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Step 1
Use eye contact and gestures to aid your words. So much gets through to an audience in these visual cues that public speaking instructors tend to harp on them. Always pay attention to using body language to communicate to an audience.
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Step 2
Give your talk structure. Including a recognizable beginning and end to your presentation will help your audience "reference" and give them a better chance of figuring out what you were saying.
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Step 3
Consider the "logic" of transmitting messages as you are preparing your public presentation. Speaking classes feature the "scientific components" of public speaking: sender + encoding + decoding + receiver, etc. The main point: your "encoding" should be done in a way that listeners can "decode" it.
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Step 4
Say it short. One way to make sure listeners get the message is to avoid "gilding the lily" and make your comments straight out. This is not to say that you shouldn't add colorful anecdotes or examples as necessary to flesh out the speech, but get your main points said up front so the audience knows what you want to emphasize.
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Step 5
Include handouts. This popular method of reinforcing public speaking messages is used in business as well as in local government (and in the classroom, of course) Paper references to important points are a kind of "save-all" that ensures public access to talking points for later use.
