How to Dress for Public Speaking

How to Dress for Public Speaking

Dec 12, 2022 | Public Speaking

Sweater or a suit? Dress or pants? Does your appearance affect how well you speak? How, if so? In this post, we look at appropriate and inappropriate attire for public speakers.

Dress to the standards of your audience

Different speaking circumstances call for different dress codes, but as a rule, you are quite safe if you are neat, clean, and dressed in the same way as your audience. Why? The third pillar of persuasion is ethos, which refers to your credibility. You accentuate your resemblance to your audience to develop ethos.

Dressing similarly to them is a useful technique to accomplish this. How can you determine what your audience will wear, then? Analyze your target audience! 

Consider the attire that attendees wore the last time if the location is a recurring conference or setting. Ask the event organizer what the typical dress code is if you are giving a presentation at a location that is unfamiliar to you. Follow the dress code if it is strict!

Pro Tip

Don’t Try to Be Hip if You’re Not.

This does not require you to dress in the same suit or outfit as the rest of your audience. There is a lot of room for interpretation. The key is to avoid either significantly under or significantly over-dressed. But I have heard I should present myself more formally than my audience? 

“It’s important that you appear respectful and professional. They should not notice what you are wearing once you start speaking, though.

According to conventional thinking, you should dress one notch higher than your audience. Why up it a notch?

  • To get noticed.
  • To be respected?
  • To allude to your success and wealth?
“You can have anything you want in life if you dress for it.”
Edith Head

None of those are especially compelling justifications for dressing above your target audience. I believe the recommendation to “dress one notch higher” is given to provide you with some insurance if your audience analysis was inaccurate. If the crowd is dressed finer than you anticipated, and you dress one notch higher than your estimated audience dress code, you will still be protected.

Of course, you can arrive overdressed if your estimate is off in the other direction. In either case, I would not worry too much. The most important thing is to appear respectful and professional. They should not notice what you are wearing once you begin speaking, though.

Public Speaking Dress Codes

What would be the opposite of dressing at (or just above) the same level as your audience, if it is a reasonable rule of thumb? The worst thing you can do is dress in a way that draws attention to you—but in the wrong way.

Cyndi Maxey issues the following advice in Speak Up! A Woman’s Guide to Presenting Like a Pro:

  • Any topic you focus on will be noticed, usually in a negative way. […] Do you like the way your new wraparound blouse fits with its lower-cut neckline? Your cleavage will be seen, you can bet. As you dress, consider what you are emphasizing. Think about what you can highlight that focuses on your knowledge and professionalism rather than your sexuality.

Action Item

Make Sure to Always dress as well or slightly better than the audience.

T-shirts featuring slogans are another common no-no, especially if the slogan can offend someone in your audience. Once more, you want people to focus on the words you say rather than the ones on your shirt.

Exception: This can be acceptable if the shirt’s message ties into your presentation. For instance, wearing a “I’m a survivor” t-shirt while speaking to raise money for cancer research may not only be suitable, but also help to establish your credibility. 

As previously advised, make sure you arrive neat and organized. If you do not, it could be taken as disrespect for your viewers.

Prepare for Clothing Mishaps and Failures

Nobody wants to have a wardrobe malfunction. Several measures to prevent these unfavorable occurrences include:

  • If you are traveling or the presentation is very essential, you might want to have a backup wardrobe. You will need that insurance in case something unexpected occurs before your presentation, like a spill.
  • Before your presentation, watch what you eat and drink. Spaghetti sauce with grape juice are not the best ideas.
  • Avoid tempting fate by wearing restrictive clothing. Speaking should be a physically demanding activity; therefore, you do not want to trip over a button or shred a seam. (I have witnessed both.)
  • Like this, you might want to avoid wearing very loose clothing or accessories that could get stuck in unexpected locations, including on a flip chart stand or a lectern.
  • But what if clothes malfunction still occurs despite your best efforts?
“Decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way you live.”
Gianni Versace

Just go with it. If you can, fix it quietly (e.g., an undone button, or an unzipped zipper). You may occasionally be the last one to observe in the space. Simply shrug it off and return to giving your audience value.

When is Going Against the Grain Acceptable?

