Sunday, February 1, 2009

Introduction

Greetings!

As you are evidently reading this post, might I begin with a short but informative introduction.
Our first topic in which we tackle is public speaking. We all have to do it at some point; there's no point in denying it. Some love it, and some hate it, but it's still an everyday part of life.
For those that are uncomfortable with public speaking, you'd be surprised at how much it can benefit you, and not just for giving speeches or presentations. It can:
-Bolster your morale
-Help your social skills
-Make you more verbally articulate and clear
-And just genuinely be a lot of fun

Public speaking, as I've found, is easiest to 'learn' when you know someone that is proficient at publicly speaking. I've done my fair share of speeches, and got plenty of compliments at the end, but I'm sure an unknown person just randomly writing a blog doesn't really qualify as a superb role model. So try someone higher up, such as Barack Obama.
Barack Obama's ability to orate clearly and yet with unmistakable meaning has swept hundreds of people off their feet around the world overseas. Apart from his excellent economic, diplomatic, and international plans, his ability to successfully 'capture' his audience has been argued to have won him the presidential seat in the White House, where he sits now.
It is simply amazing to watch him speak, to use words in such elegant style that he does, to use such pivotal body language, and to see a truly flabbergasting speaker talk with such style. So how does he do it?
The key thing is his simple calmness. His unmistakable knowing of what he's going to say, who's he talking to, and how he's going to say it are some of the most crucial and significant qualities of his oration techniques.
As any good orator knows, there are principles in which you must simply have in your speeches, presentations, or other. In any public speaking, you must:

- Know your speech (or presentation, but for the sake of these bullet points, we'll go with speech)

- Know your audience

- Connect with your audience

- Use appropriate body language

- And, most of all, do not show how nervous you are.

The simple fact that I am saying this should not be new to anyone, but completely unavoidable. Evidently, you are going to be nervous. Anyone who is not nervous before or during a major speech or presentation is either on many calming pills, immune to their personal emotions, or simply knows their speech cold. No matter how you slice and dice it, you most likely will be nervous.
But the thing is, when it comes to serious public speaking, you can't afford it. Imagine if Barack Obama was standing their, his eyes scanning the crowd like bugs over a fire and was biting his nails. Would you vote for him?
Even if his speech was good, that pause in which you thought, why is he so nervous? Could cost anyone a few votes, which could mean the difference between crying into a napkin for four years or being on the next first class airplane to D.C.

As a conclusion, might I thank you for reading our first blog, and hopefully this will be a start to an interesting and educational discussion. As a future look at next week's blog, we'll go more into knowing and connecting with your audience. Until then, thanks for reading!

-Fresh Writing

1 comment:

  1. This is very helpful! I actually can use this stuff for the speech that was uh due today.... but yeah good job! thats some good advice and i guarentee people will take this advice and use it in their own writing and it would be because you had the guts and talent to write this for people who struggle (...me....) and help them suceed!

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