Art Of Great Speaking

Which is better logic or emotion for effective public speaking?

A few would-be speakers are basically emotionally collapsed while they keep hold of a stand or table whilst they mouth uninteresting platitudes that might even make their fond mothers sleepy.
Lots of people, frequently very intellectual ones, fear feeling, conceivably simply because they believe emotion might distort thinking or even exaggerate truth. This also might occur when logical thinking is side-lined whilst uncontrolled emotion takes over the field. How convincing is a real crackbrain screaming his propaganda in bughouse square, or, a quiet-spoken John Casper generating comments which merely reveal his opinionated ego?
Effective emotional speaking isn’t the excessive babbling of a distorted mind or subtle sarcasm from a warped personality. It’s not the worthless antics of a fanatic, but nor is it the stiff-backed pass-me-a-cold-weiner kind of mumbling the intelligentsia so often serves from a speaker’s platform.
Maybe if a devotee of this “dead on their heels” tribe could see himself as he truly is on the stage, or much better still, if he could sit in his own tormented audience and need to endure his
own tortured talk, he may determine to have mercy on his audience and do some thing about his dull speaking personality.
An additional typical attitude is that feeling has departed with the wind, that it belongs with the past, much less learned generations. Cold logic, the scientific technique, is all we require in this atomic age. “The thought will be the factor,” said an emotionally lazy college student lately. “Why, I envision Patrick Henry said ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ about as I’m saying it now.” (In a who-gives-a-hoot manner).
But based on history, “Henry arose with an unearthly fire burning in his eyes. He began somewhat calmly -but the smothered excitement began to play much more and much more upon his face, and thrill within the tones of his voice. The tendons of his neck stood out white and rigid like whipcords.”
And John Roane, a spectator, reported that when Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death,” he suited the action to the words by a blow upon the left breast with his right hand, which appeared to drive a dagger to his heart.
This speech was charged with intense feeling, but the whole subject material additionally indicates logical thinking along with a powerful appeal to reason. It discloses the mind and heart of a noble, honest, sincere statesman instead of a low cost politician having emotional fits to attract attention to himself.

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Vocal power can help in getting across oyur ideas and concepts in public speaking as well as conversation.

Forming a habit of taking a few very deep breaths every day will promote a speaker’s vocal power. Force by itself, or loud speaking, is not good of course except if it suits the event. Sometimes a whisper will be more successful than a shout, but each speaking voice ought to have what is oftentimes referred to as vocal “presence.” That is, a speaker’s voice should tag him as being a real person, one who has sufficient spirit and force in his speaking to generate attention.
A great demonstration of vocal presence can be seen in the recorded voice of a radio announcer at the Greyhound Bus station in Chicago. This man announces the arrival and departure of numerous buses. When he says, “May I have your attention please?” the listener hears a friendly, yet powerful voice which immediately grabs his attention and holds it. Occasionally someone may add an announcement in rather weak, non-committal tones. The contrast is vivid, highlighting the value of voice presence.
Each day everybody has numerous chances to participate in public speaking because each and every conversation is, in a way, a speech. Why not make your daily conversations vital, vivid, and realistic? When you speak with one individual or to groups of people color your words and phrases and concepts so that they will appeal to hearers’ natural senses. Make your word pictures so vivid an audience can feel, hear, and see them as plainly as a talking picture on the wall and you’ll be a fascinating, persuasive speaker.

Being able to have vocal presence and to speak with confidence in public speaking  and conversation is something anyone can achieve if they want to do. Click on speaking with confidence to find out more.

Here is another great way to make your speech sparkle.

Still another way to make speech vivid or colorful is to use exaggerated pictures, or hyperbole.
For instance, a businessman said in a speech, “I thought this family was poor, but when I walked into the house the first thing I saw was a television set as big as that piano!”
Of course, he knew, and his listeners knew, that the television set was not half as large as the upright piano to which he referred. But making this comparison was far more impressive than simply saying, “When I entered the room I saw a big television set.” And this type of exaggeration is ethical in public speaking because it is not really an attempt to deceive an audience.
Another speaker, when talking about a gossiping woman said, “Her tongue was so long she could sit in the parlor and lick a skillet in the kitchen!”
Still another remarked, “The restaurant was so crowded that when a man bent over to tie his shoe, a waitress slapped a table-cloth and four plates on his back before he could straighten up.”
Ridiculous? Yes. But it vividly supports a point, and adds interest to a speech which might otherwise be dull.
Also understatements, such as, “Her mouth looked like a button-hole that had been washed in alum,” or, “I could have stuffed his toothpick body into my shirt pocket and have had plenty of room to spare,” may add color and interest to a speech.
All figures of speech should be chosen with care and used only when and where they aptly fit the situation or speech theme. They should never be “pulled in by the ears,” misused, or over-used. Rather, they should be used as verbal salt to season a speech and make it palatable for listeners’ minds.

