5 Public Speaking Tips | Debate Hacks & Tricks
Today I’m going to transform you from an average public speaker into someone who has absolute power and authority every time you open your mouth.
Are you ready?
Here are my 5 tips for you to be the greatest version of your public speaking self, and I’ll even give you A BONUS PRO TIP for what to do right before you give your speech so that you’ll be more articulate and feel ready to go.
Let’s jump right into it, #1…
Public Speaking Tip #1: Keep it “Light”
You’re going to want to Keep it “light.” That means NO negativity!
It’s hard to listen to people who are negative. You know the kind of person I’m talking about, the constant complainer, it’s not engaging for very long, and no one leaves a negative conversation with a sense of trust in the person.
That’s just human psychology, we instinctively understand that negativity is contagious.
Sarcasm, complaining, it’s all “viral misery”, and just like someone who is physically ill, we tend to try and distance ourselves from those who are constantly negative.
You may not think of it right away, but this also includes Blame!
I hope you heard me, debaters!
This poses an interesting challenge for you especially, because let’s say you’re in a debate, and you aren’t taking the affirmative position. What do you do?
You SPIN! It’s something politicians do ALL THE TIME! – and you can to, with some practice. Spin the concept to the positive: Let’s say you were not taking the affirmative in a debate over a no-brainer issue, like oil spilling into the ocean, instead of saying “those people are awful” try spinning the script around by saying “Imagine a world where we have crystal clear oceans, free from pollution, clean water for everyone” (the perfect world ideology), and then use that as the foundation of your argument. In this way, you aren’t ANTI or against something, you’re PRO or for something! You have a clear goal, something you’re working toward.
This is a life lesson I want for you, that in anything, job/career, school, relationship, whatever, you should NEVER leave something because that’s an aimless pursuit, you should instead go toward something else! So you don’t like your job, fine, you don’t have to stay, but I guarantee you will be more successful when you leave if you leave to pursue something else rather than just leaving.
Being positive means having a happy attitude. People like people who are happy. That means you should also try Smiling!
Another key component of keeping things light is to Incorporate humor when possible. An easy way I’ve found to set a light tone is to incorporate humor into your intro “hook” (“attention getter”). Tell them a joke, they’ll be laughing, you’ll be smiling, you’ll have their attention, and it will make the rest of the speech go much easier.
Public Speaking Tip #2: Eliminate verbal pauses
You know what I’m talking about… Uh, Umm (most used) cut that out. Let’s be real, if you have a bunch of these, It’s because you haven’t practiced.
“Look at me, Did you practice? Did you? I didn’t think so.”
Having verbal pauses shows you lack confidence!
It lowers the audience’s opinion of you the more you do it because they assume you’re thinking about the ideas you’re talking about for the first time! So, get rid of those verbal pauses and you’ll sound smarter, like you’ve actually given the topic some thought.
So, what do you do instead of those verbal pauses when you need to transition between ideas or bullet points…?
SILENCE!
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH SILENCE! It creates variety, it allows your audience space to think about what you’ve said, when used strategically it can make a larger impact than anything you could say in the same amount of time.
So if you need a moment to catch your breath, pause, reset, and go on with your next point. It’s that easy.
Public Speaking Tip #3: Engage with your audience
Now a lot of people think “engaging” means staring.
Don’t do that. That’s creepy.
Engaging with your audience Doesn’t mean to look at them! I sing often and don’t look at individuals, but I do look OUT into the audience!
Engaging is just simply making a connection, you have to make a connection with your audience, and there’s a lot of strategies to accomplish this, but it all boils down to a couple things if you really want to make a personal connection with anyone.
I like to condense everything into two points that are the essence of engaging with anyone: Honesty and Authenticity. People want to be able to trust you and part of that is making sure you are honest, real, and that they can understand you. If they can understand your why, they will trust you and they will engage with you. That’s all there is to it.
Public Speaking Tip #4: Register & Timbre
I could probably do a WHOLE blog/video diving deep into this tip, and maybe I will in the future, but we’ll do the short version now and you can just ask questions about this in the comments later if you have any.
