Using Clarity of Speech For Powerful Presentations

Many people, who have complete command of the material that they are presenting to an audience, find it very difficult to speak clearly. They may spend hours practicing their presentation and may even deliver it very confidently. Yet, they find at the end of their presentation that not many in the audience have understood what they were trying to say and as a result, what should have been a powerful presentation has had very little impact. It is therefore very important to improve the clarity in one’s speech while giving a presentation.

If you have problems getting through to your audience despite working hard on the presentation, let us first try and understand what the problems may be:

• You may be speaking too fast or too slowly.
• You have a slightly unusual way of pronouncing words.
• You have a very heavy accent.
• Your ideas are not presented in a clear, logical manner.

Here are some ways in which you can improve the clarity of your speech.

• Watch how fast or slow you speak. Most of us are nervous before a presentation and we tend to speak faster because of all the nervous energy. If you sense that you are going fast, practice making a conscious effort to slow down. At times, though more rarely, people also speak too slowly. Again, make an effort to speed up. In any case, the most important thing for you is to sound natural and not forced.
• When you are speaking, make sure that you are loud enough and that you speak into the mike so that people can hear you clearly. At the very beginning of the presentation, adjust your volume and speak into the mike so that you are sure that everyone can hear you. Regardless, once you are into your stride, you may often forget to keep your voice up. Check up with the audience regularly if everyone, including those in the back, can hear you clearly.
• Do not use language containing too many technical terms or acronyms that the audience may not be familiar with. You may believe that this will impress them but it may just end up putting them off. If your audience consists of industry experts, it may be all right to include jargon and fancy technical terms. Otherwise, try to use words that your audience understands and if you have to use technical terms, take the effort to explain them to the audience. They will appreciate the effort.

To work on improving the clarity of speech, one would recommend that you try recording one of your presentations. This will give you an idea of how you sound and where the problems lie. A video recording would be an even better idea since you get a complete picture, including what your body language is like when you are on stage. Request a few friends to take a look at the recordings and provide you with a frank assessment of the clarity of the presentation. Then based on this feedback and on your observations, you can work on improving the clarity of your speech.