“Do you feel depressed or that you cannot find joy in life? Maybe, you feel like you want more, but it feels like the more you get the more you want. This creates an endless cycle of gluttony and want, where you always feel like you are either overwhelmed or under-resourced,” Rama’s voice is low and earnest as he speaks, his red robe flapping in the wind. He waits a few seconds as he sees the audience nod and feels their anticipation before continuing.

“Your suffering is not because you cannot get enough, it is because you want more in the first place. You suffer because life is painful, because change happens all around you without your consent or comfort, and because you think you and you alone can control your surroundings. It is your desire to change the world around you, to force it to conform to your wishes, that makes you suffer.” Rama’s gaze seems to encompass the whole crowd. There are a few hundred people who have joined the university’s Religions of the World Festival that day, each listening to various religious leaders speak about their particular belief system.

“My friends, I have good news. You can stop your sufferings if you focus on living a life that renounces desire and focuses on connections among all living things. This is the Eightfold Path, and the Buddha showed that following it can lead to fulfillment and harmony in this life.” Rama continues explaining the eight tenets while the crowd listens. Some stay the entire sermon, while others come and go, but Rama’s voice never waivers.

A female student, Allison, stays after the sermon to ask Rama questions. They find a shady tree and sit beneath it, and Rama answers her queries while maintaining his low, earnest tone. By the end, Allison doesn’t ask for directions to the temple or a copy of their holy text, the Tipitaka. But he reflects, that is okay. His task was to share his joy with others and hope they could find their own paths. His karma, or intentions, were pure and he knew his actions would help others. To him, there was no greater peace to be found.

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When watching someone else give a public presentation–whether at a religious ceremony, private company, or a Ted Talk–what draws your interest? Certainly, their topic might be of interest to you and in fact may be the reason you chose to listen to that particular speaker in the first place. However, we would wager that a bad speaker can make even the most interesting of topics into a boring, horrible experience. Good public speaking is created by more than just its content; its medium and mode of delivery can greatly influence an audience’s perception. As a public speaker, you will need to hone your public speaking skills in order to encourage your audience to listen and act on your words.

Broadly speaking, we refer to the physical attributes of a speaker as their dynamism. To be a dynamic speaker, you need to know when and how to use physical gestures, body movement, tone, pitch, and a host of other attributes that will be the difference between a boring and engaging presentation. In this chapter, we introduce you to three overarching components of a dynamic speaker: vocal delivery, physicality, and anxiety.

Teresia sat at the coffee shop writing her class essay. She enjoyed the bustle of baristas and coffee-lovers, the inoffensive music, and sound of the bagel-slicer. She found she could focus on her writing better with the low-level noise than with complete silence and relished the opportunity to sit alone with her thoughts and a good cup of coffee.

As she hunched over her computer, she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Yeah,” said, startled, and then angry with herself. Teresia was in the middle of transitioning from her assigned male sex at birth to female and sometimes slipped into a lower pitch of presentation when startled.

“Oh, sorry,” the stranger said. They looked male, but Teresia noticed the low-cut top and make-up, marking them as fem-presenting. “I just didn’t know if you needed that chair. Do you mind?” They gestured from the unoccupied chair to the table where they were sitting with others, conveying their intent of where they were taking the chair.

“Sure, of course,” Teresia said, sweetly, remembering her vocal lessons. She saw the stranger’s eyebrows raise, but they didn’t say anything as they took the chair over to their friends.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Teresia thought to herself. As she had come to understand her gender identity as a woman who was assigned male at birth, she strove to make sure her body performed and looked as she thought about herself as a woman. At the same time, she often worried that she was doing too much work to fit in with others in order to be accepted by her cisgender coworkers and family. It was in these unscripted moments in public that she felt the most vulnerable. What if others started harassing her for being a trans woman in public?

She continued trying to write, but the incident kept intruding on her thoughts. Eventually, she went to the restroom. As she stood in front of the mirror, she recited “The Rainbow Passage” (a paragraph developed by speech pathologists) using the feminine voice she hoped to master. After repeating it several times, she walked back to her table to her belongings. As she packed up, the stranger walked up to her again.

“Um, sorry, hey, my name is Charlie. Sorry to ask, but, um, do you mind telling me if you’re trans?”

