Mere quantity and the length of the presention will not make your speech any more persuasive.
Learn to be selective about how much you say
The temptation to include everything you know about a given topic in a speech has certain fundamental flaws.
- More content means a longer speech
- A longer speech makes it more difficult to keep the audience engaged
- If the content is partly irrelevant, you may lose some element of persuasiveness
Edit your speech: how to do it
If you don’t edit your speech because you find this difficult, you ought to learn how to do it. It is often an essential step towards delivering a truly effective presentation. An article on the presentationmagazine.com website offers the following advice.
Check the context
Before you start editing your speech, answer the following questions:
- What is the outcome you want to achieve?
- Who is in your audience? (how old are they, what is their background, what working role do they have … )
- Do they already something about the topic? How much?
- Is there a chance this audience might have certain prejudices or concerns relating to the topic of the speech?
- How long can the speech be?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you will be able to edit your speech accordingly. The answers can be deployed as filters. If you don’t know the answers, it is very important that you ascertain them before you start editing your content.
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