Practice is absolutely essential if you want to be a good public speaker. You cannot simply pen your speech and then deliver it the following day without ever having recited it once. That is a recipe for disaster.
Instead, what you should do is begin practicing your speech well in advance of the speaking date. Additionally, if you can, find a friend who is willing to listen to your speech and give comments. At first, it might seem irksome and embarrassing, but in the long run, you will feel much better about the quality of your speech after you have delivered it to a friend and have received extensive feedback.
In many cases, it is a good idea to deliver your speech to more than one friend or family member. This will allow you to get a better feel for how different types of people respond do it. Additionally, try to seek out individuals who are willing to provide blunt, honest feedback about changes you should make. It may be difficult to hear, but the information you gain as a result will be worth it.
Make Modifications as You Go
As you’re practicing your speech (either alone or with others), you should always keep something nearby to take notes on. As soon as you notice a flaw in your speech, you should take note of it and fix it when you’ve completed the run through. It might be annoying to do this when you’re trying to complete a smooth run-through, but it will pay off by allowing you to eliminate the mistakes and bad
phrasing quickly.
Time Your Practice Sessions
Another thing you must do is time your practice sessions. If you don’t know how long each of your runs is going, you won’t know whether to add more content or remove more content. So do yourself a favor and use your watch to time how long each run takes. If you find you’re taking too long, try to figure out what parts are inessential and remove them.
Ask for Criticism
Earlier in the section, we talked about the need to solicit criticism from people who hear your presentation, but this cannot be stressed enough. There are many things in your speech that may sound odd or may be confusing to anyone other than you. The only way in which you can expose these problem areas is to present it to someone else; and to hear what they have to say. So do it. Try to make your presentation to as many people as you can. And ask them to honestly criticize how you did and to make comments about how you can improve.
Source of Information : Public Speaking Exposed
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