Do’s and don’t’s of Public Speaking

Knowing the do’s and don’ts of public speaking is something that can really help your career. No matter what you do for a living, being able to do public speaking well is going to come in handy. Whether you have to give presentations, sales pitches, or train new employees, public speaking skills are what will set you apart.

Unfortunately, most people simply aren’t good at it. Schools don’t really put much emphasis on teaching it, and neither do most employee training programs. Since most people have some fear of public speaking, it’s uncommon for them to take the initiative and develop those skills. And, since a lot of people don’t see the value in knowing the do’s and don’ts of public speaking, they don’t see why they should try and develop those skills in the first place.

Public Speaking Matters

You may think you don’t need to learn the do’s and don’ts of public speaking. You’d be wrong, though. While it’s definitely more helpful in some careers than others, it’s hard to think of any job where strong public speaking skills wouldn’t be a major benefit.

On top of that, anybody who’s considered an expert on a subject (or who wants to be considered an expert on a subject), is going to need to be a good speaker. High level executives all need to be good speakers. In fact, one of the things that sets apart upper management in any career field is that they’ve mastered the do’s and don’ts of public speaking.

But even if you have no interest in being an executive, you’ll probably need to be a good public speaker. Take scientists, for example. Any working scientist is going to be required to give lots of highly technical presentations throughout the year. If they’re bad at public speaking, they won’t be able to get the information across as easily, and their research won’t have the impact they want it to.

For all you know, the most famous scientists in the world- the ones who keep popping up on News interviews, documentaries, and other media- aren’t the best researchers, but they’re the best public speakers. Their careers, their research and their opinions have shaped the world more than other scientists who might actually be better researchers because they can communicate their ideas better.

But what about jobs that don’t require any kind of presentations? It’s actually hard to think of a job like that. Accountants, sales people, managers, developers, writers, and even programmers are all going to be required to do some kind of public speaking from time to time. Even if your job doesn’t specifically include public speaking responsibilities, you’re going to need those skills. If you want a raise, you’re going to have to make a good presentation to your boss on why you deserve one. If you’re interviewing for a new job, your interview is basically a presentation about yourself.

And at some point in nearly every job your bosses will ask you to update them on what you’ve been working on. So, good public speaking skills are a universal necessity.

You need to know the do’s and don’ts of public speaking. So, we’ll break down public speaking into stages and cover the do’s and don’ts for each one.

Preparation

Here are the do’s and don’ts of public speaking when you’re preparing your talk.

Do’s

Do decide what the purpose of your talk is. What, exactly, is your message? The best talks are the ones where people clearly understand what it is you’re trying to tell them, but very few speakers actually understand this. Try to sum up your entire talk in one sentence- if you can’t do that, you haven’t settled on your message.

Once you’ve got that clear message, organize your entire talk around it. Everything you say needs to build up and point to that one message. No fluff, nothing irrelevant.

Do know everything you want to say. If you need to write out the whole speech, word for word, then do it. A lot of people find that this can really help them with their nerves, and they feel much calmer going into a talk when they’ve written it out.

Do be flexible. Don’t try and rigidly stick to what you’ve written. You’ll sound wooden and uninteresting if you do. If a funny anecdote pops into your mind that relates to your message, it’s ok to share it. In fact it can make your take better if you do. If you forget to say something you had written, it’s ok to let it slide. No one will know but you.

Do rehearse with a stopwatch. This helps you to be sure your talk is the proper length. You want to make sure that your talk fits within the allotted time, while allowing time for questions if you’re meant to. The only way to do that is to time it beforehand. It’s best to go a little over time in rehearsal, because you’ll speak faster when you’re giving your talk for real than you do while rehearsing. Just a couple of extra minutes during practice should do it.

Don’ts

Don’t make your message too complicated. An audience can only remember about three or four points. Less is always more. One of the biggest mistakes speakers make is trying to include too many points in their talks. The audience leaves without a clear idea of what you were saying.

Don’t over rehearse. Practice is good, but too much practice will make it hard for you to connect with your audience. Practice just enough to be sure you’ll fit in the time limit and be comfortable.

Don’t read your talk. Even if you’ve written everything out, if you spend the whole time reading what you’ve written no one is going to listen to you. You won’t be interesting. Look up from your notes. Engage with the audience.

