Delivery Methods

Prof Anderson: Hi class, this is William Anderson
again, and in this video I want to talk to

you about delivery methods.

These are various methods for delivering
your speech, and I want to

talk to you about four of them.

The first one is called a manuscript
delivery.

In a manuscript delivery, you have
your entire speech written

out in front of you and you read it
verbatim.

Now there is a big important
advantage to using this method, and

that is this is the only method that
precise wording is important.

In other words, you are going to say
exactly what you meant to say

and perhaps more importantly,
you're going to avoid saying something

you did not mean to say.

So, any time precise wording is really
important, this is the only method

you should consider using.

However, there are two important
disadvantages to this method.

The first one, is it's very poor eye
contact.

With eye contact, we communicate
our engagement with the audience, so it's

really important that you're giving it
up using a manuscript delivery.

Also this method, it's very inflexible.

As we've talked about before in the
course, it's important that you are

able to adapt to the facial expressions
and the nonverbal feedback

you're getting from your audience.

Well, if you're staring at your script
reading it, you're not even seeing

those facial expressions, you're not
even seeing that nonverbal feedback.

So, because of these two important
disadvantages, this method should

never be used anytime precise
wording isn't important.

For most of you, precise wording
will never be important.

There are a couple of instances
where it might be.

For example, if you ever find yourself
in a very bad legal situation,

sometimes your attorney might
prepare a very specific statement for you

and tell you to read it.

Now, sometimes in our normal
vernacular, our normal conversation,

there are multiple words that
effectively say the same thing.

But, in a legal setting, each word can
have a very specific important meaning.

And remember, anything you say
can and will be used against you

in a court of law, and so in this sort
of circumstance it could be

that the exact wording that you
use can have a very big impact.

Or, if you're a spokesperson
for the government.

Sometimes the government, a
government spokesperson making a slip

of the tongue, using wrong words,
can have a catastrophic effect.

So in some of those instances
precise wording might be important.

But for the vast majority of you,
precise wording will never be important

and therefore, reading your speech
is generally a bad idea.

The second one is memorized.

In the memorized method, we
spend a considerable amount of time

writing out our speech and then
much more time committing it to memory

so that we can recite it.

The advantage to the memorized
delivery method is that it allows for

very good eye contact, you literally
don't have notes to look at.

But there are two compelling
disadvantages to this method.

First of all, it is the most
inflexible of the methods.

When you memorize a speech,
you're really memorizing the flow.

You're memorizing, um, not
individual words but rather the flow of

the speech, and so if you look up
and you're talking to your audience

and they look confused, you know you
have to go back and provide a different

example or a different explanation.

But to do so would break you from
that flow, making it hard to get back in.

The second disadvantage to this is this
is the most inefficient of the methods.

By inefficient, I mean you're wasting
time committing your speech to

exact memory.

So, let's say, for example,
you're giving a 5 minute speech.

And a 5 minute speech, for most people,
is about four to five pages of text,

probably closer to four.

Well, if it takes you an hour to write a
four page paper and you're really

good at memorization and it takes
you two hours and you can commit the

entire four pages to memory, that's
180 minutes that you've put towards

writing and memorizing your speech.

If you would've taken that same
180 minutes, spent about 10 or 15 minutes

preparing a good speaking outline,
and then all the rest of the time

focused on practicing and polishing
your delivery, you would've

been able to get- well if it's 15 minutes,
that would leave 165 minutes of

a 5 minute speech, and that's
33 practices I believe.

If you practice your speech 10 times,
just 10 times, you can dramatically

improve your delivery.

Here, you're giving up 30 practices so
you can make sure you used the right

preposition in the right order,
that's a bad trade.

So it's better to use that extra time
practicing, polishing, and perfecting

your delivery.

And incidentally when I say practice, I
don't mean read the speech quietly

to yourself.

I mean stand up, speak it like as if
you were going to be delivering the

speech, because you build muscle
memory in the pronouncing of the

words, um, and that's a better
use of the time.

Because of these two big disadvantages,
the memorized method is an

anachronism, it's effectively lost in time
for truly no public speakers

use this method anymore.

Number three, impromptu.

Impromptu is speaking with virtually no
preparation,

this is the come as you are speech.

Now, this is not a good choice to make,
but this is the choice that

will be made for you much of the time.

Many of the speeches that you give
in your life, you will find out

you're going to be giving a speech a
matter of a few minutes before you're

giving it.

You might be at a meeting and suddenly
the boss looks at you and says

'uh, why don't you go ahead and
brief us on a project.'

Or you could be sitting at your
office not even knowing there's a meeting

going on, there's a knock at your door,
your cubicle, your work station

and the boss says 'we need you
to update everybody, come on, let's go.'

You have the time it takes to stand up
and walk to the room to prepare

your speech.

And during that walk, your boss is
going to be visiting with you.

The key to good impromptu
speaking is being organized.

Organized and confidence will help
dramatically improve

your impromptu speaking.

Finally, the fourth one, extemporaneous.

Extemporaneous speaking, you never
actually plan out the exact wording

you're going to say, instead you
simply prepare an outline.

And as soon as you've got your
outline ready, you turn your attention to

practicing and polishing your delivery.

The advantage here is that it allows
for very good eye contact.

You want this outline to be very
sparse, very few notes, only the

least amount of notes you
need in order to make sure that

you're able to deliver your speech.

By having few notes it encourages
you to look up at your audience.

Second advantage, is that this
one is very flexible.

Because you have a very brief outline,
if it looks like from your

audiences reaction that they get a point
and you can skip the next example,

it's easy to skip the next example,
move onto the next part.

Or, if they look confused and you
need to give another example, it's

able to do that and not lose your place.

Third, it's very efficient, because it
doesn't take long to prepare a quick

outline, most of your preparation
time is spent practicing, polishing,

and perfecting delivery, which is
really where the main benefit comes.

Fourth, impro-- er, extemporaneous
speaking tends to be very well

organized, an outline is an
instrument of organization and is at the

heart of the extemporaneous
speaking style.

The only major disadvantage to
extemporaneous speaking is that it

doesn't allow for precise wording.

So, in the rare occasion that precise
wording is important, you would

never want to use this method.

But because most of the speeches
you give in your life, if not all of them,

precise wording won't be important,
extemporaneous speaking is the best

method to use in almost every
circumstance.

So, I hope that this helps in selecting
which method to use.

Again, the speeches in class are
practice for out there.

In terms of speeches in class, I
always encourage you to only use the

extemporaneous method.

Thank you.