It may be appropriate for you to disregard all conventional wisdom and draw attention with your wardrobe in some (rare) circumstances. You may consider wearing in (partial) costume that is connected to your theme, as Kristin Arnold advises in Boring to Bravo (the Six Minutes book review). The concept is that a piece of your clothing, or even an item, is used on purpose as a prop.

If you decide to do it, I advise doing it at the beginning of your presentation. You will be dressed “normally” once more by the time you are delivering the impactful messages, allowing the audience to take you seriously.

Additional Speaker Attire Considerations

Beyond how you appear while you are in front of the room, what you are wearing might have an effect. Avoid wearing or accessorizing loudly. If your shirt, jeans, or jewelry constantly draw attention away from your audience, that is not good. 

Comfort is also crucial. Wearing excessively uncomfortable clothing or shoes might have a detrimental impact on your energy level and delivery. This is crucial whether you are giving a lengthy keynote or a multi-day course. There is a gray area between respectable attire and pajamas.

“Anyone can get dressed up and glamorous, but it is how people dress in their days off that are the most intriguing.”
Alexander Wang

Will you have a microphone on you? If so, think about the location of the pin. What movements, gestures, or objects are you planning to use? 

How well do they match your outfit? Remove any potentially distracting objects before you are called upon to speak (e.g., ID badges, cell phones, sunglasses, hats)

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How to Practice for a Perfect Presentation

How to Practice for a Perfect Presentation

Dec 8, 2022 | Public Speaking

Does practice make perfect when it comes to giving presentations? No, it does not! The permanence of practice. Not just practicing, but practicing perfectly should be your aim. Whether something is right or bad, the more you do it, the more natural it feels.

Therefore, when we rehearse our presentations, we must do it correctly. Understanding a subject does not ensure success. What matters is your ability to clearly communicate your point and engage your audience, and excellent preparation can help you do this.

Practice Will Help You, too.

Presenting on the spot rarely yields the desired outcomes. Here is the strategy that, dare I say it, always produces positive results for me.

Pro Tip

Be aware of design techniques and trends.

I am going to assume that you have prepared:

  • Know your PALTM (Purpose, Audience & Logistics).
  • Gather information that is current, accurate, and pertinent.
  • When necessary, include examples, tales, emotive appeals, and some images to help illustrate the statistics.
  • Create a tale by arranging the resources in a way that the information flows logically and there are seamless transitions between the concepts.
  • Prepare a potent introduction and conclusion in advance.
  • Make the final draft user-friendly so that it is simple to refer to it without reading it.
  • Presenters frequently complete all the steps before visualizing their speech in their minds.

Action Item

Ensure to practice your speech from written notes.

Although visualizing is helpful, speaking-aloud exercises should still be done. Too often, practice is postponed until just before a presentation, by which time it is already too late. The purpose of practice sessions is to make presenters completely at ease with the material, the slides, and the timing so they can focus on engaging the audience during the actual presentation.

8 Recommendations for Effective Presentations

Here are my top eight suggestions for flawless practice:

  • Exercise aloud.
  • The presentation should be spoken aloud three to six times.
  • Use a range of exercises.
  • Keep your presentation personable; do not remember precise sentences; instead, vary how you say it each time.
  • Be mindful of the time.
  • Allow time during your practice session for questions from the audience, etc.
  • Practice in front of a live audience that resembles your intended market.
  • Practice in front of a group that is representative of your "actual audience." It is best to find out in front of this group rather than the "real audience" whether there is any terminology you are using or concepts you are trying to explain that they do not understand.
  • Include impromptu Q&A in your routine.
  • Make sure your practice audience is doing the same if you expect to get questions or interruptions during the presentation.
  • Give the speech's start and closing additional time.
  • The commute is a wonderful time to practice your opening and closing.
  • Develop your timing.
  • Depending on how much interaction or questions you anticipate, the rehearsal should not run more than 18 to 25 minutes if the entire presentation is 30 minutes long.
  • Try recording yourself to practice.
  • If the presentations are extremely important, record yourself on camera. It is simple to operate the brand-new Kodak Zi8 Pocket Video Camera. You can instantly connect to a computer's USB port to do a self-analysis.
“The lavish presentation appeals to me, and I've got to convince the others.”
Freddie Mercury

Is this something I would want to sit through? is an excellent question to ask. What must you do to alter the presentation if the response is “No”?

