The Atlanta Urban Debate League is committed to providing excellent debate education programs, services, and opportunities to diverse students, educators, and members of the community!
Delivery Basics
By now, you’ve written a fantastic speech with great evidence and really want to inspire people to make a change. Thus, we now turn to being able to optimize your delivery to engage the audience.
Flow. Flow is being able to smoothly speak from word to word and sentence to sentence. Three aspects of creating a good flow to the speech are clarity, emphasis (covered later) and pacing.
Clarity. Speak each word clearly and fluently. This includes proper pronunciation.
Pronunciation. The best way to pronounce difficult words is to first find a source (Google) which has a recorded version of the word, followed by practicing it.
Pacing. Pacing is a combination of the speed and the pausing intrinsic to each sentence.
Avoid: word stumbles (saying words out of order), word fumbles (slurring a word, skipping a word), stutters (umm, uhhh, so, that, etc.), and other distractors from flow.
Speed. Talk at a conversational pace to where anybody can understand.
Pausing. Use pauses in your speech naturally (such as periods or commas).
Mistakes! Mistakes happen (stuttering, stumbling, forgetting where you are). There’s no need to draw attention to it (saying sorry, getting more nervous) – it’s a natural thing. Either move on naturally or restate the mistake with the corrected version and continue.
Voice/Style. Voice and style are the way you write what you write and the way you read what you read. Write your script with your style and give your speech with your style.
Voice/Vocal expressiveness. Vocal expressiveness is the aural way you engage your audience. This is done through utilizing emphasis techniques.
Emphasis. Emphasis is a tool to stress important concepts. It can be done through the following:
Volume. Say important words with slightly louder volume.
Word timing. Spend marginally more time on words that are more important.
Tone. Change the tone of words you try to emphasize. Speak naturally!
Style. The way you write and the way you deliver things. Play to your strengths!
If you really like being funny and are good at it (PATHOS-focused)– try to incorporate humor into your speech! Of course, keep it professional and relevant to the topic.
If you like to utilize and analyze evidence (LOGOS-focused) – use evidence and analyze it in your own words well!
Passion/Confidence. These are the “vibes” of what you give off.
Show excitement about your topic!
More natural movement!
More eye contact!
More positive body movement (think the Superman pose)!