In This Issue
- Presentation Rehearsal: 5 Top Techniques
- Speaker's Corner
- Quotation Marks
- Art of Presentation Gallery
- Training Calendar
With the late Princess of Wales in the news headlines again this month's speaker's corner is very apt, even after ten years.
The speaker was Lord Spencer and the occasion was his sister's funeral service at Westminster in 1997:
"My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this: a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age."
Ten years on and these words remain very appropriate.
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950.
This month we look at a pen and ink picture of David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George by Harry Furniss. The picture is housed in the National Portrait Gallery in London and shows Lloyd George as the Member of Parliament for Caernarfon.
Beyond his 55 year tenure in Caernarfon, Lloyd George earned a distinctive place in Britain's history and his talented oratory and public speaking skills contributed to a series of senior government posts - Chancellor, Minister of War and Prime Minister.
The gallery has a number of fine pictures of this great orator.
Whilst we might not be able to help you replicate Lloyd George's considerable political feats we can certainly assist you with public speaking training.
The schedule for PresentPerfect training courses in March is now available and includes training days in both Leeds and Manchester - new presentation training centres.
Telling it Straight
Welcome to Telling it Straight - the newsletter dedicated to presentation skills. In this edition we look at essential rehearsal techniques for presenters.
We also have our regular Speakers Corner, Quotation Marks and Art of Presentation Gallery sections.
Presentation Rehearsal: 5 Top Techniques
Mastering the art of presentation requires practice and rehearsal. It's true that a touch of anxiety makes for a better performance but too much anxiety has the opposite effect.
When we are over-anxious about our presentation the raw emotion that makes for a successful presentation performance is replaced by a faltering, unstructured and disorganized speech.
Preparation and rehearsal are vital when we need to manage this mix of emotion. These 5 effective rehearsal techniques will boost our performance when we present.
1. Sit down and read silently. We should typeset and format our presentation as if we intended to read it to our audience. We start each sentence on a new line and we format with double line spacing. Our choice of typeface and font should be for legibility and not style -- and we use upper case characters only for the beginning of sentences, proper names and points needing emphasis.
2. Sit down and read aloud. Once we have read through our presentation or PowerPoint deck several times we are ready to read aloud. Reading aloud is a vital memory enforcer helping us to visualize and memorize key points within the presentation.
3. Stand up and read aloud. Once we have read through our presentation several times it's good practice to do so standing up. When we stand up we can apply emphasis to those passages of the speech that require special attention. We can speak up where appropriate and single out key words with extra intonation. At this stage we should look out for words or word combinations that are difficult to pronounce.
4. Stand up, read aloud and move. With these key tasks completed we can now practise our presentation aloud -- moving around. We should walk around and move our arms -- pointing for extra emphasis perhaps. We should move our head adjusting our gaze to establish eye contact with an audience as we make each decisive point. With a mirror we can build a sense of our own mobility and speaking presence.
5. Record our presentation. Our last rehearsal step is to prepare an audio recording of ourselves. Our target is to prepare a recording that we can listen to when travelling to and from work or during a quiet moment at home or the ball game. We need to build familiarity. And with familiarity goes confidence.
These 5 simple steps enable us to prepare and rehearse our presentations to perfection. We manage our anxiety, we control our nerves and we become more comfortable with the material that we intend to present -- boosting our performance.