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Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety

Breathing: The Seductive Key to Unlocking Your Vocal Variety

Dec 6, 2022 | Public Speaking

All people breathe. It is one of our most instinctual behaviors. However, if you poll singers, 90% of them will respond that breathing is the most crucial aspect of vocal technique. Is there a particular method to breathe that improves your voice? Yes!

We examine breathing in relation to vocal variation as a speaker in this essay. I will give you some simple instructions and advice on how to use air more effectively to enhance your voice. Applying these suggestions will give your speech greater Power, Better Pacing, Interesting Pitch, and Effective Pauses.

  • Article Series on Vocal Delivery
  • Speaking Breaks Filler Words (um, ah)
  • Speaking Tempo
  • Audio Volume
  • Projected vocals
  • Vocal Conditioning Exercises
  • Breathing\contents
  • Lose Your Voice, Lose Your Breath
  • A description of breathing
  • 101 Breathing
  • Variety in Breathing and Singing
  • Pace\pitch\Pause
  • Powerful, Useful Tips for Everyday Life
  • Lose Your Voice, Lose Your Breath

The narrator of the short story “Loss of Breath” by Edgar Allen Poe passes out just as he is going to yell at his wife. His voice likewise stops along with his breath, except for a few frog-like sounds. He is shocked by this and struggles to disguise his illness while wallowing in agony and philosophy. 

Pro Tip

Give the audience time to take it in.

When he eventually gets his breath, he also finds his voice. (Have I mentioned that it was taken? Since this is Poe, of course! The horrific nature of the story serves to emphasize the idea that losing your voice is equivalent to losing your breath. And berating your wife is never a clever idea.

A description of breathing

So how does one breathe to speak and sing more clearly? Watch a newborn breathe, then. Though she appears to breathe from her stomach, she is using her abdominal muscles, as you can see. Breathing 101 is so simple that even a baby can do it. Here is how to accomplish it.

101 Breathing

Try the following instructions after attentively reading them aloud. (You may hear an audio version of these instructions by clicking here.)

  • In a chair, lean forward and unwind your tummy muscles.
  • Imagine that you are a vessel filling with air like you would pour water into a vase when you take a deep breath in through your nose. Fill up your lower ribs first (you should feel them expand), then fill up to the top of your chin.
  • Hold your breath for ten counts.
  • Now slowly exhale. Keep your ribs open as you exhale and contract your abdominal muscles as if you were performing a "crunch"; specifically, your lower abdominal muscles should contract first as if you were rolling up a tube of toothpaste. (Keep your chest up when you exhale; you are not a tube of toothpaste.)
  • Repeat. After you are proficient with the exercise while seated, incorporate it into your speaking and singing. Until you can smoothly coordinate all the actions, you might need to start out slowly.
“If you want to conquer the anxiety of life, live in the moment, live in the breath.”
Amit Ray

The most important thing to keep in mind is that your breathing should be slow and deep. If you perform the exercise properly, your chest will remain out and expand as your stomach moves in. There are numerous advantages to using this strategy, including:

Action Item

Take a few steps and start with a new burst of energy.

You will be able to breathe more efficiently if you are aware of your breathing.

An air of strength and confidence is created by good breathing posture. You feel stronger and more confident when you breathe deeply. According to Dr. Andrew Weil, you may utilize your voluntary nerves to make your breathing slow, deep, quiet, and regular, and the rest will take care of itself.

Deep breathing eases stress and aids in maintaining mental clarity. Charles Kirk explains how using the right breathing methods helps him stay composed on the trading floor.

Variety in Breathing and Singing

You were told to “use your voice to match your message” in a previous Six Minute post. This is what I mean when I talk about your “vocal image”—how other people hear you.

In a perfect world, your topic would match your delivery style, and both would complement your voice. Vocal variety is all about the voice’s sound, and in this case, your voice’s tempo, pitch, pause, and power all contribute to the creation of your vocal image.

Pace

Your delivery speed is referred to as pace. In general, you are advised to change your pace by moving quickly and slowly depending on the message you are presenting to add diversity to your voice. However, some individuals have difficulty pacing because of inadequate breathing. If you speak excessively rapidly, laboriously, or slowly, think about the following.

When suitable for the message you are giving, vary your pace by going faster and slower.