I hope you have found this series on adding interest and color to your public speaking through similes and exaggerations useful. Let me know if you’ve found it useful,

When you are public speaking, you are speaking on purpose. Don’t let your speech be overtaken by humor and stories.

Similes, interesting as they are, should be used sparingly in persuasive speeches. A few of them aptly used will tend to help an audience relax, will make listeners more receptive to serious ideas that follow. But using many of them in any one speech may simply amuse an audience rather than persuade it. Mark Twain found this to be true. He had used so much humor in his speeches that when he did upon occasions try to become serious and persuasive his listeners simply grinned at him. A persuasive speaker must never let the “side shows” crowd out the main tent. The real purpose of his speech, what he wants the audience to do or believe — the central theme of his talk, should receive constant attention. He uses illustrations, similes, or other speech materials for the sole purpose of skillfully impressing upon audiences’ minds and hearts the desire to comply willingly with the reasonable main point he is making. An able persuasive speaker will not try to be a platform come-dian. His purpose, is not to have audiences say, “How clever you are!” He will merely be a human instrument through which per-suasion operates. A simile is usually brief. When it is extended it becomes an analogy, such as Wendell Phillips’ statement: “Our republic is a raft, hard to steer and your feet are always wet; but nothing can sink her.” Another example of an analogy is this comparison between life and a game of football: “It is easy to sit on the sidelines of the great game of life and find fault with those who are on the gridiron bucking the line.”

To follow on in this series of making your public speaking interesting will be a post on one a further technique.

When public speaking a great way to add sparkle and interest is through the use of similes.

Similes may be found in literature, speeches, poetry, in magazines, the news, on radio or TV, in plays, stories, or in almost any source of communication wherein writers or speakers try to be interesting.
Following are a few similes which were created by well-known authors:
Free as mountain winds. — Shakespeare.
Her face was white and colorless as an icicle. — Channing Pollack.
Hairless as an egg. — Robert Herrick.
He felt like the symptom on a medicine bottle. — George Ade.
Hysterical as a tree full of chickens. — Irvin S. Cobb.
Poor and forgotten  like  a cloud upon the field. — Hugo.
He looked like a composite picture of five thousand orphans
too late to catch a picnic steamboat. — O. Henry.
God pardons like a mother who kisses away the repentant tears
of her child. — Henry Ward Beecher.
He is a steam roller in a pair of pants. — Sherwin L. Cook.
The human mind should be like a good hotel, open the year around. — William Lyon Phelps.
He had a hand like a bunch of bananas. — R. F. Outcault.
A person who intends to speak frequently should- jot down for future reference any impressive simile he reads, or hears. It may just fit some idea he wishes to express in a speech.
Similes to avoid are those that do not create an interesting mental picture, and probably those that grandfather smiled at when he was in the third grade — similes such as the following which were actually turned in by college students. Those students, having misinterpreted the meaning of effective similes, of¬fered these trite comparisons as being useful speech material:
He was as sober as a judge.
It was as weak as water.
The meat was as tough as leather.
He turned as white as a sheet.
The girl was as ugly as sin.
His joke went over like a ton of bricks.
He was slow as a snail.
The night was as silent as a grave.
The family was as poor as a church mouse.
She sang like a lark.
It was as welcome as the flowers in May.
Cold as ice.
Slick as a button.
Red as a rose.
Black as the ace of spades.
He behaved like a bull in a china shop.
The moon  was shining bright as day.
As clean as a towel that has just been washed.

As nervous as a June bride.

Hearing a simile like those listed above is somewhat like looking at an ordinary pebble on a beach. It gets, no attention and does nothing to help make a speech interesting.
A helpful mental exercise for a student o£ public speaking is creating original similes for old, worn-out ones. For instance, one student substituted, “Slick as an eel in a barrel of motor oil” for “slick as a button.”
Another student came up with “Happy as a baby with his hands in cool mush,” for “happy as a lark.” Still another said, “Black as a wet skunk,” instead of “Black as the ace of spades.”

My next post on using similes in public speaking starts with a mistake to avoid that Mark Twain made.