Don’t use filler words. “Uh” or “um” should never come out of your mouth. If you need a second before you can remember what comes next, just be silent. Small pauses in your talk aren’t awkward. In fact, they’re a good thing. They give your audience time to process what you’ve already said and help make your talk a lot more interesting. In contrast, saying “uh” or “um” every time you have to pause and think about what comes next makes you seem nervous and unprofessional. This means that you should be practicing those silent pauses when you rehearse, so that you don’t risk using filler words during the actual talk.

During Your Talk

And here are the do’s and don’ts of public speaking while you’re actually speaking.

Do’s

Do show your excitement, enthusiasm, and energy. Your audience can’t be more interested and excited for your talk than you are. Your energy level and your excitement set the tone for the whole thing.

Do look at your audience. Face them the whole time. If you’re using slides and you need to see them, keep a laptop or tablet in front of you with the slides on them. If you’ve written your speech out, word for word, place it somewhere you won’t have to keep looking down to read. Have you ever wondered why politicians use teleprompters instead of just having their speeches on the podium with them? Most of them use clear screens with the speech projected onto them so they look as if they’re looking out into the audience, when they’re actually reading their speech. That way they can say exactly what they mean to say while still connecting with the audience.

Do speak in a loud, clear voice. Even if you’re using a microphone, speak loud and clear.

Do slow down. When you’re nervous, you’ll speak more quickly than usual. You probably won’t realize how quickly you’re speaking. So, if you’re nervous, a good trick is to speak so slowly it actually feels too slow to you. It will seem too slow, but to your audience it will sound just right. It’s better to err on the side of speaking too slow than to speak too fast. Your audience will probably never notice if you go too slow, but if you’re speaking too fast they won’t be able to understand you.

Do use notes and visual aids. Notes help you remember what you’re supposed to say. Visual aids like PowerPoint slides help your audience to follow along. Keep the slides simple, just a couple of bullet points on each one, or a simple picture. That keeps the audience focused on you, while helping them to follow along.

Don’ts

Don’t jump back and forth through your slides. This just confuses the audience and makes you seem unprepared. Either organize your talk so that you never need to go back to a slide you’ve already shown, or duplicate it. That way your slide will already be next up in order every time you need it.

Don’t fidget. Some of us are natural fidgeters, we can’t help it. For these people fidgeting isn’t necessarily a sign of nervousness, but it’s going to make you look nervous anyway. The solution is to make your movements purposeful. Hand gestures need to complement what you’re saying. That will satisfy your need to fidget while enhancing your talk instead of distracting from it.

Don’t be afraid of your audience. This may be the #1 thing that causes people to be afraid of public speaking. They think the audience is judging them, disliking them, and even mentally mocking them when they make a mistake. Nothing could be further from the truth. The audience is on your side. They want you to succeed. They’re inclined to think highly of you, simply because you’re the one on the stage. You don’t need to be afraid of your audience. You should actually be excited to see them, because they’re excited to see you.

Don’t read from your slides. Slides aren’t there for you, they’re there for the audience. They can read the slides perfectly well, and they don’t need you to read them for you. What they need is for you to elaborate from what’s on the slides so they can learn from you.

Don’t put too much information on the slides. A slide should never have more than two or three bullet points, with no more than one paragraph each. Never, ever put your speech notes on your slides. This is an infamous habit of bad college professors- their entire lecture is written out on their slides, and they just sit there reading the slides to the class. Why should anyone listen to them when they can just read the slides?

Don’t pace. The temptation to move around may be huge. But if you’re pacing back and forth during your talk it makes you visibly nervous. It’s not just that it makes you nervous, though. It’s incredibly distracting, and people aren’t going to remember what you said, they’ll just remember that you were pacing.

Questions and Answers

Do’s

Do answer each question as clearly and succinctly as possible. You want to make sure that each person who asks a question understands the answer, but you don’t want to spend too much time on each question, either. Otherwise you’ll end up spending all your time on one or two questions and most of the people in the audience will never get a chance to ask their questions.

Do say “I don’t know” if someone asks you a question you can’t answer. Don’t try to lie or BS your way to an answer. People can tell when you’re just making it up, and it ruins your credibility. Admitting that you don’t know something, ironically, adds to your credibility. It makes you more trustworthy and reliable, because you’ll admit where the limits of your expertise are.

