Total Guide to Public Speaking: Part 2 - Putting Your Speech Together

In our first edition of our guide to public speaking, we covered planning and researching the content and structure of your presentation. You will now be ready to put your speech together in a coherent and easy to follow way.

You should have enough ideas on your mind map to work with and can now sort through them and discard the less appealing or maybe less entertaining ones.

Take a large sheet of paper.  A roll of paper is ideal if you don’t have access to a flipchart.  Look at your three topics and then capture the thoughts with coloured pens or with post-its™.  You only need a keyword or two remind you of the story, joke, or the point you wish to emphasise.  

Next, move your sticky notes around on your paper until you are satisfied with the order and that all your points fit in and are relevant.  Once you are happy with the order you should now add in your introduction and your finishing statement.  This gives your speech some structure and helps the audience know where you are going and when you are finishing. 

A speech planned for twenty minutes can be timed as say an introduction the ending three minutes each leaving fourteen minutes for your main message.

Here is how your mind map might look at this stage:

Beginning your speech

The success of your speech does tend to ride on a good opening.  OK that sounds scary but you know that people decide whether they like someone in the first few seconds of meeting and it’s the same for speeches so we need to get the audience on board fast.

Your opening needs to be attention grabbing.  An advertisement or an article in a magazine uses a striking headline which makes you decide to read on.  Your opening is your headline to encourage your audience to listen.

The introduction should also be used to give some guidance to the audience and some structure to enable them to follow your reasoning.  So, comments such as “During the next ten minutes I am going to tell you some very surprising secrets about my company” gives them both an understanding of the time you will be speaking and whets their appetite for some interesting information.

And the ending.......

As with the beginning of a speech you need to signal the end. This allows you to reiterate the key moments and add your final signpost of words such as “finally” or “all it remains for me to say now.....”   If you are stuck for an ending, look for a suitable and possibly humorous quotation about your topic to bring your speech to a clear conclusion.

You should now have an opening, content (your three topics expanded) and an ending.  Check it out and make sure it meets the following criteria:

• Is my opening statement attention grabbing?  Does it reach out to the audience? Is it overtly linked to the occasion?  Will it help the listeners to relax and look forward to my next words? 
• Am I using memorable phrases or images?  The English language is very beautiful, and is full of wonderful words.  Am I using them well and conjuring up magical images in my listeners’ minds?
• Am I speaking from the heart?  Can people see how much I feel and care about the occasion through my words?  Am I appealing to their thoughts, emotions, feelings and sense of humour?
• If I use props or visuals, will they add impact or detract from my speech?
• Have I avoided all comments which could be described as racist, sexist, religious or culturally sensitive which may upset or annoy members of my audience?

If you have answered yes then you are ready to move on to the practising stage.  Practice really does make perfect.  Gary Player when congratulated by a fan on having a lucky shot is renowned for saying “I find that the more I practise the luckier I get”. 

Next month we’ll look at the rules of delivery, getting the best from your voice and handling your nerves.