Week 2 Post 2

A common misconception for many people is that speech delivery is an innate talent that can neither be improved nor worsened. In truth though, it's a skill that people get better at with practice. Unfortunately, the people who say they are bad public speakers often get discouraged and do not practice, making their discouragement a self fulfilling prophecy. This is especially damaging for people with communication anxiety. One way to get better at giving speeches is to be highly intentional with word choice. Using language that is not only illustrative but also inclusive and aware of the diversity of the audience is highly important. It is also important to have what public speakers refer to as "word economy". Word economy is using as few words to say as much information as possible. While using few words is important, it's even more important to use simplistic ones. The easier the words in a speech are to understand, the less likely a speaker is to lose the audience's attention. That does not mean that a speaker always needs to use baby talk though. They should be aware of what audience they are speaking to and how much information that the audience will be able to comprehend as well as their level of understanding of difficult vocabulary. The same word choice that would be best for third graders is not the best word choice for third year law students. Non verbal communication can be as important to speech delivery as verbal communication. Speed of speaking can make it harder or easier for people to understand a speaker's point and pauses can add depth and emotion to a performance. Pronunciation and Articulation may seem like verbal cues but they fall under the umbrella of nonverbal communication. They are highly important, especially when it comes to regional words because mispronouncing important terms can damage a speaker's credibility. The more that an individual practices these skills, the better they'll become at public speaking and the less they need to worry about communication anxiety.
Speech delivery is extremely important to public speaking because no matter how masterfully a speech is written, bad delivery can ruin it. Good delivery can also make an awful speech seem much better, thus increasing the value of the performance over all.