I occasionally have to speak to a group, and the best lesson I ever got was watching a friend of mine do it. She doesn’t talk like she’s Doing Public Speaking. She talks like she’s talking to a bunch of her friends. Like they’re all hanging out together, and she has this interesting story to tell the whole gang, so she tells it.
Since then, I aim for the same thing. It makes me more relaxed, and I think it sets a tone that predisposes the audience to be at ease and interested.
Be naked yourself when you give your speech.
You’ll have everybody’s attention, and yet it won’t matter much at all what you say or how you say it.
I’ve done a lot of public speaking, and over the years I’ve learned that audiences will happily swallow damn near anything if it’s presented with confidence. Public speaking is 5% content, 95% presentation. Now, confidence is difficult to feel, but it’s easy to fake. If you simply pretend to be confident, you will come across as confident, and your audience will believe it. That’s an absolute certainty.
Here’s how you fake being confident:
Speak slowly. Confident people speak slowly. The audience is there to listen to you. They’re on your time, not the other way round.
Make eye contact. Every so often, look up from your speech, and make a brief moment of eye contact with a random member of the audience. The best way to do this is to practise your speech over and over and over again until you know it back to front and inside out. Then you’ll feel comfortable looking up every so often.
Don’t talk right away. When you walk out on stage, take a deep breath, wait a few seconds, find your place, and then begin. It may feel uncomfortable, but it’ll show your audience that you’re in control.
When you print out your speech, leave a space between each paragraph and make every second paragraph a different colour, like black-red-black-red, for example. That way, if you lose your place, you’ll be able to find it again much more quickly.
Pay attention to your body language. If you have to move, move in a slow and controlled way. This greatly magnifies your “presence” and makes you seem much more confident.
Best of luck!
Thank you for this more than helpful recommendation.
Wow, thanks. I am certainly going to space it out, and will incorporate your coloring technique.
I speak with my hands behind my back, my right hand grasping my left wrist. I do this whenever I am standing and speaking, even during 1-1 conversations. Do you think this is a bad habit? I know my professor stated to use controlled hand gestures-- but I typically do not use any… ever. It makes me feel intrusive and rude when I use hand gestures. However, whenever I watch someone public speak (successfully) I see that they are using controlled gestures sparingly versus not at all.
Call up some places that have automated phone voice recognition systems and practice your enunciation. 
Also, very helpful advice. I have been told I sound like the cartoon character Daria. I think she speaks clearly. Maybe a younger, female version of Ben Stein. Probably boring, but easily understood. Maybe I’m just boring the phone-bot into a state of dysfunctionality* with the monotony of my voice.
*apparently not a word
This is your introductory speech? As in, the first speaking assignment that your class has been assigned? That rubric you posted looks excessively demanding for a first assignment.
When I took Public Address, we started with a simple 1-minute speech that was trivially simple with very little requirements, and throughout the semester, we learned more and more techniques and components of good speaking, and had longer and more demanding speech assignments. And those techniques and components of good speaking were actually covered in lecture. From the look of that rubric you posted, you are expected to deal with too much, too soon.
Yes, first speech. That’s how I feel-- overwhelmed. Almost like we skipped the crawling phase and went straight to jogging.
I think your professor is right, but also that it doesn’t matter too much. Controlled hand gestures are very useful for emphasis so I would encourage you to use them if possible, but only sparingly. You only really need to use a few, and only at the most important points in your speech. The thing about hand gestures is that, like most body language, the audience will receive them mostly on a subconscious level. They’ll catch the extra emphasis that the hand gestures impart, but they won’t really know they’re doing it. Therefore, if your hand gestures are both infrequent and controlled the audience will become more responsive to your points without even really knowing why.
On the flip side of the coin, if you don’t use hand gestures, your audience generally won’t notice their absence either. So while I do agree with your professor, I also think it’s a small point.
My advice would be just to practise in front of a mirror and just incorporate a few subtle hand gestures at the most important points. If you feel comfortable doing it that way, great! If not, it isn’t a huge deal.
Thanks. I’m gonna do without the gestures and wait for him to correct me during our critiques afterwards. I tried to use some hand gestures when I rehearsed earlier and I felt out of control and like a mime. It felt rather uncomfortable even when I was trying to use them deliberately for emphasis and sparingly. I felt like I was conducting a symphony.
Eye contact is good, yes. But when nervous I found advice from others to not look at their eyes but at their foreheads. Seriously. This makes the people behind the person think you’re looking at them as well as the forehead owner. Helps the audience to pay attention to your words.
Write pauses and breaths into your notes. Don’t feel you need to fill the silences with sound (that’s where the um…basically…uh…comes from).
Smile, have some water or something for dry mouth. Speak to your audience, not at them.
Another trick is to write “GO SLOW” in red at the top of each page of your notes. I do that when I’m making a long submission in court, because I’m a naturally fast talker.
Adding this to my notes right now. Thanks.
I’m definitely going to be looking at foreheads then. Thanks. I’m super shy and don’t like making eye contact.
I’ve given a lot of talks to small and large groups, and sometimes I still get really nervous for no apparent reason. I will tell myself, I am not an expert on X, but I play one on TV. Thinking of myself as an actor playing a role helps. How would an actor present the role of expert? She’d be calm-looking, thoughtful, wouldn’t giggle, etc. That bit of distance helps.
The nest thing about the rubric is there is lots of stuff you can do for good grades before the speech begins: dress appropriately ("I’m an actor in character,that’s why I’m wearing a dirndl…”), have a logical talk, etc. So you can do many things to help your grade that don’t include standing in front of the audience.
Sometimes nervousness is anticipation, the feeling you get before the big game starts or your blind date shows up. Once the whistle blow or you smile and say, hi, I’m brovolone, nice to meet you, a lot of the anxiety goes away.
And I have sometimes started a talk with, “hello everyone, I’m terrified to be here,” and it gets a sympathetic laugh and we’re off!
Oh, and you’re learning how to do this: no kittens will die no matter what happens, and next time will be easier!
Great idea! How about some cool, fizzy and refreshing - maybe a bottle of Mountain Dew? 
And you could let loose with a great belch to close the talk!
I’m so using this. Hi I’m brovolone and I’m terrified to be here. Pause.
A guy in my class introduced his deceased wife and basically cried through the whole speech. I felt so bad sitting there. I wanted to pull the fire alarm or drop something in class just to like break up all of the sadness and take the attention off him. I dunno why this came to mind after I quoted your text.
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And I’m sooooo going to have a nice big can of diet Dew with me. So I don’t have to nervously unscrew the lid to take a sip.