Another public speaking principle consists of making mental pictures for your audience. If I say "idiopathic scoliosis," without showing a picture, drawing, or slide, it will have no meaning. People think in images. This makes the need for visual aids imperative. If they are not available, a speaker must be inventive enough to create vivid work-pictures.
Next, particularize -- don't generalize. Audiences relate better to something specific, rather than something general. Don't talk about patients -- talk about a specific patient; don't talk about disease -- talk about a specific disease. That is probably why testimonials are so effective. They speak about the experience of a particular person -- usually a laudable personality with which the public is already familiar.
Overfeeding your audience is also risky business; that is, giving them too much information to digest will invariably make matters worse. Guard against "speech clutter." Audiences are frequently confused by too much information. While you may think that the more you say, the better your speech will be, is not necessarily true. Strive to be more explicit and less ambiguous, more concrete and less abstract. While I do not advise talking down to your audience, I do advise keeping your language simple and your sentences short.
Being conscious of feedback is also helpful. Feedback is the verbal or nonverbal information you get from your audience. It can be either negative or positive. Negative verbal feedback occurs when members of your audience talk to each other during your speech, jeer, or ask you hostile questions. Positive verbal feedback includes being asked relevant questions or being showered by shouts of "bravo!" Conversely, negative nonverbal feedback comes in the form of people nodding off, fidgeting in their seats, or simply walking out of the room. Positive nonverbal feedback is identified by such behaviors as applause, sustained eye contact, or people leaning forward in their seats.
Good speakers must constantly be on the lookout for audience feedback. It acts like a compass, telling speakers whether they are on or off course. The flexible speaker must always be prepared to shift ground or change course according to the situation at hand.
Borrowing from my own experience, I recall a student fainting during one of my lectures. I had no idea what was wrong with him or why he had fainted. However, instead of interrupting my flow of speech, I immediately worked his "faint" into my lecture. I said to the class, "What have we here? George has passed out. Let me see whether he is dead or simply fainted." I proceeded to check his vital signs and determined that he was still alive. I, then, sent one of the class members to get the university nurse on duty. In a few minutes, George came to and was escorted by another student to the Nursing Office.
The point I am trying to drive home is that during a speech you should make every effort to avoid interruptions. Whatever happens, try to work them into your speech. If an airplane passes overhead, work the noise it makes into your speech -- identify it as a stimulus, or a means of transportation by which people get from place to place. Unless the noise is absolutely deafening, don't stop talking and wait for the plane to leave the area. Whatever occurs, incorporate it. Developing this technique will preserve your ability to go with the flow -- to control a disruptive influence, rather than letting it control you.
An equally effective speechmaking technique is to involve your audience. Create a conversational mood, rather than merely talking at your audience. Ask them to do something. For example, if you are describing the respiratory system and mention the larynx, have them feel their own Adam's apple. Ask them to swallow and notice how it rises and falls. Or, to illustrate diaphragmatic breathing, have them take a deep breath and push their abdomen outwards. Interest in a speech, or speaker, will often be proportional to an audience's participation. Also, feel free to ask an occasional rhetorical question, i.e., "Why do people get sick? Are inoculations absolutely necessary? Can infants be treated with chiropractic? These questions are designed to whet your audience's appetite, to direct attention toward a given topic. Again, the objective is to involve them in either thought or action.
Choosing a speech topic can also be a problem. Your best bet is to stay with what you know. Don't venture into unfamiliar territory. Give serious thought to what you think your audience will want to know. Give them something specific to take home. Relevance is the watchword. Pick a topic that your audience will find meaningful. You can choose from a wide variety of disorders from which millions suffer, e.g., backache, headache, joint pain, fatigue, stress -- the list is endless. Do not choose a topic that afflicts only a small percent of the general population.
