USING PAUSES IN PUBLIC SPEAKING

When you are trying to develop your public speaking skills, pay attention on learning to say nothing at all also. It is also an important part of public speaking. Give time to your audience to understand things. How can you do this? This can be done by giving PAUSES are relevant and required places for an appropriate time. Delivering your speech with adequate pauses is also an art.

It is an extremely difficult thing for many people to pause even for a few seconds. The reason behind this may be:

• Some think that giving pauses will make the audience think that you are not well prepared and you are forgetting things.
• They can listen to their heart beating so fast that it becomes a distraction for them.
• Everyone having their eyes on them makes them conscious.

When a person is an amateur speaker, he is worried about all the above said reasons but at a later stage, the speaker realizes that these reasons have absolutely no place.

If you take the right pauses, you would be able to convey your message in a better and more persuasive way. On the other hand if you are not aware where to pause, your audience will lose trust on you and interest in your speech.

Here are some reasons why you should give pauses:

1. It gives time to the audience to understand and absorb what you said.
2. Your “uhh”s, “umm”s and other fillers would reduce.
3. Pauses help in conveying various emotions like anger, happiness, sadness, fear etc.
4. You would become more confident and you would look confident.
5. It helps your mind get some more ideas.
6. Pauses help you to bring your speech to a normal pace so that it can match with the listening capacity of the audience.

Where to pause?

Given below are the examples where your pauses look appropriate and effective.

1. The “Beginning” Pause- As soon as you come up on the stage, instead of starting immediately give a pause of 3-4 seconds and then start off. At this time, you can look and smile at the audience. Allot a total time of 10-15 seconds to coming up on the stage, taking the pause and smiling. If you were introduced by someone else, wait for that person to go off the stage and sit before you start speaking.
2. “Something Important” Pause- A pause may be given to indicate that something important is going to come from you. The pause would make people listen to you more carefully as they would know that you are going to say something really important.
3. The “Sink In” Pause- It is always good to pause for a while just after you said something really important. Pause before saying something important (as said in point 2) to indicate something important is coming and also pause after saying that important thing so that the message sink into the mind of the audience and they are able to remember it.
4. The “Emphasis” Pause- Pause when you want to emphasise on a certain point. Pausing will help in giving more emphasis your point like for some drastic statistics, you can pause and then repeat.
5. Pause to “Move to a New Topic”- Instead of rushing from one topic to the other, take a pause when one topic gets over and then move ahead with the new one. This way, the audience will also be able to shift their mind from one topic to the other.
6. Pause before the “Punchline”- A joke become better if you say the punchline at the end and it becomes even better when you give a pause just before the punchline.

There are many more situations where you may need to give a pause. At times, your situation also lets you decide if you have to take a pause.

One can become more thoughtful and powerful by knowing the significance of pauses in public speaking. The result would be you leaving more impact on your audience. Pauses help you to interact with the audience and engage them in your talk more effectively.

No matter if you are an amateur speaker or a professional speaker, you can always do something better in your presentations. Join public speaking course by Mr Anurag Aggarwal in Delhi NCR and improve the quality of your presentations. Visit www.anuragaggarwal.com or call 7834-99-9292 for details on our public speaking course or business course (for businessmen only).