good idea to stay up
until 4:00 a.m. partying with friends or cramming for an exam the night
prior to your speech. A good night’s sleep will serve you better.
 Don’t be monotonous - use tonality of your voice. Make stresses where
necessary. Lower tonality generally is more soothing to hear. However,
modulating your pitch for emphasis will keep your listeners engaged and
will wake them up every time you change it. Develop your pitch by
practicing humming.
 Moderate your volume – Find out if you speak too loudly or too softly. Try
to stay at the appropriate volume throughout your speech. Don’t be afraid of
your voice and try your best to project it through the air and pass the
information on to your listeners.
 Moderate your pace – This one is also closely related to breath. If you
speak too quickly, people can’t keep up. Learn to stop and make pauses,
give your audience the time to draw the picture of what you’re saying and
understand it. But also don’t speak too slowly, people will lose interest.
 Loosen up before you begin. Look side to side. Roll your head in half-
circles and roll your shoulders back. Shift your rib cage from side to side.
Yawn. Stretch. Touch your toes while completely relaxing your upper body,
then slowly stand up.
 Keep eye contact – give your public eye contact to create a strong
connection with the individuals in the room. But avoid jumping the eyes
very quickly. Move to another person when you finish the sentence or the
idea or there is a logical stop like a coma or a hyphen. Keeping eye contact
will help you to slow your speech down and feel more confident.
 Don’t fidget and try to avoid, phase out or transform fidgety movement and
nervous ticks such as shaking your leg, tapping your fingers against the
table, touching your clothes or hair rapidly. You’ll seem nervous and
fidgeting can be a distracting when you try to get something across. Try to
relax, slow down and focus your movements.
  Translated into real terms...
PUBLIC SPEAKING Function Language
Introducing the subject Giving an example
Structure
 I'd like to start by...  For example,...
1. Beginning - Short introduction  A good example of this is...
 I’d like to begin by…
 Let's begin by...  As an illustration,...
 welcome your audience  To give you an example,...
 First of all, I'll...
 introduce your subject  To illustrate this point...
 Starting with...
 explain the structure of your presentation
 I'll begin by...
 explain rules for questions
 I’ve chosen this topic because… Dealing with questions

2. Middle - Body of presentation  We'll be examining this point in more detail later
Finishing one subject...
on...
 present the subject itself  I'd like to deal with this question later, if I may...
 Well, I've told you about...
 That's all I have to say about...  I'll come back to this question later in my talk...
3. End - Short conclusion
 We've looked at...  Perhaps you'd like to raise this point at the end...
 So much for...  I won't comment on this now...
 summarise your presentation
 thank your audience ...and starting another Summarising and concluding
 invite questions
 Moving on to…  So to sum up…
4. Questions and Answers
 Turning to…  In conclusion,...
 Now we'll move on to...  Right, let's sum up, shall we?
 Let me turn now to...  I'd like now to recap...
 Next...  Let's summarize briefly what we've looked at...
 Turning to...  Finally, let me remind you of some of the issues
we've covered...
 I'd like now to discuss...
 If I can just sum up the main points...
 Let's look now at...

Ordering
Analysing a point and giving recommendations

 Firstly...secondly...thirdly...lastly...
 What I mean is…
 First of all...then...next...after that...finally...
 Where does that lead us?
 To start with...later...to finish up...
 Let's consider this in more detail...
 Last but not least…
 What does this mean for ABC?