We associate depth with power and authority – rich, smooth, warm is your goal. The easy way to achieve this is to speak in the heaviest place of your voice, not through your nose, not in the back of your throat, you want to feel it in your chest.
But it’s not enough to just speak low the entire time, You need variety in your Pitch, it cannot be monotone. The same is true of Volume, it can sometimes be just as powerful to be loud as it is to be soft. You need variety, in everything, keep it interesting, and so long as you’re conscious about grounding your voice in warmth and richness, you can add variety of pitch and volume on top of that. No problem.
QUICK RECAP:
So we talked about keeping it light by putting a positive spin on everything then we talked about being aware of verbal pauses and being okay with silence as another tool in our speaking arsenal. We also talked about engaging with your audience by being honest and authentic, then controlling your voice’s register and timbre to be full and rich, with all the variety and interest you can muster. If you’ve got any questions about what we’ve covered so far, now might be a good time to jump down to the comments and ask your question. I personally respond to every comment I get, so you’re not going to bother me with your question. I’ve been involved in everything from cross-x to pantomime… which I think most forensics tournaments don’t even do anymore…
Anyway, there’s your four tips, and here’s the last one…
Public Speaking Tip #5: Pacing.
The most fundamental aspect of pacing in public speaking is the Tempo of your words.
How quickly are you saying things?
“Too fast … and no one will be able to follow what you’re saying for very long because they’ll get so worn out just listening to all those words, YIKES!”
Too slow…
and after a while…
they might just get so bored…
they fall… asleep.
Pacing isn’t just about the tempo of your words, but also the tempo of your speech as a whole. HERE’S a PRO-TIP: Don’t be afraid to wrap up your point OR speech before you thought you would
Always, READ THE (ROOM), read your AUDIENCE. Do they already agree? – What’s the mood, the atmosphere in the room? If your judges or your audience has been sitting there for 8hrs (like the final round of competition), and you can be done quick but will have extra time at the end, just wrap it up! Everyone will thank you for it. You have to always be thinking about What your audience needs. This ties in a little with engaging your audience, because if you’re engaged with them, their engaged with you, you’ll be able to sense the mood.
Also, pacing is about going on a clear journey across whole speech – “beginning to end pacing” There is a Clear focal point OR climax, there is Rising action, falling action. If you take your audience with you on a journey that is well paced from beginning to end, they will leave feeling fulfilled, and that’s really what you want.
BONUS Public Speaking and Debate Hack:
Alright, you made it to the end. You got all 5 tips for making your next public speaking event infinitely better, so, as promised, here’s your BONUS public speaking tip, and it’s not something some of the most seasoned speakers, debaters think about, only the BEST know to take this seriously… Vocal Warm ups.
Now if you’re a musician, you know all about the warm up. The thing I want you to realize is that if you’re a speaker, you are a vocal athlete. Your speech, done well, is going to be explosive, and physical, and demanding on you, on your voice, and just like anything else you do that’s active, you need to warm up so you perform to the best of your physical and mental ability AND so that you don’t hurt yourself in the process.
So here’s my simple speaking warm up that you can use next time you need it. Just right before you take the podium or grab the mic, here’s what you do. (watch the public speaking tips and tricks video above for some greater clarity if you’re confused!)
First warm up the Body -arms up breath in sigh out, high to low.
Next, Bap-bap-bap…
Then La-la-la-la.
Now, Siren (high to low, low to high).
There’s your 20 second warmup to get your mind and body ready to perform.
Last Word Of Encouragement!
Hey, if you never hear it from someone else, hear me right now when I say you can do this, I believe in you, and you’re going to crush it!
If you liked what I had to say, don’t forget to check out my YouTube page @Enhymn, and follow me on Instagram and Facebook @Enhymn as well. I do new content on social daily and videos every week.
Anyway, I do hope that you were able to take something away, and I’ll see you next time.
Go in peace.