You’ve just had the best idea that you’ve ever had for a great speech. You can see it in your mind’s eye so very, very clearly. Now if only you could write a speech that would allow you to get this idea across to your audience as clearly as you see it. Hmm, perhaps there is a way. I’ve got 5 speech writing tips for you that just might help you turn your idea into your audience’s idea…
Don’t Change The Way That You Speak
When we go to write a speech, we often change both the vocabulary and the tone of the words that we use. We start to write to impress, instead of focusing on trying to inform our audience. The next time you write a speech you need to be careful to not do this – no matter how good your audience’s listening skills are, they won’t be able to pay attention to what you are saying if you use the wrong words.
Instead, try to use the words that you normally use in conversation and make the flow of your words match the way that you normally talk. Doing this will make your speech sound more natural to your audience and it will be that much easier for you to read it.
Use Understandable Words
More important than any presentation tips that you use, your ability to connect with your audience is going to be based on the words that you use in your speech. Since you have a limited amount of time to both give your speech and to keep your audience’s attention, make every word count.
When you are writing your speech use precise words. Back up the statements that you make with concrete data. Doing this will make it easy for your audience to understand and to accept the points that you make.
Build On Your Audience’s Experiences
The audience that sits before you during a speech probably shares something in common – that’s why they are there. Take the time while you are writing to picture your audience and ask yourself what it is that ties them together.
Once you know what this is, work it into your speech. Use their shared experiences as a building block for the points that you are going to be making. Doing this helps them to more easily accept what you are saying.
Variety Is Your Friend
The importance of public speaking is something that we all take for granted – it’s important and so that’s why we’re doing it. This also means that the one thing that your audience doesn’t want to be is bored. Take the time to make your sentences different from each other. This means that you need to make your sentences different lengths, and they need to use different structures.
The one thing that you need to be very careful about is introducing too much variety when it comes to the words that you use. If you make your audience have to think about what a word means, then they’ll spend their time doing that and not paying attention the message that you are trying to get across to them.
Write An Invisible Speech
Finally, the best kind of speech is the one that your audience can’t even see. If you do a good job of writing your speech, then your audience won’t be able to remember that they are listening to a prepared speech, they’ll just think that you are up there talking to them.
The key to doing this well is to go light on the number of facts that you include in your speech. Too many facts and you’ll end up reminding your audience that you are reading a speech to them. Just enough facts and they’ll accept you as an expert in the area that you are talking about!
What All Of This Means For You
Speakers who want to connect with their audience need to write speeches that will clearly communicate the points that they want to make – this is one of the benefits of public speaking. In order to make this happen, the next time you write a speech you need to use the 5 tips that we discussed here.
These include writing the way that you speak, you should use precise terms, you should build on the experiences that your audience has had, make use of variety, and write in a way that your speech doesn’t get in the way of your message.
Take the time to use these suggestions the next time that you are writing a speech and you’ll create a masterpiece that allows you to truly connect with your audience and change their lives.
- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: What’s the best way to test a speech that you’ve written to see if it will really work with your audience before you give it?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
So how hip and cool are you? If you are both hip and cool, then I don’t even have to tell you what “Pecha Kucha” is because you already know. If, however, you are like the rest of us, then you might be scratching your head right about now and saying something like “I’ve never heard of it and, by the way, how do you even pronounce that?” I’ll answer your questions in reverse order. It’s pronounced “Paw-Chalk-Ahh-Cha”. Now what it is will take just a bit longer to explain…
