A student in my Public Speaking course asked me "What are the best tips for Public Speaking?" . What a tight spot.
Currently, the unusual amount of information available doubles worldwide every eighteen months and is expected to double weekly in the coming years. In a world full of information. In this context: What are the best tips to please our audience, organize our ideas effectively and express them with passion?
My student did me a great favor by asking me for the best tips, because in this way, I was able to reflect on which authors, techniques and tips to choose.
To the surprise of many, I find every day that the fundamentals, theories and techniques for public speaking are still based on times of Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.
In reality, little progress has been made in the art of presenting since Aristotle and his famous Rhetoric, written more than 2,300 years ago. From his point of view, the speaker must persuade his audience through arguments that contain values, emotions and concrete facts. The 3 modes of appeal according to Aristotle are those related to ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos = Moral
The arguments linked to ethos are affective and moral and concern the issuer of the discourse. They are based on the authority and honesty of the speaker, his credibility and his personal relationship with the audience.
If we believe that the speaker is honest, we give him credibility. In short, they are the attitudes that he must adopt to inspire confidence in his audience.
“We believe good men more fully and with less hesitation; this is generally true whatever the question, and absolutely true where absolute certainty is impossible and opinions divided ” - wrote Aristotle in Book I of his Rhetoric.
Pathos = Emotion
The arguments referring to pathos are of a purely affective order, those emotions that move the receiver of the speech. Stories, anecdotes, analogies, metaphors can be used as emotional arguments, as long as the speech is delivered with passion. Effective stories resonate in the hearts of the audience.
The Christian scientist, writer and philosopher, Blaise Pascal rightly stated that "the heart has reasons that reason ignores."
Logos = Evidence
The arguments linked to the logos are limited to the subject through allusions to facts, data and reasoning in the proper domain of dialectics. Logical arguments supported by solid evidence are used, appealing to the reason and intelligence of the audience.
Paraphrasing Aristotle we can say that we must create a perfect balance between our personal credibility, in our integrity and competence and inspire confidence in our public while expressing the authentic sentiment that helps us empathize. If our words manage to align with the emotional impulse of our audience, we can create the right environment for the reasoned part of the exhibition.
To maintain credibility with the audience (ethos) it is important for a speaker to strike a balance between their logical (logos) and emotional (pathos) arguments. It is necessary to present facts in a presentation accompanied by an emotional appeal. In our presentations, we usually make the mistake of basing all our persuasive argumentation on data and facts (logos), neglecting the other two, especially the emotional appeal (pathos). We forget that emotion moves action more than reason.
The eloquent speech according to Cicero
After the rise of Rome, public speaking techniques developed in Greece were enthusiastically picked up by the Romans. Public speaking gained widespread popularity as a form of entertainment, allowing famous speakers to stand out and exert political influence through the use of their public speaking skills. Among them was Marcus Tullis Cicero - a lawyer, politician, philosopher, who gained fame as Rome's greatest orator. Around 50 BC Cicero wrote his treatise called "De Oratore" where he explained his "Five Canons of Rhetoric" which are widely used by many public speakers to this day.
According to Cicero, the process of preparing the eloquent speech consists of five main steps:
- Invention: choice, development and refinement of the plot. This step consists of finding the right material taking into account its general importance and the interests of the audience. Disposition: is the creation of the structure of the argument in a coherent way. It consists of selecting and ordering the material from the beginning to the end. Style: In this step we enter the process of determining how to present an argument, using rhetorical techniques and choosing the words that have the greatest impact on the audience. Memory:It is the process of learning and memorization paying attention to the speech itself. Cicero emphasized the practice of the nuances of the voice to give speech a natural style. What doesn't sound natural is rarely remembered. Delivery: in the final step the speaker makes effective use of the language, voice and body. If you've done a proper job, you can deliver a compelling speech with voice, body, and soul.
All public speaking professionals use these fundamentals in their speeches in addition to the golden rule: practice, practice, practice.
Sometimes, those who believe that they will not be able to control their nerves when making a speech ask me "Is it really relevant to know how to speak in public?"
My answer is invariably the same: “Of course it is. I have more than 20 reasons to prove it and a couple of techniques that will help you remarkably calm your nerves. "
But I'll tell you about that in another article…
