- You're going to learn a method of public speaking that
gives professional speakers that comfortable conversational sound. It's called extemporaneous speaking which is a misunderstood word. The key reason to use
extemporaneous speaking is that it gives you the most versatility and it's a flexible approach and it's the one that
most listeners prefer. There are other speaking
styles that audiences do not tend to enjoy that
many speakers often use when they should not, so let's look at some options to put
extemporaneous speaking in context. For example, most audiences
don't wanna listen to speakers who are reading word for word directly from a manuscript. This is called manuscript speaking and it usually sounds dry and robotic. The speaker barely makes eye contact and stands motionless at
a podium as they read. It can be done well but some speakers can read
a teleprompter, for example and you can't even tell they're reading. They sound natural, but
that takes talent, practice. Those are typically
professional politicians or TV personalities who
do this for a living and they have speech writers
who write like they talk but when the average speaker
reads right from their notes and looks down, most of the
time listeners don't like that. You might remember what it sounds like when a student is reading
their paper assignment in front of the class. That's what most speakers sound like when they use the manuscript
style of speaking. If you wanna lose your audience, as I say, this is a great approach,
but it is a useful point of comparison for a video like this. Another style that listeners tend not to enjoy is memorization. A memorized speech means that the speaker memorizes
literally every word, that can sound just as
mechanical as reading. You can even hear that the
speaker uses a deliberate or calculated intonation and even uses maybe
the same exact gestures that they practiced but total memorization
does have some uses, for example, actors memorize dialogue. Performance artists might memorize a poem or a portion of a poem, but
memorization is really difficult and it has almost no payoff for your average
professional presentation. The method I'm recommending
is extemporaneous speaking. This works best for almost all public speaking
in professional settings. Big picture, this usually
involves a detailed outline at least at first, not a
word for word manuscript, and you would practice your presentation numerous times beforehand. You would eventually reduce
those detailed outlines to what we call speaking
notes, just keywords or phrases only about three to five words per line. Your speaking notes would end up looking like a bulleted list of items
you planned to talk about. You put those on a note card or a small pad of paper and you just refer to them when you need
to during the speech. That's big picture. Now, there are some advantages
to this approach, lots. Through that preparation process, the speaker gets to know his or her stuff well enough
to speak conversationally without relying on their notes. Extemporaneous speaking allows
you to adapt your message to your listeners as you go. You can expand some
illustrations if you need to. You can compress or cut other parts depending
upon the situation. If you prepared a 30 minute presentation and you end up being told you
only have 25 minutes to do it, an extemporaneous approach allows you to cut that five minutes or even more and nobody's gonna know the difference. At it's best, extemporaneous
speaking sounds like a structured conversation. You have maximum flexibility like this 'cause you're totally prepared. You can't do those
things with a manuscript or a fully memorized speech. For extemporaneous speaking, your notes are there mostly
to keep you on track. They're like a safety net in case you lose your
place or draw a blank. Ideally, you might just glance down at your notes every 30 or
60 seconds as a reminder but you have notes and that
still allows for some specifics. Of course, like I always write out my most important direct
quotations word for word so I don't misquote somebody important. I write out important
names or exact statistics but overall I don't need to
frame those isolated specifics in a larger word for word style outline. I'll show you an example of how to prepare your
notes and practice this in a moment, but first I wanted to clarify a very common misunderstanding that I referred to earlier. Sometimes people refer to
this extemporaneous style as speaking impromptu. In everyday conversation, I've heard people
interchange these words often but that's not accurate when it comes to specific
styles of public speaking. Impromptu speaking and
extemporaneous speaking are two different styles,
and this is not my opinion. In speaking competitions
in college, for example, these are two different categories. I used to judge and coach
speaking competitions when I was in graduate school. Impromptu means speaking
in the spur of the moment, what some people call "Off
the cuff," or "On the fly." Impromptu speaking
involves little or no time to prepare beforehand and it's
usually done with no notes or maybe just a couple of
scribbles on a scrap of paper. You might have just seconds
to gather your thoughts. In speaking competitions for example, impromptu speakers might be
given a topic or quotation to react to and they have two minutes to prepare a five to seven
minute speech, for example. In a professional setting,
your boss might say to you unexpectedly in a
meeting, "Julie, tell us how your high priority
projects are going," and Julie has just a few seconds
to think about what to say. In essence, she'll be
thinking as she's speaking, that's impromptu or maybe
she'll have the benefit of a couple of minutes to
prepare because her boss says, "In a couple of minutes, I'd like to hear from you all about your
high priority projects." That gives Julie a minute or
so right there in the room to jot down a few bullet points but she still has no time to practice or gather materials or
anything that compares to an extemporaneous speech approach. Now they do have a couple
of things in common. Ideally, both impromptu and extemporaneous speaking
sounds conversational, that's why they're sometimes
confused and neither of them in the end involve
extensive speaking notes. The key difference is that extemporaneous
presentations have the benefit of lots of time for behind the scenes research,
preparation, and practice. Let's get even more hands-on and I'll show you how to adjust your notes as you prepare and practice in the days leading up to an
extemporaneous presentation. There are essentially two ways to end up with very basic speaking notes with just keywords or phrases. I don't recommend the first approach but some speakers I know insist that they have to do it this way as part of their creative process. The first approach is to start with a full word for word
draft of your entire message. Essentially, this is like a really rough draft
of a manuscript speech. Some speakers like to go through this because they want to get all of their ideas on paper just to figure out what it is
they really wanna say. They know they're not