Don’ts

Don’t go back to your slides to answer a question. The audience has already seen all of your slides, so if they’re asking a question, the answer is not on the slides. If you think you need to go back to the slides to answer the question, you probably just don’t know the answer.

Don’t use a question to bring up things you cut out of your talk. You cut that part of your talk for a reason. It’s probably not relevant to the question anyway. Focus on the question, and how it relates to what you’ve already presented.

Don’t talk only to the person asking the questions. When someone asks a question, make sure you repeat it into a microphone so everyone can hear it, and then make sure that everyone can hear your answer.

Some Other Do’s And Don’ts Of Public Speaking

There are plenty of do’s and don’ts that don’t really fit into the categories we’ve already listed. They’re still important to know, though, so we’re going to list them here.

Do use a laser pointer to help direct an audience’s attention to specific things on your slides. Parts of an image, especially if the image is of a graph or chart, are great things to point out with a laser pointer.

Don’t use a laser pointer to point at text. Your audience can read, they don’t need your help to do it.

Do make sure to define terms that your audience may be unfamiliar with. Don’t assume they have all the same technical knowledge that you do. You’re the expert, not them. That’s why they came to hear you.

Don’t introduce a topic with statements like “just real quick” or “briefly.” All you’re doing then is telling the audience that this next part of the talk isn’t important and they don’t need to listen to it. Basically, you’re saying “this part is just filler.”

Do avoid acronyms to a minimum. Acronyms aren’t helpful in this context. They just make it harder for the audience to follow along with what you’re saying. They might actually confuse them enough that they completely misunderstand your point.

Don’t start sentences with “So” or end them with “right?” or “ok.”

Do remember that your talk is a performance. You have to make it interesting, and also entertaining. It’s not just about what you say, it’s also about how you say it. You are not merely a presenter, you are now a performer, an entertainer. You have to think about the most interesting way to present your message.

Don’t disrespect the audience. If you say things like “you may not understand this” or “you probably won’t know what this means” you’re insulting and disrespecting your listeners. They’re not going to listen to you now.

Other Things To Think Of

Do have multiple backups of your presentation. A backup USB stick, copies stored in the cloud, and a copy emailed to yourself are all good ideas. That way you’re guaranteed to have a copy of your presentation with you, even if you run into technical problems that cause you to lose one copy.

Don’t assume that your presentation is formatted properly for the computers in the room you’re speaking in. Make sure that you’ve got everything in the right format for the right computers.

Do research your audience. Who will be listening and how many of them will there be? Presenting to a room of several hundred people is very different from presenting to a room of five.

Don’t wait to print handouts until right before your talk. You never know what problems might come up at the last minute. If handouts are important for your talk, get them printed well in advance.

Do plan out your outfit. It may seem frivolous but your outfit is important. You need to wear something that looks professional and gives you confidence. If you can find an outfit that does that while also being comfortable, that’s even better. Waiting until the morning of your talk before picking out what to wear is only going to add to your stress.

Conclusion

Knowing the do’s and don’ts of public speaking can really advance your career. It can also make public speaking something you enjoy, rather than something you dread. Good public speakers can go far in any field, and it’s a key skill to possess if you want to advance to the executive level. Follow these do’s and don’ts of public speaking to ensure that your public speaking skills are second to none.

Preparation

Here are the do’s and don’ts of public speaking when you’re preparing your talk.

Do’s

Do decide what the purpose of your talk is. What, exactly, is your message? The best talks are the ones where people clearly understand what it is you’re trying to tell them, but very few speakers actually understand this. Try to sum up your entire talk in one sentence- if you can’t do that, you haven’t settled on your message.

Once you’ve got that clear message, organize your entire talk around it. Everything you say needs to build up and point to that one message. No fluff, nothing irrelevant.

Do know everything you want to say. If you need to write out the whole speech, word for word, then do it. A lot of people find that this can really help them with their nerves, and they feel much calmer going into a talk when they’ve written it out.

Do be flexible. Don’t try and rigidly stick to what you’ve written. You’ll sound wooden and uninteresting if you do. If a funny anecdote pops into your mind that relates to your message, it’s ok to share it. In fact it can make your take better if you do. If you forget to say something you had written, it’s ok to let it slide. No one will know but you.

