speaking with emotion

Today I’m going to talk about how to speak with emotion. This is a useful thing to learn how to do when you are a communications media major because you will be talking to different groups of people on different topics, and you need to know how to make the topics sound exciting, even if they aren’t of the greatest interest to you. People have trouble with this sometimes because if a topic isn’t of great interest to them, they don’t know how to make other ones interested in the topic if they aren’t even interested in it. And even if they are, they don’t always know how to convey that excitement in their voice thru to their audience. This is a way you can learn how to convey more excitement and emotion in your presentations.

One way that I would suggest is to read thru the piece you’re going to say, or rehearse it thru in your head if it isn’t written down. Do this before you present it. When you’re looking thru the speech, find what sentences and thoughts express sadness, happiness, surprise, or any other emotion. Even if the topic or thought isn’t something that would make you feel that emotion, figure out what emotion the speech is trying to convey, and find out what thoughts would support that emotion for people that are expected to have it. For example, say you were giving a speech on the global population that was supposed to convey surprise at exactly how many people exist in the world today. Even if you’ve read thru the notes for your speech many times and aren’t surprised by the numbers anymore because you’ve been rehearsing it so many times, imagine you are hearing your speech as an audience member, Imagine that the time of your presentation is the first time you’re ever hearing the information. Figure out what thoughts would surprise people who are hearing it for the first time, such as how many people are in the world today compared with earlier years. Then, when you give the presentation, read those thoughts and numbers with the emotion you would expect people would have who are just finding this information out.

In order to convey surprise or excitement, talk louder and smile like you’re giving someone the most amazing news. If you’re conveying sadness, talk lower, but not so low that the audience can’t hear what you’re saying, and talk like you’re giving someone really bad news. In a nutshell, before your presentation, read or rehearse thru your speech and find out what emotions it conveys, and recite it with the emotions you think that people would feel who are hearing the information for the first time, even if you aren’t personally feeling those emotions too.

What about you? Do you think this is helpful? Are you someone who can read with emotion easily? What do you do that makes it easy for you? Let me know in the comments.

Don’t forget to tell all your other friends who are pursuing a communications career to visit this blog for the answers to all their issues!

 

 

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