What are the qualities of a good speaker?

Answer 1

When giving a speech you need to have in mind what the goal of your speech is. Is the purpose of your speech to persuade, inform, or teach an audience. Once you have that objective in mind you will need to tailor your speech for that. For example a persuasive speech would say things like "we need to, this is the biggest issue, I urge you to consider", where as an informative would say "the data supports that, recent studies find, the project failed according to test protocols." Once the goal of the speech (with the audience in mind), and your ideal rhetoric is in place, the rest is just theater. Maintain appropriate eye contact, notice I didn't say proper as you often hear said; because you want to acknowledge that your audience exist, and make intermittent personal connections via eye contact while going across the room. This engagement keeps your audience interested; while not feeling intimidated. You want to embrace hand gestures that emphasis your key points/ideas, but you don't want to look like every point needs emphasis. Lastly confidence is what makes the difference from a good speech to an excellent speech. Confidence is what gives the depth to your voice so that you speak deep from within the diaphragm, and clearly for all to understand. A small note here would be to practice your speech should you have time prior to giving it as much as you can, and to whomever will listen. The quality of your speech is ultimately determined by the amount of effort given to it.

I apologize in advance that this is such a read, but your question left much to be addressed. I hope that you find this to help, and if not please let me know what will!

Cordially,

Thomas