The television commercial is a special form of public address, and tells them what they stand to gain or lose by doing something. Example: If you drink Pepsi, you will have more friends (GAIN). If you smoke, you will develop lung cancer (LOSE). Persuasion is the name of the game. As a speechmaker, you must persuade your audience. People are moved more readily by hearing what they have to lose, than what they have to gain. Look what advertising has done to the public mind with regard to cholesterol. Practically every housewife and supermarket shopper has been brainwashed into compulsively reading labels that mention cholesterol.
Basically, there are three kinds of speeches: to inform, persuade, and entertain. Their objectives, respectively, are self-evident. If your speech is to inform, you will tell them about chiropractic. If your speech is to persuade, you will try to convince people that chiropractic can help them. An entertaining speech should do just that -- entertain.
You should also be aware of the impromptu and extemporaneous speech. The impromptu speech occurs when, at some business or social meeting you are asked without warning to say a few words. The extemporaneous speech, while it is prepared, it is neither memorized nor delivered with the aid of notes. These types of speeches require quick thinking and considerable self-confidence.
Among the more common things that detract from effective speechmaking, poor eye contact leads the pack. It is the exceptional speaker who looks directly at various members of an audience. Too many look away while they speak. Some look at their notes, their hands, out a window, at the ceiling, or down at the floor. There are even those who periodically close their eyes while speaking. You must acknowledge people in the audience with your eyes. Direct eye contact alerts them to the fact that you expect them to listen, to pay attention, that they are important to you.
Unless your subject matter is extremely involved, or highly technical, make every effort to use cue cards. Do not, whenever feasible, read exclusively from notes. On cue cards, you will have topic headings, subheadings, and direct quotes. Again, refrain from reading your speech in its entirety.
Support for a speech, if you expect to be believed, goes beyond proof in its conventional form, e.g., facts, testimonials, statistics, and documentation. It refers to anything that will facilitate acceptance by your audience. One such item is the employment of definitions. Professionals are notorious when it comes to using field-specific terminology -- language that is readily understood by members of a profession, but not by outsiders. We in chiropractic are so comfortable with such terms as subluxation, spasm, fixation, or distortion, that we forget to define them. In short, definitions are useful whenever you use terms or concepts with which your audience is unfamiliar.
Additional benefit can be derived from the use of descriptions and explanations. They help clarify meaning. Analogy is probably one of the most popular forms of clarification utilized by professional speechmakers. A simile, for instance, makes an explicit comparison between two things using the word "like" or "as." A metaphor functions like a simile, except that it omits the words like or as. Saying that the nervous system is "like" a telephone switchboard is a simile; saying that it is a telephone switchboard makes it a metaphor.
Martin Luther King used the technique of repetition when he spoke those memorable words, "I have a dream." If an idea or point is truly important to a speech, repeat it! It should be noted, however, that there is a difference between repetition and restatement. Repetition employs the exact same words, whereas restatement expresses the same idea, again, using other words.
The conscientious speaker should attempt to involve as many of the audience's senses as possible. Showing a picture of the vertebral column, talking about it, and actually passing a plastic model of one around involves seeing, hearing, and touching. A similar effect can be derived from using a member of your audience as a subject upon whom to demonstrate an adjustment.
Some final dont's: 1) don't talk with your hands in front of your mouth; 2) don't drop your voice at the end of a sentence; 3) don't use purposeless gestures (playing with your glasses, adjusting articles of clothing, fiddle with a pen, pencil, paper, or keys; 4) don't read excessively from a prepared speech; and, 5) don't exceed your allowed time limit.
In closing, be reminded that although stage fright is America's leading phobia, it is curable. If you can talk to one person, you can talk to two; if you can talk to two people, you can talk to three. If approached with diligence and perseverance, you can become an effective speechmaker.
Abne M. Eisenberg, D.C., Ph.D.
Professor of Communication,
Pace University
Croton on Hudson, New York
Editor's Note:
As a professor of communication, Dr. Eisenberg is frequently asked to speak at conventions and regional meetings. For further information regarding speaking engagements, you may call (914) 271-4441, or write to Two Wells Ave., Croton on Hudson, New York 10520.