Do rehearse with a stopwatch. This helps you to be sure your talk is the proper length. You want to make sure that your talk fits within the allotted time, while allowing time for questions if you’re meant to. The only way to do that is to time it beforehand. It’s best to go a little over time in rehearsal, because you’ll speak faster when you’re giving your talk for real than you do while rehearsing. Just a couple of extra minutes during practice should do it.

Don’ts

Don’t make your message too complicated. An audience can only remember about three or four points. Less is always more. One of the biggest mistakes speakers make is trying to include too many points in their talks. The audience leaves without a clear idea of what you were saying.

Don’t over rehearse. Practice is good, but too much practice will make it hard for you to connect with your audience. Practice just enough to be sure you’ll fit in the time limit and be comfortable.

Don’t read your talk. Even if you’ve written everything out, if you spend the whole time reading what you’ve written no one is going to listen to you. You won’t be interesting. Look up from your notes. Engage with the audience.

Don’t use filler words. “Uh” or “um” should never come out of your mouth. If you need a second before you can remember what comes next, just be silent. Small pauses in your talk aren’t awkward. In fact, they’re a good thing. They give your audience time to process what you’ve already said and help make your talk a lot more interesting. In contrast, saying “uh” or “um” every time you have to pause and think about what comes next makes you seem nervous and unprofessional. This means that you should be practicing those silent pauses when you rehearse, so that you don’t risk using filler words during the actual talk.

During Your Talk

And here are the do’s and don’ts of public speaking while you’re actually speaking.

Do’s

Do show your excitement, enthusiasm, and energy. Your audience can’t be more interested and excited for your talk than you are. Your energy level and your excitement set the tone for the whole thing.

Do look at your audience. Face them the whole time. If you’re using slides and you need to see them, keep a laptop or tablet in front of you with the slides on them. If you’ve written your speech out, word for word, place it somewhere you won’t have to keep looking down to read. Have you ever wondered why politicians use teleprompters instead of just having their speeches on the podium with them? Most of them use clear screens with the speech projected onto them so they look as if they’re looking out into the audience, when they’re actually reading their speech. That way they can say exactly what they mean to say while still connecting with the audience.

Do speak in a loud, clear voice. Even if you’re using a microphone, speak loud and clear.

Do slow down. When you’re nervous, you’ll speak more quickly than usual. You probably won’t realize how quickly you’re speaking. So, if you’re nervous, a good trick is to speak so slowly it actually feels too slow to you. It will seem too slow, but to your audience it will sound just right. It’s better to err on the side of speaking too slow than to speak too fast. Your audience will probably never notice if you go too slow, but if you’re speaking too fast they won’t be able to understand you.

Do use notes and visual aids. Notes help you remember what you’re supposed to say. Visual aids like PowerPoint slides help your audience to follow along. Keep the slides simple, just a couple of bullet points on each one, or a simple picture. That keeps the audience focused on you, while helping them to follow along.

Don’ts

Don’t jump back and forth through your slides. This just confuses the audience and makes you seem unprepared. Either organize your talk so that you never need to go back to a slide you’ve already shown, or duplicate it. That way your slide will already be next up in order every time you need it.

Don’t fidget. Some of us are natural fidgeters, we can’t help it. For these people fidgeting isn’t necessarily a sign of nervousness, but it’s going to make you look nervous anyway. The solution is to make your movements purposeful. Hand gestures need to complement what you’re saying. That will satisfy your need to fidget while enhancing your talk instead of distracting from it.

Don’t be afraid of your audience. This may be the #1 thing that causes people to be afraid of public speaking. They think the audience is judging them, disliking them, and even mentally mocking them when they make a mistake. Nothing could be further from the truth. The audience is on your side. They want you to succeed. They’re inclined to think highly of you, simply because you’re the one on the stage. You don’t need to be afraid of your audience. You should actually be excited to see them, because they’re excited to see you.

Don’t read from your slides. Slides aren’t there for you, they’re there for the audience. They can read the slides perfectly well, and they don’t need you to read them for you. What they need is for you to elaborate from what’s on the slides so they can learn from you.

Don’t put too much information on the slides. A slide should never have more than two or three bullet points, with no more than one paragraph each. Never, ever put your speech notes on your slides. This is an infamous habit of bad college professors- their entire lecture is written out on their slides, and they just sit there reading the slides to the class. Why should anyone listen to them when they can just read the slides?

