Have you ever given an academic presentation or speech? We believe you did. Powerpoint presentations are commonly used to present your research to others at academic conferences, progress review meetings, PhD viva examinations, and so on.
With our research, we hope to inspire and educate our audience. We are not giving our presentation at an academic conference just to tick the box for our professional development reviews or promotion cases. We’re doing this because we want to share our research and conclusions with others.
You may wonder why presentation skills are important. You haven’t presented at an academic conference or attended a progress review meeting yet. Maybe you dislike delivering academic presentations or speeches and feel anxious about standing in front of other people. Moreover, if you want to improve your law dissertation presentation then you can get help from the Law Coursework Writing Service UK.
This article will not only tell you how to do the presentation but also tell you the ways you can use to improving clarity in academic speeches and speak more confidently. Here are a few best tips to help you!
Tips to Enhance Clarity in Academic Presentations and Speeches
Take deep breaths
Breathing is essential to producing a stronger voice and speaking. Without it, you may experience wavering pitch, breathy voice, vocal fatigue, and tension in your vocal mechanism, which will add to the unclear speech. Therefore, you should take breathing exercises regularly to boost your speech and presentation clarity.
Practice good posture
Poor posture will affect not only your musculoskeletal system but also your speech clarity. For example, if you shrug your shoulders, you put massive tension in the neck region and you may struggle to breathe. This can affect your speech and presentation. Therefore, sit or stand straight to avoid tension around the neck and improve your speech or presentation.
Use a mirror
Using a mirror is one of the oldest ways to improve your speech and presentation clarity. So, if you have unclear speech, spend some time in front of a mirror and practice pronouncing words that may be causing you to have unclear speech. While at it, focus deeply on how your lips move as you pronounce different words and apply the same mechanism when having a normal conversation.
Swallow the excess saliva
Speaking with too much saliva in your mouth can affect your pronunciation, sound control, and intonation quality. Therefore, to achieve clear presentation and speech, swallow excess saliva and ensure your mouth is empty.
Watch your pitch
Your speech and presentation may sound rough and strained if your pitch is too high. But if the pitch is too low, your audibility will be massively affected. Your overall speech and presentation clarity in both cases won’t be anywhere near good. Therefore, make sure the pitch of your voice is calm and relaxed for a clearer presentation and speech.
Speak slowly
Take your time speaking. Speaking slowly allows your tongue, lips, and jaw to settle back into their proper positions. That way, they can collaborate to create a more clear presentation and speech. Also, with a slow speaking rate, you can control what you want to say, making you convey your thoughts and ideas more confidently in a presentation or speech.
Practice (and record) speeches
Like improving your jump shot or playing the piano, you do not get better at extemporaneous delivery by just reading articles. It requires time, work, and effort. Practicing comes in many forms such as debating at tournaments, rebuttal redoes (more on this later), impromptu speaking, and parliamentary debate rounds. Record yourself giving speeches and presentations and evaluete them afterward.
Improve your flowing skills
Flowing is an underrated skill among many debaters. However, it is one of the most important elements of debating effectively and improving after a tournament. Work on flowing so you can find the source, the claim, and the warrants, of each of your opponents’ responses and arguments. You will come up with some shorthand, ways of determining what is the source, what are the warrants, and so on. Flowing well allows you to structure your speech and presentation in a way that benefits your case, and allows you to appropriately respond to arguments. A good flow does not mean you will give a good speech, but it is a prerequisite for one and what we believe is a necessary tool for improving afterward.
Know the topic
The previous couple of tips have concentrated on spontaneous speaking, clarity, and fluency. The following two tips are about general ways to improve your speaking skills. The more you understand the subject, the better your speaking will be. Don’t just know your case authors, know your case critics. Read them, and know their arguments, and their critics. Prepare refutation sheets with responses to arguments, as well as responses to those points. The more familiar you are with a subject, the easier it is to speak, prepare during a speech, and spend prep time polishing and organising rather than thinking of responses.
Powerful introductions and conclusions
Often, it is helpful to script introductions and conclusions. This does not require you have to present them verbatim, but this allows you to close the speech and presentation with your best words and rhetoric. There are two main benefits to such an approach. First, you are able to connect powerfully with the judge and the audience. Plus, maybe students want to write perfect introductions for the Law Dissertation Topics, so they can ask for help from experts and find tips from online resources.
Final Words
Learning to improve one’s speaking ability and persuasive characteristics is not an easy process, but the work is worth it. But first, you must understand WHY it is an important goal for you. We assure you, if your goal is winning, you will be far less motivated and far more disappointed with your efforts. Instead, concentrate on the growth aspect of speaking, whether that be learning in success, or learning through failure.