Knowing the characteristics of public speaking and applying them is very important to help launch your career.
Great speakers are not born, they are made. Not perfect son. It is the desire to advance in their skills to speak in public which brings them closer to perfection.
The art of public speaking goes beyond reading cue cards. Fortunately, if you have a passion, learning about the characteristics of public speaking is a great way to become one.
Public speaking can be scary if you don’t have the qualities or the eloquence to inspire. If your speaking skills aren’t good, your presentation probably won’t get the message across effectively.
The following public speaking characteristics are essential to implement your presentations to inspire, influence and have a strong impact on your audience.
What is oratory?
Basically, it is the Study of Live Presentation Techniques before an audience.
Public Speeches can cover a Wide Variety of Different Topics. The goal of the speech may be to educate, entertain, or influence listeners.
Often, visual aids in the form of an electronic slide show are used to supplement the speech and make it more interesting to listeners.
A public speaking presentation is different from an online presentation because the online presentation can be viewed and/or heard at a viewer’s convenience, whereas a public speech is generally limited to a specific time or place.
Online presentations are often made up of pre-recorded video or slide shows of a speaker (including recordings of a live public speaking presentation).
Because public speaking is done before a live audience, there are some special factors that the speaker must take into account.
The importance of knowing the characteristics of oratory
If you ask most people, they’ll probably say they don’t like public speaking. They may also admit that they are afraid, since the fear of public speaking is a very common fear.
Or they may just be shy or introverted. For those reasons, many people avoid public speaking if they can. If you are one of those people, you are missing out on an opportunity to take your career to the next level.
Over the years, public speaking has played an important role in education, government, and business. Words have the power to inform, persuade, educate, and even entertain. And the spoken word can be even more powerful than the written word in the hands of the right speaker.
Whether you are a small business owner, a UN student, or just someone who is passionate about something, you will benefit from improving your public speaking skills, both professionally and personally. Some benefits to public speaking include:
- improves the trust
- Better research skills.
- Stronger deductive skills
- Ability to advocate for causes
- And more
Public speaking is especially important for businesses as they need to get their message across to potential customers and market their business.
Salespeople and Executives are often expected to have good Public Speaking Skills.
Characteristics of the oratory: According to the speaker
1. Trust
Confidence is the most important attribute in order to make a successful presentation. A speaker who exudes self-confidence is considered more confident, accurate, knowledgeable, intelligent, and personable than a speaker who is less confident in what he is saying.
It’s natural to be nervous, but to excel at public speaking, you have to overcome your nerves.
If you’re feeling a little nervous before a performance, find a way to let it go, as the audience will never connect with you unless you do.
Involving your audience in the presentation is one of the ways to overcome fear. The key is to practice, practice and practice.
If you do a decent job here, confidence will flow naturally.
2. Passion
Passion is a strong feeling of enthusiasm for something. To effectively communicate your speech, you must have a passion for the topic. If the topic can’t get you excited, chances are it won’t get your audience excited.
Without passion, your speech is meaningless. Passion causes emotions that flow naturally. Emotions move an audience and convey the message effectively.
Emotions cannot be faked. Raising your voice and using gestures cannot replace emotions.
You need to radiate a level of sincerity in your speeches to move your audience. In order to find a passion for the topics you’re not excited about, you’ll need to do your research to find things that interest you.
3. Introspection and self-awareness
To be a successful speaker, you must first understand who you are and what your strongest qualities are.
Most successful speakers work to capitalize on their strengths. Is it humor that adds flavor to your presentation? Or is it that talent for storytelling? Understanding your strength as a speaker will allow you to effectively engage your audience.
Professional public speakers also find ways to improve their weaknesses.
To get started, you should make a list of all your best traits. Think about how these traits are expressed when giving a presentation. You should also make a list of those traits that you think are missing from your presentations.
Then you need to come up with ways to improve and incorporate the traits in a clear and concise way to make your presentation appealing.
