Steve Pavlina over his blog has posted a entry about verbal pauses which he learned in Toastmasters. Verbal pauses are when you say bridging words when your brain still processing for next sentence – like umm, ahhh, you know, and, and but. It is sometimes distracting and does not sound profressional. Steve showed a solution: awareness and practice:
…First, start becoming aware of verbal pauses by listening for them in others’ spoken communication. If you watch the news or any non-scripted talk show, listen for verbal pauses in the speakers. It’s amazing how some people will have very few, and others will have many. You might watch something like The Tonight Show and find that Jay Leno has virtually no verbal pauses, while his guests may be afflicted by many ums and ahs…
I am still learning and fixing this habit. I have tried to record myself on a talk and review it myself. It is pretty useful to aware your situation on verbal pauses.
Eliminating Verbal Pauses – [StevePavlina.com Blog]
