How To Be Successful At The Podium

How to be successful at the podium Compiled by: Mitch Montague Compiled for the Topeka West High School Model U.N. April 26th of 2009

This guide will help you better understand how to be successful in giving speeches, especially those pertaining to Model U.N. This guide takes you though the steps to help you make your speech more interesting This guide brings you down to the psychological level of how to entice people and persuade them If it’s at a podium, this guide will work Also for: Hutter Also viewable via Google Docs < http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhhbxcvg_76cgjbkrgw>

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Preparation •

Ranch Dressing Please: Dressing correctly is very important because it’s a nonverbal way to assert your status and show that you aren’t and idiot.

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Penn and Teller’s Bull@#%&: Make sure you actually believe what you are telling these people. If you don’t agree with what you are saying you will subconsciously unintentionally screw yourself up because if you don’t believe it, neither will they! Understand every aspect that you are talking about. Know the Ifs, Ands, and BUTs. As well as the Who, What, When, Where, and HOW. If it will work. Things it comes with or something that would be affected by it. “BUT” is also important. In your speech you need to know the BUTs like the back of your hand and if you can, mention them in your speech and talk about how to counter them. Who made it, What is it made of etc. When was it made, Where… What country has rights? And HOW, Just important as BUT. The HOW is what you will do about the BUTs

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Your Mom… umm… Stats…: Using statistics can be both helpful and harmful. Giving the audience a stack of numbers twenty cats high does nothing if you don’t slow down/pause and explain and emphasize exactly what it means. I can say…

of the 1.4 Million people affected by TBI Terminal brain injury 50,000 die, 235,000 are hospitalized, 1.1 million are treated and released. Among children ages 0 to 14 years, TBI results in an estimated 2,685 deaths, 37,000 hospitalizations, and 435,000 emergency department visits annually < http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/tbi/TBI.htm>

You can be like WTF if I say it too fast. A way you could do it is to say “1.4 million people are affected by Terminal Brain Injury (pause) that is almost one and a half of all the people currently living in the state of Montana…Also be able to properly cite. •

Lesson One: Make sure to know how to pronounce EVERY WORD in your speech. Do not use words you don’t know the exact meaning of and know how to pronounce them perfectly. Pronunciation is IMPORTANT! “Its (eye-zer-byeshaun) not (azz-ur-bi-gin) you IDIOT!!!”

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And Now… On Three Class… One… Two…: Make sure you understand the differences in how the country you represent and you feel. If your country believes women belong at home doing housework, so do you. This is even in effect when you are the minority etc. your country is against such as race, gender, sexual orientation etc. If you are gay, and your country hates gays, you are still gay but somehow, miraculously, you avoided the flying stones and into office. But you still hate gays -.-. Hypothetical I know. Go with it!

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Schnack-Attack Clap On!: Use adjectives and adverbs to make your speech SHINE!  use right there

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Four Score and Seven… Touchdowns… ago?: If you can end on a quote from someone memorable. If you do you MUST memorize is and look at EVERY EYE in the audience and NOT the paper to give the full effect.

Getting Comfortable at the Podium •

Breathe Easy: You need to be comfortable because if you aren’t, it shows. So before you start, taking a pause is good anyway not just to assert yourself and get a view of the crowd, but to give you a second or two to compose yourself with a quick in and out of breath and a smile 

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Be Human: To show you are not a soulless ice-prince/princess you should show you have SOME humor in you but not enough for people to think you are incompetent and annoying. Some people start with “Fun Facts” based around their respective countries. Keep in mind that “Fun Facts” should be fun or interesting or… mind boggling. Also feel free to quickly say like “Good Morning, I hope you all slept well last night” etc. Do NOT waste time by spending eight years on “Good Morning” and seventy-seven Fun Facts and have no time for a decent speech.

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Posture: Posture is something you might have to work at to be able to just have it. You must have at least decent posture so you don’t look like a gangly buffoon at the podium with your eyes half-opened and mumbling something about poverty and then just walking off slouching….

Making the Speech •

Human Check: Again with the human checking… People seem to like when the person they are watching and listening to adds humor and smiles a bit. Make sure not to blow the humor up so much that you turn Invisible Children into a Polly the Pony commercial. If you are unsure how it will be taken, don’t use it.

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No Monotone: There is nothing … well scratch that; there aren’t many things more horrible and annoying as a speaker being monotone. Make sure to add inflections in your voice and appropriate pauses in speech. “And to that (lower tone) my dear (beat/pause) I say Good Day.”

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Look At Your Fans: Make sure to try very hard to memorize your speech or at least key parts of your speech so you don’t have to look down at it and read it

4 word for word. If you read it word for word you will be messed up and look stupid as your stumble over words. Also note that people like speakers that look up and actually look at the audience. This will also allow you to be heard better and making people think better of you. Ad-libbing is one of the most amazing things you can learn because some of the best work is made up on the spot. If it sounds original its more believable and persuasive than if it was pretyped, postread, edited, cultured, simmered. sautéed, shredded, pasted together, preprocessed, post processed, digested, and regurgitated into the crowd . •

Bring Out the Walt Disney In You: Be animated! Not so much as to make everyone pull a “WTF mate” and run for hills but enough to make your speech exciting. Hand gestures that don’t involve the middle finger are positive; such as reaching for the moon like an astronomer when talking about how much humans yearn for space travel.

