Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 336) – Winston Churchill

“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.” Winston Churchill

Amanda Gorman and “The Hill We Climb”

Embed from Getty Images Amanda Gorman, the first national youth poet laureate in the United States, was a highlight at the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. At the age of 22, she became the youngest inaugural poet. Reading her beautiful poem entitled “The Hill We Climb”, Gorman has also become a viral sensation. […]

Six ways to hook the audience from the beginning

Plato said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” When it comes to speeches and presentations, your beginning is critical. You get one chance to make a good first impression, so you want to hook the audience with your opening words. An audience’s attention is usually at its highest just before you […]

Dealing with a creaky stage

Have you ever listened to a speaker who is standing on a creaky stage? Have you ever had to speak from a stage that creaked whenever you stepped on certain spots. It is annoying for both speaker and audience. But there is a simple, effective way to deal with it. All it takes is a […]

The importance of a first step

If the purpose of your presentation is to persuade the audience to do something, getting them to take a small, simple first step is one of the most important things that you can do to achieve your ultimate objective.

An important question for every speaker

There is an important question that every public speaker must be able to answer: Why should the audience care about what I am going to say? If you can’t answer that question, you have a problem. Either you are speaking to the wrong audience or you are giving the wrong talk. This post marks the […]

Three public speaking resolutions for 2021

2021. We made it. We finally said goodbye to 2020, a year that will be forever remembered in the history books but not for the best reasons. And, we are still in the thick of the fight against COVID-19. Still, with vaccines now being distributed, there are reasons to be hopeful. And, in any event, […]

Quotes for Public Speakers (No. 334) Tony Robbins

“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” Tony Robbins Photo courtesy of Brian Solis / Flickr

New Logo for Manner of Speaking

Manner of Speaking has a new logo. For a website devoted to public speaking and presentation skills, there were many designs I could have chosen. A microphone or lectern or speech bubble were some of the obvious ones. But I didn’t want obvious; I wanted something that reflected my approach to public speaking. Here it […]

Rhetorical Devices: Antanagoge

This post is part of a series on rhetorical devices. For other posts in the series, please click this link. For a comprehensive, step-by-step overview of how to write a speech outline, please see this post. Device: Antanagoge (pronounced an-tana-goji) Origin: From the Greek ἀνταναγωγή meaning “anti” (against) and “anagoge” (leading up). In plain English: Turning a negative into a positive. […]