  • Speaking too quickly is frequently caused by infrequent breathing breaks.
  • Solution: Take a deliberate breath before you speak to slow down speaking with the breath. Remember to take a breather in between each thought. Take five deep breaths in and out before you begin speaking the next time you practice a presentation. Take one more deep breath, and then forcefully expel as you begin to speak.
  • Lack of air intake and usage might also contribute to sluggish speech.
  • Solution: A person may sound lifeless and boring if they do not breathe enough. Poor posture may also be to blame for this. Use the breathing exercise described above, paying close attention to your posture. As you speak, make sure to breathe through your stomach. When you practice, go overboard with the latter so you can hear the breath in the music. You can produce a more energizing sound and increase your level of energy by taking deeper breaths and utilizing all the air in your sound.
  • Pitch Our speech's pitch is governed by the notes we employ. Yes, much as with singing, we employ notes with speaking. Speaking notes, on the other hand, are haphazard, loosely arranged, and typically shorter than notes we sing. One employs various pitches to produce vocal variety to make their voice more intriguing. Poor breathing technique can occasionally make it difficult to vary the pitch. Here are two examples of these issues, their origins, and potential solutions:
  • Shallow breathing can cause a voice that is too thin and high-pitched (without abdominal expansion and support).
  • Solution: To stop shallow breathing, relax your stomach and breathe in lower. Additionally, the larynx is relaxed, causing it to ride less high. A higher, thinner sound can be produced by a high larynx.

You could not be using all the air you inhale if your voice sounds constricted, strained, or excessively low.

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

Speaking too low can harm your voice, as Lisa Braithwaite correctly points out.

Poe’s text also teaches us that it is possible to make sounds without breathing. I learned that if I had dropped to a deep guttural voice during that exciting crisis, I might have been able to continue. I have discovered that the guttural voice pitch depends on the spasmodic action of the throat muscles rather than the breath current.

It should be easy to breathe in your voice if you do not want to be restricted to a guttural growl. By first practicing a breathy sound and then progressively adding increasingly vocal sound to it, you can improve a strained voice. 

The voice is “energized” in my terminology. Because the voice is free to move and produce more pitches, it also has the effect of making pitch diversity much easier to obtain. You will notice the freedom in your voice if you do this correctly.

Pause

“Breathing awareness creates natural pauses.”

Pauses are the golden moments in speech when you can let your listeners process what you are saying. They are the “beats” an actor uses in between his or her words; they are that unique element that contributes to “comedic timing.” Pauses are crucial because they allow us to catch our breath.

How to employ breathing throughout your pauses is as follows:

  • Before starting to speak, take a deep breath.
  • You can synchronize everything physically, psychologically, and emotionally by taking that first breath. Additionally, it enables the relaxed yet aroused larynx. Finally, it increases your oxygen intake so that you can think more clearly and appear your finest.
  • Pay attention to your breathing.
  • It is astounding how many people, when speaking in front of an audience, just forget to breathe. You may have already discovered how much stress can contribute to forgetting to breathe and experiencing shortness of breath. Therefore, as blogger Denise Graveline points out, taking a moment to halt and breathe is the best short-term answer. The best long-term approach, though, is to constantly work on being mindful of your breathing. Natural pauses come from being aware of your breathing. The more you speak in front of an audience, the more probable it is that you will remember to breathe.
  • Power
  • It is a prevalent misperception that power and volume are interchangeable terms. The truth is that having strong vocals involves much more than simply being loud. The effect your sound has on other people is the essence of vocal power. Your unique vocal ability might be heard in the way you express a notion or in the tone of your voice. Many individuals are shocked to hear that how they breathe and how they use their breath can increase or decrease strength.

You need air to produce a loud sound since sound travels on air. Even if you speak loudly, you will be shouting if you do not include the air in your sound. You never know how your actions will affect other people! Additionally, maintaining air movement with the sound allows for superb voice control, enhancing the effectiveness of all vocal variation approaches.

A confident speaker is one who is at ease and at ease with themselves. A strong voice is at ease and at ease. Deep breathing helps to relax the larynx, which allows the voice to develop a pleasant, natural tone as opposed to one that is artificial or forced.