Teresia paused, looking Charlie over suspiciously–they looked safe to talk to. “No problem, yeah, I started transitioning about three years ago. Why?”

Relief flooded Charlie’s face. “Oh, that’s great, congratulations! Yeah, I’ve been thinking about transitioning too. I just wanted to know: how did you get so good with your voice? Like, was it surgery or something else?”

Teresia smiled, “No surgery for me, although I have some friends who have had it. I’ve been using a vocal coaching app that a speech language pathologist recommended to me. Here, let me show you.”

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As Teresia’s story shows, vocal delivery is an important part of how others perceive you. Vocal qualities can influence audience members’ perceptions of your honesty, talent, intelligence, morality, and a host of other attributes. Fortunately, vocal delivery is something that you have a great deal of control over. With practice and time, you can begin to develop vocal qualities that match the type of work you wish to do—whether you want to lead, comfort, or entertain others.

There are a variety of vocal qualities that you can begin to practice to make sure you are meeting your public speaking goals, including pitch, volume, rate, pause, pronunciation, articulation, and vocal fillers.

Pitch

The pitch of your voice refers to the perception of a sound’s highness or lowness based on the frequency of vibration of the vocal cords producing them. Vocal cord length can influence the pitch of your voice. For example, men tend to have longer and thicker vocal cords, which vibrate at a lower rate and thus lower frequency than most women. However, it should be noted that Klofstad et al. (2012) found that participants stated they were more likely to vote for people who spoke in a lower pitch than those who spoke in a higher pitch. That is, speaking lower is seen as a vocal quality of leaders regardless of gender. Additionally, the more stressed or anxious you are, the more likely you are to tighten your vocal cords and speak at a higher pitch. You want to avoid speaking at an even pitch, which is called being monotone. You should vary your pitch to match the emotional energy you are trying to convey to your audience. For example, speaking in a low and slow voice to convey seriousness or a fast higher voice for entertaining can signal to your audience your emotional energy through this vocal quality.

Volume

Your volume refers to the loudness or softness of your voice and is measured in decibels. Typically, whispering is about 30 decibels, talking normally is about 60 decibels, and a loud engine is about 90 decibels. Noises above 70 decibels can cause damage if you are exposed to them for long periods of time whereas noises above approximately 120 decibels can cause immediate damage. You should match your volume to the situation you are speaking to– a funeral is a much different context for volume than being in the stands of a football game. Varying your volume can provoke your audience’s engagement. For example, you may speak in a softer voice to draw your audience in or speak in a loud voice to excite them.

As with other vocal qualities, you should avoid staying at the same level of loudness throughout your presentation as it can be boring or off-putting to your audience. If you are in a large room with a microphone, you should always use it. People with hearing loss are more likely to be able to hear you through a well-done sound system than by yelling (plus, it will save your voice from straining!).

Rate

A person’s rate of presentation denotes how quickly or slowly you speak. Most speakers will talk at a rate of about 120 to 150 words per minute. However, this can be influenced by the region you are from (e.g., East Coast vs. the South), familiarity with the language, vocabulary, and gender. In most situations, you will want to adopt a conversational rate of presentation so you’re not asking your audience to either process too much too quickly or become bored by speaking too slowly. If you feel like you are out of breath, you may be speaking too fast and not taking proper breaths (i.e., breathing from your diaphragm). This can make you sound breathless as well as make you feel more anxious because you’re starving yourself for oxygen. Make sure your rate and breathing are done in a deliberate manner.

Pause

One of the most effective vocal techniques you can use is to pause in certain parts of your presentation. You may wish your audience would ponder on a well-timed question, laugh at a joke, or draw their attention back to you. Whatever the reason, learning that sometimes silence is just as important as presentation is an important lesson to learn if you wish to be an effective speaker.

Pronunciation

The correct pronunciation of a word or phrase is based on what is commonly held by the majority of listeners in a communication event. For example, the difference between saying AppaLATCHa vs. Ap-pa-LAY-cha when referring to to the Appalachian Mountains may indicate whether the speaker is from Tennessee, Kentucky, or the Carolinas (AppaLATCHa) or from Maryland, West Virginia, or Washington DC (Ap-pa-LAY-cha). Although it may be tempting to say that there is a “right way” to pronounce the word, a better way to think about the issues is to match your speaking to what will be most effective to your audience. For some people around the world, certain vowels, consonants, and consonant blends (e.g., the -th sound) can be difficult. In order to ensure you are being an effective speaker, it is important to practice in an effort to mimic the broadly based practices of your audience.

