Public Speaking. Top tips for Poise
A speaker needs to speak well and also to come across well, because
‘How you deliver the message is the message!’
We learn that first in terms of stance, gestures, and eye contact,
but key messages expressed in clear, simple, balanced phrases will also impress and stay in the memory.
Now, not only do you look and sound good, but the message is neat, poised, and memorable.
In the simplest terms, we should look for phrases or speech segments of equal measure that sound good next to each other,
either complementing or contrasting each other:
‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.’
You will hear them a lot in songs and, as in this example from the ‘Lord’s Prayer’, in prayers or communal chants, but you will also hear them in speeches as a way of summing up or setting out a key theme or message:
‘Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.’
It creates balance in sound and rhythm and is therefore very good for setting two ideas next to each other.
Often, it will be two phrases of similar length, structured in such a way as to highlight their difference or to emphasise their similarity
Buddy Holly expressed an idea very simply:
‘The sun is out, the sky is blue.’
It is four syllables followed by four syllables, so rhythmically the balance is there already.
Having adopted this structure, he can start to create even more striking or memorable lines by using it in conjunction with other rhetorical ideas.
Each little phrase in Buddy Holly’s song contains ‘the….is…’ which increases a simple, pleasing, almost childlike rhythmic effect.
He goes on to choose two one-syllable words starting with the letter‘s’: ‘sun’ and ‘sky’, which adds another level of neatness.
Thus, the combined image is one of harmony, because in a happy landscape, ‘sun’ and ‘sky’ belong together – especially when the sky is ‘blue’
And then there is the naïve sense of wonder, which is further implied by the contrasting vowel sounds in ‘out’ and ‘blue’,
mimicking those frequently heard sounds of wonder and delight:
‘wow’ and ‘oooh’
Now, did Buddy Holly sit down with a slide rule and a book of analysis to come up with that line? Probably not!
He probably had no aspiration towards literary analysis anyway.
He probably just found the words, put them together, and noted which ones sounded good together.
He found a way to express what he wanted to say in a way he wanted to say it.
And he did not stop there with:
‘The sun is out, the sky is blue.’
because the next line:
‘There's not a cloud to spoil the view’
also acts as a balance to the first line
The two full lines have a similar rhythm and the rhyme of ‘blue’ and ‘view’ at the end of each.
What are we supposed to make of this as speakers?
After all, we are Public Speakers, not poets, and too much obvious rhyme and rhythm can sound contrived.
Nevertheless, for a quick, neat slogan that captures your message in a way that the audience can remember after the speech is over,
it can be very effective:
‘Feeling alone? Pick up the phone.’
That sort of phrase could be a good takeaway message in a talk about loneliness.
You would deliver your examples, case studies, statistics on loneliness, and then, having defined the perils and ills of loneliness, you could neatly sum up your call to action with that simple, memorable phrase.
It is a particularly useful technique for politicians who want to give their supporters a nice, simple phrase to chant as they go down the road at the end of the evening:
‘No taxation without representation.’
I remember there was sometimes an element of controversy when I was judging school student speech contests, because occasionally a student would come on stage and deliver a fantastic message, all packaged and memorised, but in the form of a rap.
However, a rap or a verse, glorious as it may be, is not a speech.
A speech (hence the name) should sound and feel more spontaneous and natural, like the spoken word. In the end, impressive as the performance might have been,
we had to remember we were judging a speech contest, not a poetry or performance contest.
The performance might have been brilliant – but it was not a speech!
So any contrived lines should only be used for very special moments in a speech, for the key messages, and as a way of delivering a message that is memorable and resonant.
What I am asking you to do, as speakers, is to be aware of the sounds and rhythms of the words as you prepare your presentations, and occasionally stop and note when a particular form of words sounds good together.
Ask yourself:
Is this a neat, memorable way of summing up what I want to say?
These are not unusual;
Many neat and memorable phrases are hiding all around us in plain sight.
They are everywhere!
Certainly in poems, certainly in songs,
and especially in daily advertising.
(I won't analyse it, but I hope you appreciate what I have just done in those two lines above. They have a rhythm – a little bit of 'isocolon' – and yet they still sound close enough to normal speech, so as not to sound too contrived – but they manage to capture my point in a neat, balanced way).
Balanced little isocolon phrases are all around us.
Think of those slogans that, over the years, have wormed their way into your ear:
‘Have a break. Have a Kit Kat.’
‘For Everything Else, There’s MasterCard.’
‘Once you pop, you can’t stop.’
Some tips on isocolon (balanced phrases of similar form)
-
Find your key message
Most things come down to defining a key message.
What am I trying to say in this speech?
Once you are clear about your point, it becomes easier to contrast what you want to say with something opposite
‘Loving your neighbour in theory is easy.
Loving your neighbour in practice is harder.’
If I am crafting a speech on love and tolerance, this neat little isocolon nicely sums up the problems of applying tolerance on a day-to-day basis.
The structural balance highlights the contrasts in meaning
‘As the immigration numbers go up
The people’s compassion goes down.’
I could use this as an argument for keeping migration numbers down, or I could use it as an observation that our humanity is waning under the pressures of immigration
-
Look for points of contrast
Find the point of contrast, ‘the fork in the road’ and use that as a way of highlighting the message. In the ‘love your neighbour’ example above I have used the contrast between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ and have backed it up with the contrast between ‘easy’ and ‘hard’.
In the second example, I looked for the contrast between up and down.
-
Look for points of similarity
By setting up the points of similarity, you can highlight the points of difference.
You can use repetition and sentence structure to emphasise the comparison.
‘John and David are both young fathers.
John and David both have three children.
John spends most of his weekend in the park,
while David spends most of his weekend in the pub.’
It is the similarity of format that sets up the point of contrast
-
Use similar word forms
Most of the examples I have given have been in pairs: either/or.
Isocolon can also benefit from more than two similar phrases.
‘He loves singing, he loves dancing, and he loves acting.’
The rhythm of the ‘ing’ words is more pleasing to the ear than:
‘He loves to sing, he loves dancing, and he acts a bit as well.’
-
Use isocolon for emphasis
I can use the John and David example above to emphasise the difference between the two men, and the structure allows me to put particular verbal emphasis on the two men’s names when I am delivering it. The similarity of form gives me greater freedom to verbally stress the key difference between John and David and park and pub.
And I will leave you with a quote from Joseph Stalin, which probably neatly sums up everything about his beliefs about power, democracy, and the functioning of the Soviet state:
‘Those who cast the votes decide nothing,
Those who count the votes decide everything.’