Practical Tips for Everyday Life

You should try to practice proper breathing technique numerous times each day so that it becomes second nature while you talk. Here are some pointers for improving your breathing:

  • Driving while breathing is a clever idea. Driving raises your hands, which makes it simpler to maintain a high chest. And breathing exercises can also greatly reduce driving rage!
  • Instead of slumping over in your chair at your desk, try to breathe while you are sitting there. Take ten practice breaths while perched on the edge of your chair three times per day.
  • When you are about to go to sleep or are resting on the floor after an exercise, practice breathing. It is simpler to focus on and strengthen the abdominal muscles for proper breathing while you are lying down. (For an even greater understanding of how to do this properly, you can even place a book on your belly to accentuate the way you engage those muscles. As you breathe in and out "with your tummy," watch the book rise and fall.
  • Of course, how successfully you incorporate proper breathing into your presentations will be the true test. Remember to deliberately practice using your breathing on the day of your big presentation. Prior to speaking, take five deep breaths in and out. Then, take one more deep breath and breathe into your first few words. When giving a speech in front of an audience, do not forget to take a moment to pause and breathe.
“Breathing is the greatest pleasure in life.”
Giovanni Papini

Practice makes perfect, as the saying goes. So, practice and it will not be long before you are able to make your learned breathing as natural as the breathing you are using now, and the benefits will be enormous.

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Being Average as A Speaker Sucks! Do Not Be Average!

Being Average as A Speaker Sucks! Do Not Be Average!

Dec 2, 2022 | Public Speaking

You are terrible if you are an average speaker. All your coworkers with mediocre presentation abilities do the same. See why this is the case.

The Cookie Police and Cookies

Consider that you are making cookies. You scoop some dough with your fingers, form it into a ball, and place it on the cookie sheet after thoroughly combining it. You can fill an entire oven with cookies by repeating this process fifty times. If you do these five hundred times, you will have enough cookies to fill a freezer or enough for a bake sale.

Imagine that the Homemade Cookie Police were looking into you. They gently lift each cookie after you place it on the baking sheet and weigh it. They note the weight for every one of the five hundred cookies. When they are done, they make a chart (for their PowerPoint presentation back at Headquarters).

Pro Tip

Do things no one else is willing to do.

With or without a few tenths of a gram, many of the cookies would weigh very the average amount.

Cookies in modest quantities would either be extremely small or extremely enormous.

Many of the cookies would be great, while the exceedingly small ones would burn in the oven and the very huge ones might be uncooked.

The Bell Curve and Humans

The cookie weight/frequency chart’s results surprised no one, so why? since you are a human!

The chart’s shape, which resembles the Bell Curve, could be familiar to you. (You may be familiar with it by another name, such as a normal distribution.) The most exciting aspect of it, though, may be that if you take any variable into account in a big population, the histogram (the chart of values versus the count) tends to follow the Bell Curve.

Because you are not a robot, the weight in the case of cookies is a variable.

“Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”
Alexander Graham Bell

Take adult heights yet another illustration. Men in North America are typically 69 12 inches tall. (The average female North American is 64 12 Professional golfers are extremely skilled, yet there are few of them.

Some individuals hardly ever hit it (they are too frail or just too clumsy to swing a club). These people are also scarce in number.

Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We hardly have the skill to keep from hurting ourselves.

We would like to be able to hit the ball at a professional level when it comes to golf, but it is acceptable to be ordinary. Being mediocre is OK for golf; being average is mediocre. Given that most of us have never taken golf lessons, it makes sense. Your proficiency with a golf club is only occasionally (or never) employed, and your career performance is not influenced by it.

Action Item

Ensure to Take your speaking ability to the next level.

Speaking in public and the Bell Curve

Though measuring presentation skills is more difficult, imagine for a second that you could. (The maximum amount of time you can talk without making anybody bored. The percentage of listeners who are inspired to act by your call to action.

On the high end, you have Steve Jobs, Martin Luther King, and Winston Churchill.

Hermits and those who are completely incapable of communication make up the lower end.

The bulk of those in the center have mediocre presentation skills. Is this decent? Or is this bad? Male adults typically measure between 69 and 69 1/2 inches in height, sometimes slightly more or less.

Naturally, there are some extremely tall persons as well as extremely small people. But comparatively speaking, there are not as many of them.