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Look Ma’ No Hands!: You should make it your prerogative to look at the eyes of EVERY PERSON in that room to make everyone feel included in the conversation. Don’t stare at them and freak them out, just like spend less than a second or so visually making your way around the room. If you cant look at everyone in the room look at the spaces in-between to give the illusion of seeing them and still making them feel included. Just make sure to cycle around and never stay in the same place too long or it will look fake and … yea… no bueno.

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I Love You All!: Try to speak like you are talking to a group of close friends… You can do this as suggested before by adding humor etc. This will make everyone feel included and usually people are more animated *wink* when they are with friends.

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Your FACE: Jk… maybe… But you need to try and emphasize specific words and also try adding pauses after them to let it sink in. Most political leaders do this especially like a giant climax and then the falling action … then we have another two hours of speech -.-

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Don’t Run Ahead of the Pack:: • Don't rush, particularly when you start. • Speak fast enough to keep people from becoming bored and slow enough for people to absorb fully what you're saying. • Slow down to emphasize and reinforce your key ideas. • Vary your pace to inject excitement or gravity. • To add color to your speech, change the pace and rhythm of your delivery between topics/paragraphs

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Lets think: • Pause to set up an important point. • After that important point, pause to add emphasis.

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Pause to allow the point to sink in. Don't pause for too long or you could appear pompous.

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-.- : • Don't drop your head when reading speech (many speakers type their speech only on the top half of pages). • Don't turn your back on your audience. • Don't play with a pen or pointer. • Don't grip table or lectern. • Don't bend towards microphone (adjust its height before speaking). • Don't lean towards your notes. • Don't stare fixedly at notes or visual aids. • Don't fidget: Touch face, tie, lapel, etc.

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♪Lets Get Rhetorical, Rhetorical ♫: Try to include a few rhetorical questions to make the audience think. These questions are made to LEAD the audience so don’t feel bad if you think it is. If it was bad would there be a word for it?  That was unintentionally rhetorical.

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Don’t You DARE: Never under any circumstances should you say “well I have never done this before” or anything that would show that you aren’t as experienced as Stephen Hawking. As far as the crowd knows you give speeches daily and write them when the guy that wrote them for Clinton was sick (yea you were good even in kindergarten)

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Ready… FIGHT!: Feel free to call out a country or a minority etc. but be prepared to have your face ripped off a fed to Hannibal when they demand a with-rights speech. They wont always do a speech against you but just be aware. Also do it only if it is called for and has a purpose in the speech, not just for fun.

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Trigonometry, Geometry, and … Parallel Sentence Structure… WTF?: Know how to properly use parallel structure. Even thinking, writing, or scribbling; you must use parallel structure… like that If you say to some one “I like thinking, scribbling, and to write” … it just doesn’t sound right. They will notice and not listen to you to think “damn… did he/she say that right…?”

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Suggested reading… < http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/623/01/> … or Google it -.-

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Now Presenting: To make your opening catch the attention of others try an opening story describing what is going on. “As you fly in your multi-million dollar privet jet you notice a small African village you think nothing of and continue fly. In that village are three hundred people all of which are un bathed and barely survive on the slugs they find around then. Their distended stomachs,

6 sure signs of malnutrition and neglect…” Make it memorable but not OVERLY long. Tug on the heart strings a bit . •

Three is a Crowd: If you can, try to use three-part lists … ex Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" (Abraham Lincoln, 1863) or "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished" (Franklin D Roosevelt, second inaugural address, 1937) or "The ultimate case for the third way is that it works - good values, good vision, good policies" (Bill Clinton, Labour Party Conference 2002).

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KISS (Keep it simple, stupid): Don't try to impress with over-complicated terminology. For example: when he was Labour's Shadow Chancellor, Gordon Brown famously praised "neoclassical endogenous growth theory and a symbiotic relationship between investment in people and infrastructure" (1996). In the introduction to his compilation "Speeches That Changed The World", Simon Sebag Montefiore states: "As a rule, simplicity of language marks superb speechmaking

ICE (In Case of Emergency) •

Find Friends: If you feel you are faltering, losing verbal momentum, or stuttering incoherently you can usually find a familiar face to look at and get a reassuring glance from. This is a good reason to pay extra attention to people you know at the podium even if you don’t agree with what they are saying you still need to show you care and make sure that if they glance over you can give a smile and get them going again.

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SHUT YOUR FACE!: If you feel that your audience is getting roudy then it might just be your fault for not following other steps and being animated and creative… or they are just goldfish trapped in a human body 0,0. Either way we need to take care of this. As your eyes peruse the crowd you might slow down your speech a hair and look at them. This will cause them to realize they are caught in the act and get others to tell them to shut their faces. If this doesn’t work you can go on, or stop and even as you are stopped remind them you are still talking. I would suggest going on though because you are given very limited time so DON’T WASTE!

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Laugh It Off: If for some reason the crowd breaks out into laughter… you must first assess the situation quickly to decide the best course of action. I. Did you recently add humor? 1. Yes-----------------------------------Look up briefly and smile. Go on. 2. No------------------------------------Go to II II. Did someone in the crowd do something funny? 1. Yes-----------------------------------Scuff it off and go on!

7 2. No------------------------------------It was most likely you, keep going you just need to win the over again! • •

Suggested Reading Suggested Reading