How to Make Your Speaking Easier and More Effective

Tollefson/Peterson over UC Berkeley has made a tips sheet on how to make public speaking more effective. The document mentioned couple of good areas on delivering speech, for instance:

• How to analyse the audience
• How to do opening and closing for presentation
• How to prepare your speech
• How to deliver your speech
• How to be confident and committing to your presentation
• How to handle questions
• How to get feedback

How to handle questions in my opinion is one of the hardest aspect to master on public speaking:

• Explicitly request and encourage questions.
  • The audience will see that you have a genuine interest in what they’re
    thinking.

• Be aware of how your behavior and comments can set the tone for questioning.
  • A negative response (e.g., “We’ve already covered that”) discourages
    further questions and may make the audience think you don’t really want
    questions.
• Make sure everyone hears the question.
  • Repeat it if necessary.
  • But don’t make a habit of simply repeating every question.
  • Ask the audience if they heard the question; then ask the person to
    repeat.
• Clarify questions.
  • Say, “Do you mean that . . . ,” or “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the
    question,” rather than “Your question isn’t clear.”
• Answer questions as directly as possible.
  • Address your answer to the whole audience.
  • Ask whether you have answered the question.
• Be diplomatic when people raise tangential, overly complicated questions,
  or persistently ask questions just to be asking.
  • Ask them to stop by after the presentation or to contact you.
  • If a someone is simply confused, say, “Let me go over this point a
    bit more slowly.”.”

How to Make Your Speaking Easier and More Effective – [UC Berkeley]