Being average in height is preferable. It is preferred. All things are made for you, including vehicles, clothes, and airplane seats. Extreme shortness or extreme height might result in physical challenges throughout life.

Consider golf as another example and let us look at how well players can hit the golf ball.

You can be a terrible speaker and still be an average one, statistically speaking. All your coworkers are. This is the PowerPoint Death Pit. The zone for filler words is fifteen per minute. What is this speaker talking about? territory.

Presentation abilities require practice.

Chocolate chips will not make up for your ordinary speaking ability. Your audience sits through a lifetime of meetings, wishing they were someplace else as they listen to mediocre presenters.

Presentation abilities differ from height.

The world is not set up for mediocre speakers to do well. If your ability to communicate your thoughts is ordinary, people will not come to your defense.

Like golf, presentation skills are not a sport.

Being mediocre is not acceptable. Your communication abilities are crucial!

“Only the prepared speaker deserves to be confident.”
Dale Carnegie

You Can't Be Average If You Want to Speak Well

Why are most speakers so awful? Like golf, most people worldwide never attend any formal communications instruction or pursue any informal training. 

Everybody pays the price. Consider the last fifty presentations you saw. How many captivated your attention throughout? Ten? Five? not more than five?

The small percentage of people who work hard to develop their skills—like you, if you are reading this—has a significant edge. Your communication abilities will improve if they are not already. Additionally, having exceptional communication skills will benefit you in life. 

Your views are heard and understood. You are a natural at interviews. People view you as a leader. The good news is that, with commitment, effort, and time, anyone can develop their skills. Check out Six Minutes. 

Read additional blogs about speaking. Consult books about communication. Attend a Toastmasters meeting. Whenever you can, offer to talk. Practice. Practice. Practice.

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Are Your Speech Gestures Too Small, Too Big, or Just Right?

Are Your Speech Gestures Too Small, Too Big, or Just Right?

Dec 1, 2022 | Public Speaking

You are aware by this point that gestures should be used to enhance your discourse.

Do you know how large these gestures ought to be, though?

This post will teach you how to adjust the size of your gestures for the audience and the setting.

What does "gesture size" mean?

Your motions might be big or small, just like your voice can be loud or subtle. 

Think about the range of hand and arm gestures, for instance.

  • Small gestures are those that you make with just your fingers.
  • The size of gestures that hinge at your wrist varies.
  • Even greater gestures involve turning at your elbow.
  • Finally, there are enormous motions that pivot at your shoulder.
  • So, how do you pick the appropriate size?
  • "Gestures that work well with one audience may be useless with another audience."

Pro Tip

Find a neutral place for your hands to rest comfortably.

It varies. A gesture that works well with one audience could be useless with another.

Factors to consider include:

  • Cultural and environmental aspects, as well as the distance and sight lines between you and your audience
  • We can extract some fundamental rules for good body language from these aspects.

Distance

In general, your motions need to be bigger and more noticeable the further away your audience is from you. Little audience, little gestures big gestures go with big audiences.

For instance, you might make a little hand motion while seated at a boardroom table. You must use full arm movements when you talk in front of an audience.

“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seeing Lines

You can perform smaller and more complex movements if your sight lines are unobstructed. You require bigger (and higher) motions if your line of sight is partially obscured.

Contextual and Cultural Aspects

“Your movements need to be bigger and more prominent the more away your audience is from you.”

The ideal size for your gestures may vary depending on cultural and social considerations. Several instances are:

Action Item

Ensure to Use your gestures to create pictures.

  • More restrained movements might be required based on the audience's culture. (In general, if you are unfamiliar with the culture of your audience, avoid using huge motions.)
  • Your gestures should be restrained when giving a eulogy or breaking news about layoffs.
  • Your gestures can be seen more clearly when chatting to children.
  • In every situation, it is best to conduct this research as part of your audience analysis, especially if you are addressing a brand-new audience.

Examples of Speech Gestures Scenarios

To demonstrate how the size of your audience (and, by implication, the size of the space) affects which gestures are most effective, let us look at a few hypothetical scenarios.

1. Small Group Speech Gestures (2-6 people)

Example Situation: You are chatting with a coworker in an office or seated at a table with clients.

