Today we talk about how to prepare a speech. Someone said: "A speech well-prepared is nine-tenths delivered". It means careful preparation of your presentaion is key important among the many presentation tips. Here are pointers on preparing a speech. The first thing you should ask yourself on how to prepare a speech is why are speaking before an audience? Is it because you have something important to say or is it because you have been assigned the task of communicating ideas to a group of people? What I am saying here is you must know precisely what is your objective. The purpose in making that presentation.
1. To inform
2. To persuade
3. To recommend
4. A combination of some or all of the above
By knowing the objective of your presentation will determine how you go about preparing a speech and also on the presentation itself. Which means now you know which appropriate topic to pick and how you are going to present it.
Gather your speech materials right away after you have been asked to present it, even if your speaking date is six months away. Do it right away because your best ideas, the fastest pace and the most progress will be made on your speech materials when you are asked to do it because that's when your enthusiasm is at its peak.
Start collecting ideas, stories, quotations, visuals and etc. Browse through magazines, trade journals, newspapers, and the internet for relevant materials.
The next key point on how to prepare a speech is making an initial outline of your speech. Look over all your gathered speech materials. Then write a rough outline. Organize your ideas, so that one leads logically to the next. Write down your connecting thoughts. You are now plotting the flight path of your speech. You don't need to write in full complete sentences. Just capture the basic thoughts and the angle you are going to approach your presentation.
Your ouline does not contain just the points you want to make, but how you want to present them. Select what will go into the introduction, body, and speech conclusion. Decide what will best get the audience’s attention, for instance a a startling statistics or an interesting anecdote for introduction. The body of the presentation is where you want to place the bulk of your presentation. Probably you want to beef it up with figures or the latest findings to support each point. Make sure the evidence you choose relates to the point. If you have a thirty-minute presentation, have enough material here to cover twenty-five of your minutes. The opening and closing material should not take more than two to three minutes each. Finish off your speech with one of those though-provoking public speaking quotes or even a humorous funny one-liner.
The final part of how to prepare a speech is to practise or rehearse your presentation aloud using the outline of your speech materials.
This will help you time your speech and also to check its coherence. If you want you can record your rehearsal and then you can find out where are your flaws. For example those unconscious verbal habits like staring every sentence with " And then" or ending every sentence with "yeah?". A couple of rehearsal will help you immensely in term of confidence and eloquence.
All these tips on how to prepare a speech are essential if you want to give a persuasive speaking or effective presentation. It is easy, fun and educational at the same time. Do you know that a well-prepared speech will take away 95% of the fear of public speaking phobia or speech anxiety?
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