Dentist

Learning how to pause is a public speaking technique that will set you apart as a professional speaker.

Learning how to pause is a public speaking technique that will set you apart as a professional speaker.

Inexperienced speakers often allow their anxiety to get the better of them, resulting in a hurried presentation in which all the main points seem to roll into one.

Use these public speaking techniques below and unleash the amazing power of effective pausing:

Pause For Impact

When you want a word or phrase to really stand out use pausing skillfully. For maximum effect, pause before you say the key word/phrase, and pause after you have said it.

Increasing your volume at the same time will make it very clear to the audience that this word/phrase is important. They are far more likely to remember it as a result.

Pause When Changing Direction

When going from one main point to another in your presentation, be sure to pause. Just continuing in the same pace fails to let the audience know you are now starting a new angle, or a new main point.

Just as a car driver will slow down to take a turn, the speaker needs to indicate by a fairly long pause that a new aspect of the subject is about to be developed. Otherwise the audience can feel similar to a passenger in a car that is careering around corners leaving them breathless and tense.

A long pause, perhaps 3-5 seconds in length, indicates you the speaker are in control and reflects well on your stage presence.

Sharp Transitions

On the other hand, you can keep an audience interested by making sharp transitions at times. Of course, you still use skillful pausing but:

visual aids questions one-liners anecdotes distributing hand-outs

will break the regular pattern and keep the audience excited and full of anticipation about what comes next.

Using Stress

Another highly effective public speaking technique is to add more power to pausing by using stress. In addition to pausing before and after the key word or phrase, stress the thought by using slow, deliberate expression along with a gesture or more intense facial expression.

This can also indicate how you as a speaker feel about the subject adding even more force to the key words or phrases.

Finally, a note about humor:

Don't try to force humor. The best humor is natural. Be yourself. Don't feel your presentation failed if you did not get laughs.

If you want to introduce some humor into your presentation play it safe. Stay away from anything that draws negative attention to race, sex, ethnicity, political or religious affiliations.

Tell amusing anecdotes about yourself or your family, or go online and get some one liners or funny stories from the professionals. (Just search for 'one liners', 'funny stories' or 'humorous quotes' in your favorite search engine.)

These public speaking techniques take practice of course. Once you have paced yourself, and learned how to control your anxiety, you can concentrate on such effective public speaking techniques used by the professionals. Your audience is far more likely to remember your presentation when you use pausing and stress skillfully.