Chapter 15
USING GOOD TECHNIQUES OF DELIVERY
Chapter overview
This chapter covers the fundamentals of delivering a presentation — eye contact and such. These
fundamentals are important, of course, and most good speakers have them. But later chapters
cover what I consider to be more important topics, such as organizing a presentation and
preparing and presenting visual aids. I consider them more important because a good job with
them can make the actual delivery of a presentation much easier.
Brief outline of the chapter
I. Move around the room. This relaxes the speaker and helps set an informal tone.
II. Use some noticeable gestures. Most speakers limit their gestures too much.
III. Vary your voice’s inflection and loudness. Speakers with a monotone during a presentation
often don’t have a monotone during normal conversation.
IV. Make eye contact to all parts of the room. Too many people forget the back and sides of the
room.
V. Be careful with humor. Students should be careful not to insult the audience in any way.
VI. Involve your audience. There are varying levels of audience involvement.
VII. Be creative with group presentations. There are sometimes better ways to give group
presentations than having one speaker after another talk.
VIII. Exercises.
General comments
Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t emphasize the techniques of delivery (movement, gestures, etc.)
very much. I believe many problems with these techniques happen because speakers aren’t
comfortable with their material or don’t know how to design a good presentation using visual
aids. Once speakers get comfortable with their material and use good visual aids, the problems
with techniques of delivery almost always disappear.
Almost always. Occasionally, people still have problems, and I point the problems out to them.
Still, even comfortable speakers often limit themselves too much:
• Their gestures are small, their hands often staying around the waist — and seldom
demonstrating anything.
• Movement tends to be only in the “speaker’s area” at the front, middle part of the room or
near the screen.
• Eye contact tends to be brief and only with people close to the front or in the middle.
• Voice loudness and inflection usually have a small range.
Early in the course is a good time to get students to move beyond these limitations — to open up
and “push the envelope.”
Additional exercise
A traditional exercise on eye contact is to have people in the audience raise their hands until the
Notes on the exercises
Exercise A (reading famous quotations)
This is a good exercise for getting students to push that envelope. I have a videotape showing
Exercise B (defining a term using audience involvement)
Exercise C (reading a presentation about something that taught them an important lesson)
The section called “Samples” at the end of this instructor manual has two fine speeches — one
The goal of this exercise isn’t to get students to read all of their speeches. But it does let them
Here are some tips:
• Tell students you want them to create some memorable moments in their presentations —
with dramatic pauses, prolonged eye contact, demonstrative gestures, whatever.
• And urge students to be creative in how they lay out their text: 12-point Times New