gonna read these notes when they present, the draft
is just part of the process. From there, they revise their notes by shaping them into a detailed
outline that's structured around an introduction, body, conclusion, the body of the presentation
then usually has just three or four main points. This draft outline will be almost as long as their original rough draft manuscript but the structure will be more clarified but I don't recommend
starting with a full word for word manuscript because
it's too easy to lead to a speaker wanting to just
read a cleaned up version of these notes, like
they're reading a paper. I recommend the second method which is essentially skipping
that word for word rough draft and begin with that
extremely detailed outline of the entire message. This outline usually has lots
of full sentences at first. This type of outline is superior to what you would've come up
with in a word for word draft of a message because it's
usually stuffed with all of the quotations, research, citations. The first outline is
usually much more detailed and longer than your
final presentation will be because you're not cutting
anything just yet at this stage. I always view my first detailed outline as an organized curated database of material I can use
as a jumping off place. I give myself permission to put anything and everything I want in my first outline. Now, let's say you're at the point where you have that first
big outline researched and prepared and you're ready to practice and read through it. Let's call this day one. We'll pretend we are three days away from your actual presentation. On day one, I'm not really concerned
about how it sounds as a speech or a presentation yet. It won't sound smooth. I just talk through the outline to myself. I just mutter through it a
few times to make sure all of the big pieces are in the right place and everything I'd potentially
like to include is there. I read through it a few times like this. I cut and revise as I go and then I put it aside and sleep on it. On day two, the next day, I
would make the first big cut, so start cutting the pieces
that you can already tell don't work or don't need to be there. This will make the message
clearer and easier to follow. You keep the best off and toss anything that's not working well. You cut extra words that you don't need. That means you'd be rewriting your notes and cleaning them up by cutting about 50% from your original outline. Each full page of notes now
becomes about a half page of notes with more space and your sentences are getting
shorter and then you talk through it a few more times and you edit as you go on day two. You're not trying to
say anything perfectly or memorize exactly how
you'd say it as you practice, don't try to repeat sentences
the same way each time as you talk through it, keep it conversational as you practice. You're just learning how to talk about the ideas and becoming more fluent with the specifics of the information. This is the process of internalizing the material
so you know your stuff. I usually make small changes deliberately each time I tell a story
or share an example so I'm not tempted to
memorize exact sentences. As long as I hit the
key ideas along the way, I consider that a victory. I usually time myself
on day two to make sure that I'm at least in the general ballpark of what the time limit is. If I'm over time, I look
for ways to simplify, find ways to compress what I'm saying. As much as you can, you look up from your
notes as you practice, stretch yourself to recall what comes next instead of looking down
every chance you get. I practice a few times
like this on day two and then I put it aside
and sleep on it again. On day three, this is the
day before the presentation, you repeat the process. This is your second big cut
where you cut another 50% of the words from your outline. This second cut might
involve cutting examples and illustrations from the
notes if you're still over time but will more likely
mean you're cutting down from full sentences in your
notes so they are getting closer and closer to phrases or
even single key words. Your original full page of notes
is now just about a quarter of a page of line spaces
and in terms of words, is really just a skeleton outline. It should look like a bulleted list of items you'll talk about but the actual content hasn't disappeared. You've just absorbed it to
the point where one bullet of notes will keep you
talking for 30 seconds or more because you know the rest of the story. A goal at this point is to have
one nicely spaced note card for about every minute
you'd like to speak. So a 10 minute presentation
would have just 10 note cards with keywords only. You'd again talk through
your outline a few more times on day three, you'd end
up making small edits and revisions each time to your notes. This is the day before
the actual presentation. It's like a dress rehearsal,
so I stand up as I practice, I gesture as I talk, take it comfortably. I pretend I'm talking to
an audience essentially. I recommend timing yourself each time you practice the day
before, so you sound concise. Make every effort not
to look at your notes. You have to fight that urge and this should be getting easier. Many speakers look at their
notes out of a nervous habit by this point, not because
they really need to look down. So practice with your eyes up and if you truly forget
what you're gonna say next, just glance at your notes and look right back up and
pretend to make eye contact. I practice it about three times
like this on the day before and then I put it aside and sleep on it. The next day is speech day. Here we are and I always make one last cut to my notes. The morning of a presentation, I wake up early, I rewrite my notes on cards one last time to
make sure they're clean and clear and easy to
see when I glance down. I make even more cuts
to words and phrases. A story that used to be a long paragraph on a full page now can
show up on the notes just as a key phrase or even a single word. On the morning of, I always practice my
introduction and conclusion a few extra times to make
sure I go through that. Also any tricky parts I
go through one more time. In total, these three days
of practice usually means that you'll mutter through or actually practice your
presentation about 10 times, let's say three times each
day, and then one extra rep through the tricky parts
the morning of the speech. This is usually what it
takes to get that confident, conversational sound that
professional speakers have. This may sound like a lot of work but the good news is this,
if you prepare like this, you'll be automatically in about the top 5% of
speakers in your context. Most speakers practice just
one or maybe two times. All of your behind the scenes efforts will make your presentation
sound effortless on the day. As mentioned, you can use
the extemporaneous style in almost any and all
professional situations. That's not true for manuscript, memorized,
or impromptu speaking. Feel free to take a look
at the free resources on my website, including these seven tips to instantly make you a
more confident speaker. Thanks, God bless, see you soon.