Articulation

Closely related to pronunciation is the concept of articulation, which refers to how clearly, cleanly, or precisely you say a word or phrase. For example, in places such as Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and West Virginia, it is typical to hear someone say “Mon-dee” or “tah-mah-ra” instead of “Mon-day” or “too-mar-row.” Like pronunciation, it is important to that you articulate your words in a way that is consistent with your audience. Going to a place that has their local customs of articulation and speaking with a different articulation can lead people to think you are are “puttin’ on airs” or “talkin’ down to them” (i.e., being arrogant) or speaking in a way that is viewed as “backward” or “earthy.”

Vocal Fillers

One of the most common, and problematic, vocal qualities you can adopt is to use vocal fillers. These include unscripted pauses; saying phrases like “uh,” “um,” or “like;” or other extraneous sounds that do not convey intended meaning. Usually, speakers rely on vocal fillers when they are anxious, stressed, or unpracticed. They also may be a part of your normal speech habits that are influencing your public speaking skills. Regardless, effective speakers reduce or eliminate vocal fillers from their presentations to give a greater sense of confidence to their audience.

We recommend practicing in front of a mirror, video recording device, and/or close friend to get the most out of your practice time. These types of activities have the benefit of allowing you to see and intervene into your public speaking practices and improve or correct them before your presentation. Do not simply write your presentation out and read it many times in order to try to memorize it. Not only does this not help you practice your vocal qualities, but it also makes you cognitively rely on your notes which you may not have access to when giving your presentation. Instead, practice like you want to perform–as a dynamic, engaging, and engaging speaker.

Yakiv liked to dance. No, liked was too simple a word–he loved it, was obsessed with it, needed it. From a young age Yakiv was known in his village Baranivka, Ukraine as “the dancing boy.” He practiced each day, throwing himself into the physicality of the folk dances of his village and people. He especially loved the Hopak, a dance that was developed in the 15th century by Cossaks and has had a rich history since then. Traditionally danced by men, the hopak was characterized by acrobatic feats, improvised moves, and rigorous physicality.

Yakiv had been invited to dance the hopak along with men from surrounding villages for a local festival. Their dance would be at the end of the ceremonies, hopefully igniting the passion of his friends, relatives, family, and neighbors.

As he got ready, one of the other dancers and his friend, Andriy, came up to him. “Are you ready?” He asked, excitement in his eyes.

Yakiv smiled, “Of course! I can’t wait to get out there!” He could hear the ceremonies as they progressed and knew that it was getting close to their time to go onstage.

Good! Andriy replied. “Make sure you have everything you need. We need everything to be perfect.”

Yakiv nodded and as he was about to agree, he heard the local mayor introduce their set. He and the other dancer filed out on the stage and took their places.

Suddenly, the music started, low and forceful and the men on the dance floor began to squat low, legs kicking out. As they continued, the tempo of the music increased, going faster and faster. The dancers in turn, began jumping, kicking, pirouetting faster, their physical feats becoming more and more impressive as the songs continued.

Yakiv was lost to the music. He closed his eyes and gave a particularly powerful kick, only to have his shoe fly off and hit an audience member square in the face. Although apparently uninjured, the audience member began yelling and Yakiv, face red in embarrassment, didn’t know what to do. Someone picked his shoe up and threw it back to him and, with a split-second decision, he flipped high in the air and caught it as he came down. He then put it on to the thunderous applause of the audience (even the man who got hit with the shoe grudgingly clapped) and continued dancing. It may not have been perfect, but he knew their dance would be the talk of the town for years to come!

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The physicality of a public communicator can greatly influence an audience’s perspective of their message. Sometimes, as in Yakiv’s case, a flying shoe can be embarrassing, and may have very little impact on the communication event–especially if the speaker (or, in this case, dancer) is able to recover quickly. Conversely, physical gestures, facial expressions, and body language can amplify messages in a presentation and make them more entertaining, sad, or frightening. Developing a strong physical presence in public speaking is not easy and requires patience and practice. However, the difference between a presentation with well-timed and well-rehearsed physical movement and one that lacks such movement is the difference between success and failure.