4. Be yourself
Always be yourself and not a copy. No one can replicate you better than you.
No matter how much you’ve rehearsed for your speech, if you don’t act like yourself, your audience may see you as disingenuous. They may perceive that your idea is to try to get attention by copying a famous person or trying to take their place.
Think of it this way: If you build a website and overload it with copied or duplicate content, you won’t attract much traffic.
Authenticity is very important and goes hand in hand with the perceived credibility of whatever it is you are marketing. To be yourself, you must speak with a natural voice. Practice your speech but don’t memorize it.
5. Commitment to youyour audience
A good speech should be conversational in nature. You need to involve the audience as much as possible. This helps remove the element of boredom. Make sure your audience isn’t on their phones or laptops searching the web while you speak.
You can get them to turn off their phones by creating an engaging atmosphere. One way to achieve this is by painting a picture through storytelling, teasing, or doing some regular body-relaxing activities.
The best ways to connect with your audience are;
- Tell stories
- Be aware of your target audience
- Know the energy in the room.
- Be willing to make fun of yourself
- Work on your nonverbal body language
Oratory characteristics: According to the physical point of view
1. Speak in a natural voice
Any connection you’ve made with your audience could be broken by tones that seem “fake” or “too perfect.”
In general, you should try to speak in a conversational tone. If you say a few “ahhs” and “umms” that’s fine, don’t worry.
2. Voice modulations
If you want to be more attractive as a speaker, avoid speaking in a tone that sounds too well rehearsed, but you still want to keep the speed and modulation of your speech in mind when practicing.
To practice proper pacing, record your speech and listen to it later. You’ll be able to tell exactly when and where it starts to sound authentic.
You can still use effective voice modulations while using your natural voice.
3. Keep it short and sweet
If you only have 30 minutes to give a speech, don’t force yourself to fill the allotted time. Say what you need to say and use the remaining time for questions or to let your audience out a little early.
The main goal of giving a speech is to try to get your point across, and that might not take a full hour. You want to make sure that your presentation is easily digestible to your listeners.
If you can complete your speech in 15 minutes, do so and leave the remaining time open for questions and comments.
Research by Dianne Dukette and David Cornish (2009) shows that, on average, adults can only hold attention for about 20 minutes and that their short-term response to attention-grabbing stimulus is only seconds.
This means that when you get up in front of a crowd to present, you only have eight seconds to grab the audience’s attention.
Also, if your presentation is longer than 20 minutes, then you should break it into smaller chunks with a maximum of 20 minutes per chunk of information.
4. Word rate
Basically rate is how fast you speak.
You have to adjust that speed to suit the situation. A normal speaking speed is approximately 120 words per minute. An average listener can assimilate words up to four times that speed.
An extremely slow speaker allows the listener’s minds to wander to the point that they no longer hear what you have to say. A slow rate can also indicate that you are not interested in your topic or audience.
An extremely fast speaker risks the audience missing keywords. The key here is variation. Use your speaking pace to capture and hold your audience’s attention.
A faster rate of speech may suggest sudden emotion or action; slower rates indicate calm.
- Difficult or complex topics require you to slow down to allow the audience to absorb and process what you are saying.
- Speak faster when you communicate on more common topics.
- Your job is to learn to control the rate and use the variation of the rate to your advantage.
5. Volume
You want your bulk to reach the back of the room without weighing down those in the front row. You control it by adjusting the force with which you expel air through your vocal cords. It takes practice to trust if your volume is effective.
It is perfectly acceptable to ask those in the back rows if they can hear you. Microphones can help with this problem by allowing you to speak at a normal volume knowing that everyone will hear you.
But aside from determining whether or not your audience can hear you, your volume has other implications as well.
- Talking too soft can make you appear shy or insecure.
- You may give the impression that you are less confident in your topic.
- You could wear down an audience trying to listen.
- Talking too loud can make you seem domineering, arrogant, or inexperienced with sound equipment.
- Varying the volume can be an effective way to add emphasis or emotion.
