Articles tagged: speech humor

Having a speech disorder—whether it’s a stutter, a slur, or a lisp—can make a presentation extremely frightening.

I should know. I’ve had a lisp for my entire life.

Though I’ve gone through years of therapy to correct it, I still have difficulties with the letters S and Z. I have always been very self-conscious of it. When speaking in public, I’m afraid of how it will affect my message.

I understand that my lisp isn’t going to magically disappear. I’ve accepted that. I’ve also decided that it won’t hold me back. I didn’t want to miss out on a wonderful opportunity just because I sound a little weird on certain sounds. Because of this decision, I’ve given speeches which include the classic best man speech, award acceptance speeches, and persuasive presentations helping people to change their lives.

In this article, I’ll share five tips for gaining confidence as a speaker when you have a speech disorder.

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This article reviews the 2006 TED talk by Ken Robinson about whether our education system kills creativity. As I write this speech analysis, his talk is the most-viewed TED talk in history. Not surprisingly, it is rich with lessons for speakers.

Robinson’s talk demonstrates many lessons, including:

• Reference shared experiences or beliefs
• Signal key statements
• Tell stories
• Use humor
• Use rhetorical questions

This is the latest in a series of speech critiques here on Six Minutes.

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Effective use of speech pauses is a master technique.

If you do it right, nobody is conscious of your pauses, but your ideas are communicated more persuasively.

If you do it wrong, your credibility is weakened, and your audience struggles to comprehend your message.

In this article, we examine:

• benefits of effective speech pauses;
• techniques for using pauses naturally (there are more than you think); and
• communications research which provides clues to why pauses help us communicate effectively.

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The floor is open for discussion. You have a burning question that you want to ask, but as you try to formulate it, someone asks a different question and the topic has moved on.

Have you ever been at an industry conference, a PTA meeting, or a community gathering where you wanted to stand up and voice your opinion, but couldn’t find the words or didn’t have the confidence to put yourself out there?

This article shows how you can gain public speaking confidence using an unlikely method — by practicing improv comedy.

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Confessions of a Public Speaker is a highly entertaining and insightful insider’s view of public speaking, with value for speakers of all levels.

This article is the latest of a series of public speaking book reviews here on Six Minutes.

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In the first two articles of this series, we learned how using the rule of three can improve your speeches by [1] writing triads of words, phrases, and sentences and [2] by applying three-part speech outlines.

In this article, you will learn how adding an unexpected twist to the third element can add power or humor to your speech.

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