There are five areas that you can work on to develop a better physicality when public speaking: 1) appearance, 2) eye contact, 3) facial expressions, 4) gestures, and 5) movement.

Appearance

As we have discussed earlier, some parts of your appearance are a part of your body and identify and are difficult, if not impossible, to change or alter. However, there are many parts of your appearance that are under your control that you should make sure to check before you give a public address. Removing your jewelry and pinning long hair up will ensure that you don’t fidget, tug, or stroke them when you are nervous. If you are in a professional setting, you may spend extra time grooming or styling yourself to make sure you look credible to your audience. You should dress for the occasion by wearing clothing that is appropriate for the situation (i.e., typically at least as well if not a little better than your audience is dressed). If you are presenting through video, avoid harsh or colors (e.g., hot pink or yellow) or busy patterns (e.g., stripes, plaid, or polka dots). Make sure to take the weather into consideration if giving your presentation outdoors!

Eye Contact

Your eye contact with your audience is one of the most important aspects of public speaking. If you are constantly reading your notes or reading off a PowerPoint slideshow, your audience will quickly become disengaged. Although some may suggest looking out over the head of your audience to make it appear as if you are making eye contact, we stress that you should avoid this strategy. Audience members will be able to tell you are not looking at them and will wonder if you are looking at something more interesting than your presentation (which will prompt them to turn around and look instead of listening to you). Likewise, you should avoid looking only at your best friend or the one person who is nodding. This will exclude the rest of the audience and make them bored. Instead, you should practice looking at the members of your audience, letting your gaze slowly focus on an audience member for 1–2 seconds before moving to the next audience member. Do this as you look across the audience throughout your presentation, so all members of the audience get your attention. This will make sure that your audience members feel included in your presentation and increase the likelihood that they will pay attention.

Facial Expressions

Your use of facial expressions can be a great way to convey the tone and feel of your presentation to your audience. For example, you can have a large smile (and, maybe a pause!) when telling the punchline of a joke or frown when giving a statistic that is particularly troubling. It is difficult for your audience to appreciate the emotion of the situation if you do not use appropriate facial expressions. Much like a voice that is monotone, a face that does not change expression to match the emotions of the content of the presentation is boring and off-putting. You should strive to keep your facial expressions neutral and open when not making an intentional facial expression, especially if you feel like your natural or resting facial expression is uninviting.

Gestures

Many gestures are made with your hands, but others utilize your shoulders, legs, arms, and head as well. Some gestures are considered emblems (i.e., gestures with a culturally unique meaning). For example, an upraised middle finger is a rude emblem in the United States. However, as we have previously noted, emblems are culturally unique, which means that the same gesture can be interpreted differently depending on your cultural context. Therefore, it is imperative that you research your audience to ensure that you use culturally appropriate gestures. Similarly, you may use gestures called illustrators, which emphasize or clarify a point. Opening your arms wide can be an illustrator of invitation or openness whereas crossed arms may indicate standoffishness or disagreement. Make sure your gestures are at an appropriate height (typically at around chest high), otherwise it may look as if your hands are moving at or below your waist level (which can be embarrassing!). Furthermore, your gestures should be big enough that all members of your audience can see them. Gestures that cannot be seen are gestures that are ineffective to your presentation!

Movement

The way you use the space–whether behind a podium, in front of a class, or on a stage–can be an important factor in the effectiveness of your presentation. Often, novice speakers (who are nervous) either lock themselves in a single spot and never move or pace back-and-forth like a caged tiger. Neither strategy, as you may imagine, is effective. Instead, you should move on key parts of your presentation including transitions from one main point to another, to emphasize a point, or to convey meaning. In other words, your movement should be deliberate and rehearsed.

Posture

The position of your shoulders, back, hips, and knees relative to each other make up your body’s posture. Your posture can communicate a great deal of information, even if you are not conscious of it. For example, having hunched shoulders over a podium, which you grip tightly, may indicate that you are extremely nervous. As a neutral position, you should stand, body facing forward toward your audience with your shoulders, hips, and knees parallel to each other. Your knees should be slightly bent (do NOT lock your knees or you may faint). If behind a podium, your hands should be slightly elevated off the lectern (do not simply rest your hands on top of it) so they are ready to make gestures.

