Your Public Best - Lillian Brown [56]
Visuals
Visuals are useful only to the extent that they enhance the content of your speech. Carefully chosen slides, pictures, flip charts, graphs, illustrations, or props may give added clarity and interest to your presentation, but they should be used only if they do add visual interest to the speech. You may also wish to prepare a relevant handout.
If you decide to use a slide projector, synchronize the audio and video in advance in an annotated script. In such a script, make a left-hand column with the numbers and titles of your slides and the right-hand column with the text you will be reading.
When using visuals to be projected, a cardinal rule is don’t flash up complex, typed charts or tables with lots of words or numbers on them that can’t be read or understood easily. Nothing puts an audience to sleep faster than boring visuals, and nothing wakes it up faster than exciting ones.
Double-check charts and slides for proper spellings and typographic errors. Don’t let yourself join the ranks of speech-givers who have said, “Oops—that’s not right” as a slide or other visual was flashed onto a screen.
Rehearse the visual presentation in advance, to familiarize yourself with the technical equipment you require. Check out the room in which you will appear for electric outlets, and learn how to dim the lights.
Your Manuscript
Now that your speech is in its final draft, have it typed in large letters so that it can be easily read. Use either a special, large-type machine, or have it done in capital letters, triple-spaced. (If you are having it typed in capital letters, have a sample page typed for you; some people are uncomfortable reading capitals.)
Leave wide margins for notes and leave the bottom fourth of each page blank, so that you will not have to look downward to read your manuscript.
Number each page with a colored pen so there will never be any doubt about page order. Clearly mark the opening and the close. Put numbers in the margins to indicate the individual points in the body of your speech. Underline the “buzz words,” which telegraph the meaning of each point. If you do all of these things, you will be able to maintain better eye contact with your listeners.
Underline and mark up your manuscript for easy interpretation. Use a single line to connect phrases or titles that are spoken as one word. Use a double line or a different color marking pen to emphasize important words, phrases, and ideas. Indicate a pause with a single slash and a longer pause with a double slash. Enclose qualifying phrases in parentheses. Enhance the punctuation marks with a bold pen so they can be followed easily. Mark paragraphs with a horizontal slash that extends into the margin. Put asterisks to indicate the points at which you should breathe. Emphasize quotation marks with your pen to remind you to enclose them in a little frame of silence that sets them apart from the rest of the sentence.
You may find it helpful to annotate the margins of your manuscript into major headings. Also you might want to indicate pauses as broadcasters do with three ellipsis dots (“ . . . ”) written into the script.
Devise your own system of marking your manuscript that lets you see at a glance the interpretation of the meaning you wish to transmit. Using such a system helps you get off the page as much as possible and speak directly to your audience. Consider your manuscript as a guide, and try not to read it verbatim.
Never have a secretary or aide prepare your speech for you without reviewing it thoroughly and marking up the manuscript yourself.
Mount the finished manuscript into a plain black, loose-leaf folder, and it is ready to be carried to the podium, safe from wind, coffee stains, or other