Speaker's Corner

1. Have something important to say.

2. Want someone else to understand or believe it.

3. Say it as simply and directly as you can.

Over the years of teaching speech I have heard countless student evaluations of speeches that had a lot to say about demeanor. "Don’t lean on the podium" was always a favorite when we had a podium. I took the podium away, and the emphasis shifted to other things that distracted from the speech: pens sticking out of pockets, awkward stance, eye contact, organization, and a whole host of things that might turn the speaker into a great orator if he could just get them all correct.

But the three items listed above always seemed to me to be the heart and soul of good speaking. Student evaluations could help around the margins, but the reason the audience was distracted was because the speaker didn’t have anything important to say. That may be understandable when you have an assignment to fulfill, especially when you wait until the last minute to think about it. But frankly, the uncurious mind will rarely find anything important to say, and classroom evaluations can’t do much about it.

In some ways, I think telling the speaker when he is finished, "You did okay on the speech, but what you had to say was not important enough for me to listen to it," just may be the best evaluation of all. For it focuses the mind on the important thing–do you have anything important to say.

This is not an easy change to make in a speaker, because it has to do with habits that are hard to change. To some extent, it has to do with the character and lifestyle of the speaker. I have not yet found a way to instill curiosity into an uncurious mind. But the one thing I can tell a person to do that may help is to read. Read widely. Read anything that holds your interest. If that happens to be a murder mystery, then read them. Good fiction helps build vocabulary and background in life situations. Even trash, well written, is useful, but it is a shame to leave the great literature unread. Why read trash if you have never read "Pride and Prejudice," or "All the King's Men"?

Historical novels paint in the background of history and help the speaker get a feeling for events without having to be bored to tears by slow moving and overly detailed histories. But there are also great histories that are so well written they read like a novel.

Years ago when I was working on my master’s thesis, I stumbled over a simple but profound truth. I read extensively on my topic, and then I began to write. After a while, I found I could no longer write. I would sit at the typewriter staring at the paper and nothing would come. So, I headed for the library and began reading again. Soon, new ideas began to flow and it was back to the typewriter. The truth is that if you don’t put anything in, you aren’t going to get anything out.

The biggest failing I see in public speakers, whether they be giving sermons or teaching classes is that they are not well read. Therefore, they don’t have very much to say. And then, when they run out of anything important to say, they don’t stop, but continue on into the fog.

If you want to be a public speaker, no matter the forum, ask yourself first if you have anything important to say. If the answer is no, then you need to be reading more. Whether you ever speak in public or not, if you have nothing important to say, you are not reading enough. The old saying among computer programmers is, "Garbage in, garbage out." I have learned that the same thing is true of speakers. I will add, "Nothing much in, nothing much out."

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*Cited in "Principles and Types of Speech," Fifth Edition, Alan Monroe, 1955.