As we have written many times already, it is important that you practice your physicality in order to ensure that it is effective for your audience. However, one challenge you may encounter is being over-rehearsed, which can make your physical movements seem scripted and inauthentic. Once you have practiced your presentation to the point that you feel confident in your presentation, we recommend you practice it a few times with drastically different physical movement, gestures, and vocal qualities. Doing so will increase the likelihood that the presentation remains fresh and interesting to you, which your audience will feel when you present it. Finally, make sure your physical gestures, facial expressions, and body language are BIG. When people are nervous, they tend to be more reserved, which means that what they perceive to be a normal amount of physicality (or vocal variety) is quite subdued. Practice being bigger, louder, and more physical than you think you need to be so you can better match the level of energy you audience experts.

Noel shifted nervously in her chair. Her professor had requested that all the students make their informative presentation about their own identity. They were supposed to pick two identities that were important to them, research their background, and share what they found out about themselves to the rest of the class. Noel had picked being adopted and a first-generation college student as her identities.

She looked down at her notes, rereading the bullet points she had made about her life: her biological parents, her adopted parents, struggles and triumphs, obstacles, and the means to overcome them, all condensed into three little cards. She smiled as she reread what she felt when her foster parents had finally been able to adopt her: joy, underlined three times with an exclamation point next to it.

Noel? You’re next,” Dr. Myers said, jolting her out of her reverie.

Yeah, of course, I’m ready. Noel said as she hurried to the front of the room. She looked out at the rest of the students and began telling her story.

Imagine yourself at eight years old. You haven’t seen your dad in two days, which is pretty typical. Your moms at work and won’t be home for another couple of hours. It’s 8 PM. You’re hungry because you haven’t eaten since lunch at school. You decide to make mac ‘n cheese on the stovetop. You’ve seen mom do it before–how hard can it be? You get the water in the pot, spilling it everywhere because everything is too high for you.” At this point, several students in the audience chuckle at the mental image of a young Noel comically sloshing water everywhere.

She continues. “You put it on the stove and wait for it to boil. Once it goes, you reach up to move it so you can put the boxed noodles in it but when you touch the handle it’s too hot because you didn’t set it right on the stove top. This scares you; you jolt the pot too hard, sloshing the boiling water all over your face and hands. You’re not seriously hurt, but now you’re hungry, hurt, and most of all scared of what you know could have been a lot worse and also scared at the mess you’ve made. Mom doesn’t come home that night from work. You go to sleep, not knowing whether the burns or the loneliness hurts worse. You start to feel…” But at this point, Noel can’t go on anymore. She starts crying, deep racking sobs as her childhood feelings resurface. She feels more than sees the other students’ eyes on her. Is it with pity? Anger? Boredom?

“Get it together,” She thinks to herself. “You’ve gone through worse than this and now you’re here!” She takes a deep breath, and restarts. “You start to feel like you don’t belong. Anywhere. But, the next day, you meet a nice lady, Maria, from Child Services. At first, you’re afraid to leave your home and your parents. But that was when you met your foster parents, Cindy and Bill, who will later adopt you legally. That’s my life, and how I started my journey being the first in my family to go to college.” She finished the rest of her presentation, cheeks still damp with tears, but smiling at the warmth she felt when she thought of her adopted mom and dad.

When she finished, the students and Dr. Myers applauded. “Great job Noel,” Dr. Myers said as she took her seat. “Way to stick it out and finish your presentation. I know that was hard for you, but we’re all grateful you shared your story.”

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Communication and public speaking apprehension are perhaps the most well-researched concepts in communication and media–and for good reason. Many people suffer from both forms of anxiety and everyday life—from your family to your job–is characterized by communicative interactions. Communication apprehension is an individual’s “level of fear or anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with another person or persons (McCroskey, 1978, p. 192). A person with high communication anxiety is someone we might refer to as shy or awkward. Communication apprehension is anxiety a person feels regardless of the situation–whether the context is one person or one hundred, they will feel stress. Public speaking apprehension, as you might expect, is anxiety associated with either real or anticipated communication with people in a public situation (Dannels, 2014).

