Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout
hey guys,
I've been public speaking for a long long time, competitively for over 10 years.
The best advice I can give you is to go over your presentation with someone who is good at it, and can analyze your style. Everyone's speaking style is different so for me to say do x, y, and z isn't really going to help much.
A few things:
1 - If you speak with something in your hand, people will watch what's in your hand and not listen to you, or your presentation.
2 - It's ok to trip over your words, or say the wrong thing. What I do when I trip over my words, repeat what I was supposed to say, if I still trip over my words say something like "blablahblahlibbity blah blah, ok now to try and speak English again". Draw attention to your mistake with humour, it'll make people remember your point, and be more effective in keeping people's attention
3 - Outline what you're talking about, ie:
I'm going to talk about A, B, and C, then talk about A, say you're moving onto B, then C, then recap, I told you about A, B, and C.
4 - Eye contact, if you're more comfortable picking three spots/people in the room look at them, and make eye contact with them. Eye contact helps keep people's attention.
5 - Speak as if you were talking to your friends, what I mean by that is tone, rate, volume. Just becuase it's a presentation don't pick up the pace and speak at 2x the normal rate.
6 - It's ok to slow things down, if you notice yourself speaking too fast (generally what happens when you're nervous public speaking) between points, pause, take a breath, not only will this calm you down and give you a chance to recollect yourself, but it also can add effect going into your next point.
Anything else, questions etc, PM me I'm happy to help
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