Don’t pace. The temptation to move around may be huge. But if you’re pacing back and forth during your talk it makes you visibly nervous. It’s not just that it makes you nervous, though. It’s incredibly distracting, and people aren’t going to remember what you said, they’ll just remember that you were pacing.

Questions and Answers

Do’s

Do answer each question as clearly and succinctly as possible. You want to make sure that each person who asks a question understands the answer, but you don’t want to spend too much time on each question, either. Otherwise you’ll end up spending all your time on one or two questions and most of the people in the audience will never get a chance to ask their questions.

Do say “I don’t know” if someone asks you a question you can’t answer. Don’t try to lie or BS your way to an answer. People can tell when you’re just making it up, and it ruins your credibility. Admitting that you don’t know something, ironically, adds to your credibility. It makes you more trustworthy and reliable, because you’ll admit where the limits of your expertise are.

Don’ts

Don’t go back to your slides to answer a question. The audience has already seen all of your slides, so if they’re asking a question, the answer is not on the slides. If you think you need to go back to the slides to answer the question, you probably just don’t know the answer.

Don’t use a question to bring up things you cut out of your talk. You cut that part of your talk for a reason. It’s probably not relevant to the question anyway. Focus on the question, and how it relates to what you’ve already presented.

Don’t talk only to the person asking the questions. When someone asks a question, make sure you repeat it into a microphone so everyone can hear it, and then make sure that everyone can hear your answer.

Some Other Do’s And Don’ts Of Public Speaking

There are plenty of do’s and don’ts that don’t really fit into the categories we’ve already listed. They’re still important to know, though, so we’re going to list them here.

Do use a laser pointer to help direct an audience’s attention to specific things on your slides. Parts of an image, especially if the image is of a graph or chart, are great things to point out with a laser pointer.

Don’t use a laser pointer to point at text. Your audience can read, they don’t need your help to do it.

Do make sure to define terms that your audience may be unfamiliar with. Don’t assume they have all the same technical knowledge that you do. You’re the expert, not them. That’s why they came to hear you.

Don’t introduce a topic with statements like “just real quick” or “briefly.” All you’re doing then is telling the audience that this next part of the talk isn’t important and they don’t need to listen to it. Basically, you’re saying “this part is just filler.”

Do avoid acronyms to a minimum. Acronyms aren’t helpful in this context. They just make it harder for the audience to follow along with what you’re saying. They might actually confuse them enough that they completely misunderstand your point.

Don’t start sentences with “So” or end them with “right?” or “ok.”

Do remember that your talk is a performance. You have to make it interesting, and also entertaining. It’s not just about what you say, it’s also about how you say it. You are not merely a presenter, you are now a performer, an entertainer. You have to think about the most interesting way to present your message.

Don’t disrespect the audience. If you say things like “you may not understand this” or “you probably won’t know what this means” you’re insulting and disrespecting your listeners. They’re not going to listen to you now.

Other Things To Think Of

Do have multiple backups of your presentation. A backup USB stick, copies stored in the cloud, and a copy emailed to yourself are all good ideas. That way you’re guaranteed to have a copy of your presentation with you, even if you run into technical problems that cause you to lose one copy.

Don’t assume that your presentation is formatted properly for the computers in the room you’re speaking in. Make sure that you’ve got everything in the right format for the right computers.

Do research your audience. Who will be listening and how many of them will there be? Presenting to a room of several hundred people is very different from presenting to a room of five.

Don’t wait to print handouts until right before your talk. You never know what problems might come up at the last minute. If handouts are important for your talk, get them printed well in advance.

Do plan out your outfit. It may seem frivolous but your outfit is important. You need to wear something that looks professional and gives you confidence. If you can find an outfit that does that while also being comfortable, that’s even better. Waiting until the morning of your talk before picking out what to wear is only going to add to your stress.

Conclusion

Knowing the do’s and don’ts of public speaking can really advance your career. It can also make public speaking something you enjoy, rather than something you dread. Good public speakers can go far in any field, and it’s a key skill to possess if you want to advance to the executive level. Follow these do’s and don’ts of public speaking to ensure that your public speaking skills are second to none.