Almost all speakers report feeling some amount of public speaking anxiety before, during, and after giving a public presentation. In fact, some speakers believe that they do better when they experience a low level of anxiety than when they experience no anxiety at all. This indicates that it may not be possible, or even desirable, to eliminate your public speaking anxiety. Rather, it is to reduce and mitigate it to a manageable level so you can focus on the content, vocal qualities, and physicality that make up a great presentation.

As such, we recommend five ways that you can identify and reduce your public speaking apprehension (Dannels, 2014):

• Systematic Desensitization: This technique focuses first on the type of physiological response you might have to public speaking anxiety. For example, does your heart rate increase, hands get sweaty, vision become blurry, or breathing become fast and shallow (or, most likely, a combination thereof)? Then, you identify what causes your physiological reactions–is it the number of people in the audience? The type (e.g., friends or family are fine, but strangers are more stressful)? Mode (e.g., face to face as opposed to video recorded)? After taking this inventory, you need to put yourself in situations where you feel safe, but a little uncomfortable vis-a-vis the physiological trigger. For example, if a large audience gives you anxiety, then give your presentation to a smaller audience first, and then to progressively larger audiences. As you do so, check in with yourself and your physiological and cognitive reactions–how’s your breathing? Your heart rate? As you continue to practice, you should experience less and less anxiety with every performance as you gradually reteach your body to be desensitized to the external stimuli that were causing you stress. You can also practice this method through visualization if you cannot give your presentation in different contexts (e.g., give your presentation while imagining larger and larger audiences) while practicing muscle relaxation. Eventually, your body will learn to associate public speaking with relaxation (rather than danger) and you will feel less nervous.
• Cognitive Modification or Rational Emotive Therapy: In this approach, you should identify the negative or irrational thoughts you might have about your audience that causes you to feel stress (e.g., “I’m ugly,” “I have a funny voice,” “I don’t know anything about this topic.”) You should then imagine yourself replacing those thoughts with positive thoughts or with coping statements. For example, changing “Everyone will think I’m dumb” with “I’ve done a lot of research on this topic and others need to know this information” is a great start. It not only replaces a negative thought with a positive one, it also reminds you that you know more about your topic than your audience and that they will benefit from your knowledge.
• COM Therapy: Oftentimes, the people who are the most nervous about public speaking are stressed because they put a lot of pressure and importance on giving a perfect performance. The problem with this approach is that as soon as you make a mistake–mispronounce a word, skip a line you memorized, or forget a date on a citation–you get extremely embarrassed and then stressed. It is important to remember that if you–not your audience– have memorized parts or all of your presentation; that is, if you miss a word or phrase or mess up there is a good chance that your audience will not even be aware of it unless you say something. To that end, COM Therapy teaches that approaching a public presentation as a conversation rather than as a performance, makes it feel more casual and less high stakes. As a result, making minor errors is something that is expected, and not noticed, by the audience and should be viewed as less stressful to you.
• Visualization: You may have heard of the old advice of imagining your audience naked; however, we do not endorse this prescription. Instead, visualization is taking the time to imagine you successfully giving the presentation, achieving your course goals, and making connections through your presentation. Much like cognitive modification or rational emotive theory, you should try to replace images of failure or errors with these more positive thoughts. Associating public speaking with rewards, rather than punishments, can help reduce stress and increase your chances for success.
• Skills Training: Sometimes people feel nervous about public speaking because they do not have, or have not practiced, the skills to be good at it. Public speaking, like any other activity, is not something that people are naturally good at; even people who have a talent or knack for it have to train and practice in order to excel. In this way, public speaking is no different than learning a sport, hobby, or musical instrument; that is, your performance will be directly related to the amount of time and effort you put into developing your expertise. If you feel that you are anxious about public speaking because you have limited experience or instruction in it then you should strive to give yourself opportunities–in your dorm room, at your family gatherings, or religious ceremonies–to practice.

Vocal quality, physicality, and public speaking anxiety are three areas that speakers need to develop in order to give an effective presentation–regardless of situation, topic, or audience. As we have mentioned, the only way to improve in any of these areas is practice–try out different voices, experiment with different body positions, and develop your public speaking persona through intentional and deliberate practice. We find that students that give boring or uninteresting presentations, or are incredibly nervous through their presentation, are often those who practice the least. Do not develop your presentation the night before and expect to give a great performance the next day. Plan and visualize success and you will be surprised at how naturally it comes!