For this small group situation, follow these rules:

  • Because everyone is near to you, your gestures can be little and still have an impact.
  • Wrist-pivoting hand gestures and finger movements can be useful.
  • Think about the man's finger gestures in photo A on the right, for instance.
  • Face expressions and eye movements naturally make little gestures. In a close-knit small-group situation, where everyone can see every subtlety—conscious and unconscious—they are crucial.
  • For instance, the woman in photo B is merely using her eyes and demeanor to convey nonverbal messages.
  • Your chances of capturing their whole attention increase with the size of your audience. They will usually be casting a focused gaze toward your eyes. As a result, raising your hands up toward your eyes may be the ideal way to make modest hand movements.
  • Look at the individual in shot C, who is making a gesture with his hands lifted.
  • Watch out for tense hand motions that can be seen more clearly in this environment, such as tapping your fingers on the table or clicking your pen frequently.

2. Medium Group Speech Gestures (7-40 people)

Example Scenario: You are giving a presentation to a group of people who are gathered around a boardroom table or in a small conference room. Either you are standing or seated, depending on your preference.

For this medium-sized group, follow these rules:

  • As the average distance between you and the audience members grows, you should scale up your motions a bit.
  • Still crucial are your facial expressions and eye movements. Every subtlety, conscious and unconscious, may still be visible to spectators in the front rows.
  • Gesturing with your hands or arms should start at least at your elbows.
  • Consider President Obama's action in photo D, where his arm swings from his elbow.
  • Keep your sight lines clear! It is possible that wrist-pivoting hand motions are too small for others to see, especially if you are speaking from a podium or if they cannot see your face (e.g., by computer screens).
  • For instance, because the computer screen is blocking the man's motion in photo E, his audience may not see it (making it ineffective).
  • You might be able to use your upper body to make some greater movements depending on how the place is set up.

3. Large Group Speech Gestures (40-100 people)

An example scenario might be that you are giving a conference break-out session in a sizable meeting room or a lunchtime presentation at a business. There is not a large stage or elevated seating (i.e., you are standing at the same level as your audience).

For this large group situation, use these rules:

  • Increase the size of your gestures by extending your arms away from your torso.
  • For instance, the woman in photo F is making a gesture with her swinging arm from her shoulder.
  • Eye and facial expressions lose their significance since, unless you significantly exaggerate them, most of the audience cannot see them.
  • This can be the most difficult crowd size because they can only see you from the chest and higher due to the obstructed sight lines for much of your audience behind the first few seats. Most of the audience cannot see any gestures you make at a lower level.
  • Take note of the motion the man is making in photo G by raising both of his arms to his sides. The audience can see him over the head of the person in front of them thanks to this.
  • Smaller motions can be emphasized by holding them for a longer time and turning your body slightly as you make them. The possibility that more people will observe the gesture rises as a result.

4. Huge Group Speech Gestures (100+ People)

Example Scenario: You are giving the conference’s keynote speech. As you move from the front to the back of the audience, the seating is elevated, and you are speaking from a stage that is usually placed back from the front row.

Rules for this large group environment:

  • You should scale up your gestures once again. There must be gestures with the entire body. Do not be reluctant.
  • Like small objects, tiny gestures are imperceptible. Finger gestures are not visible, such as raising three fingers to signify your third point. Your viewers will be able to see your arm raised, but not your fingers.
  • Take Steve Jobs' introduction of the MacBook Air in photo H as an illustration. He is aware that most of his audience cannot see what he is carrying in its entirety. (And his face and hands are much more diminutive!) To make up for this, a picture of a manila envelope emerges on the screen behind him.
  • Eye and facial expressions are imperceptible. This does not imply that you should appear lifeless. On the contrary, you should continue to make expressive eye and facial motions because doing so will help to maintain an elevated level of vocal variety.
  • You can employ "low" hand/arm gestures that are concentrated around your waist and abdomen due to enhanced sight lines.
  • Additionally, your legs are now clearly visible, and you can take full use of this by strolling or kicking.
  • In certain rare instances, such as with the woman presenting in photo I, a video system may be employed to enlarge you for your audience. Smaller gestures can once again be seen if this is the case. The effectiveness of large motions remains higher.
“The human body is the best picture of the human soul.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein

To sum up

Always be conscious of your audience’s distance from you as well as the room’s sightlines. Scale your gestures in accordance with this understanding to be efficient.

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