Public Speaking Tips on Use of Notes
For some presentations notes are essential, for other not so much.
Equally some presenters feel that for them notes are essential, again others not.
There is no hard and fast rule. We each need to work it out what is most comfortable,
most suitable and what makes the best impression.
Recommendations have changed over time.
I remember being at a speech competition where the chief judge actively penalised speakers who had no notes. He concluded that if the speaker was speaking without notes, it meant that they had memorised their speech, and therefore that was not a speech - as far as he was concerned, it was a recitation.
By his definition: a speech needed notes.
The idea that someone could improvise freely around a set structure seemed beyond his imagination.
However, that attitude is a little bit old-fashioned and it denies the fundamental skill of many top presenters:
the ability to retain a basic structure and to speak freely around that structure.
I was chief judge at a National Speech contest at a time when it was becoming increasingly a bone of contention, whether those speakers who spoke with notes should be favoured over those who did not or vice versa.
My response was a typical example of ‘fence-sitting’ as I came out with the words that have driven my wife to distraction over the last 35 years:
’It depends!’
And unfortunately it does.
So let’s look at:
- why we might need notes,
- when we might need notes and if we decide to use notes,
- how to prepare and use them.
10 tips for using notes
Why
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Comfort
If you are not bound to notes in any way, your ability to connect with the audience and express yourself freely will be greatly enhanced. Quite simply, there will be no barrier between you and the audience and you are free to follow where your muse leads you.
However if not having notes makes you anxious and this impacts on your confidence and delivery, that will also hamper your connection and spontaneity.
When I was judging the National Speech contest, I became aware that there were some speakers using notes who communicated very well and others with notes that seemed restricted. And then there were speakers without notes who connected very well, and others without notes where I anxiously felt that if they missed a step or lost their train of thought for a moment, their whole speech would collapse.
So our first question to ourselves should be:
‘Are the notes helping me or hindering me?’
When we look at how to prepare notes below, part of our calculation will be:
How extensive do they need to be?
Clearly a full script will guarantee getting all the words out safely and there will be no danger of getting lost, but the presentation will be inflexible and in danger of becoming robotic, whereas no notes at all may grant full freedom of expression, but it may cause a complete collapse if the speaker gets lost mid-sentence.
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Task
What is the purpose of your presentation?
Is it to educate or deliver facts and data or to lead and inspire?
If you deliver a lecture, full of facts, statistics and quotes, clearly some well-prepared supporting notes will be essential. A university lecturer capable of delivering their lecture note-free because they have delivered the same talk for twenty years may be demonstrating an impressive virtuoso feat, but it probably adds little to the effectiveness of their talk.
On the other hand, if you aim to inspire, then typically you will be sharing beliefs and convictions, and as I once had to point out to a groom preparing his wedding speech, if you need to be looking at your notes to say:
‘Darling you look wonderful!’
it may not come across as particularly convincing.
The BBC’s first director General, Lord Reith, encapsulated the BBC’s mission as to ‘inform, educate and entertain’ – and maybe we could add the word ‘inspire’ onto that list when we consider Public Speaking.
If your task is to inform or educate, I would imagine some well-prepared notes would be essential, as the key to your credibility lies less in you speaking and more in the content of your presentation.
If your task is to entertain or inspire, then being free from notes will enhance delivery and credibility, as in this case the impact lies greatly in how you seem and how you come across.
When
-
Content
Most of our presentations will need to address a mix of information, education, and hopefully some entertainment and inspiration, so they will contain facts and data as well as stories and examples.
If your tendency is to be very reliant on notes, one way of starting to free yourself is to include some stories, or case studies, and especially if a story covers a personal experience, you can take the opportunity to relate the story without any notes. After all you know what happened, you were probably there, and so you do not need to write it out; you just need to recall and relate.
So even in a very dense set of notes, at this point you can leave a space and simply write, for example:
‘Story of my first day at work’
Write it big with clear space above and below, because here is the moment that you will leave your notes for a moment, and tell your story,y and having highlighted your story clearly in your notes, it will be easy to find your place again to continue.
The reason that inspiration and leadership lend themselves better to note-free delivery is because much of the best content will be delivered through stories and examples. So not only is it important for engagement to be able to deliver free from notes, the content of that type of speech should make it easier to do.
Therefore as a rule of thumb:
Inform and educate = notes
Inspire and entertain = no notes
-
Circumstance
When I ride a bicycle in Germany, I often ride without a helmet, because the area is very rural, there are plenty of beautiful, smooth cycle paths and not very many people. In London, I would not go down the road without a helmet on. I am the same rider, but the stakes are much higher and the consequences of going wrong are greater.
I remember working with an executive from India who worked for a major bank, who after a couple of sessions announced that he wanted to present like I do – without notes.
I suggested he may want to reconsider for three reasons:
(i) his content was more data and statistic-heavy than my typical presentation
(ii) he was not speaking in his first language, and so if he was lost for a word mid-sentence he may struggle to find an easy equivalent.
(iii) he was fairly new to the bank and so it was more important that he came across as competent and solid than dynamic and free.
How
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Skeleton Structure
If the structure of your presentation is too complicated to write on the back of an envelope, it is simply too complicated: too complicated for the audience to follow and too complicated for the speaker to navigate.
In some cases you may be lucky and a simple skeleton structure reveals itself immediately:
(i) a historical overview
(ii) how things are currently
(iii) how they should change
or
(i) Review of marketplace
(ii) Review of company performance
(iii) Review of individual performance
If a simple structure does not reveal itself, you can still write out your jumbled thoughts and look for themes of connections until you have that structure.
-
Full Script
If you are using a full script, make sure you rehearse reading out loud.
I remember a member of our speaking club who entered the prepared speech contest every year.
The speech needed to be less than 8 minutes.
I think every year he wrote out his speech and read it to himself, confident that it took no more than 7 minutes to read and was dumbfounded how each year he ran over time when speaking in front of a group.
(Speaking out loud will – or at least certainly should – be at a pace slower than normal reading).
On the page all words look equal.
Therefore, go through the speech and literally highlight or write in bold the important words – the ones you want to emphasise or build up to.
-
Written word v Spoken word
Particularly if you have written out your speech or if you have full notes, make sure that the written words do not sound pompous or forced when spoken
‘I attempted to enter the premises.’
(you will sound like a policeman in a courtroom – because they probably would be reading out the actual words from their notebook!)
as opposed to:
‘I tried to get into the house.’
(unpretentious and clear)
-
Deliberately add the right filler
Filler sounds are ‘um’, ‘er’, ‘ahh’ – not good; try to avoid!
However, filler words might be the occasional: ‘you know’, ‘a little bit as if’, ‘in a way’
Avoid overdoing this, but occasionally I used to write these phrases into my ‘script’ so that it sounded a little less like an essay and more like conscious thought.
Over time, you might be able to achieve the same effect with pauses or extending the vowel sounds of specific words
(‘I tried toooooo – get… into the house’)
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Key words and phrases
Once you have your skeleton and you want to be less reliant on notes, but you are still not ready to fly unfettered, cut down your words to key words, section headings, and if you have a wonderful impactful phrase, you may want to write than down too. As you do this the structure should reveal itself more clearly.
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No notes
If you get your notes down to key headings and if those headings are clear to you and how the follow on from each other, why bother with notes at all.
If you know your headings and you know your messages, you can now fly from one to another.
Last thought
If you are using a table or a lectern,
put your notes down,
don’t touch them until you are finished,
write or print big enough that you can see them without having to bend or squint.
Try to keep to 2 pages or less
And if you do need/want to hold them, make sure they are printed on stiff card
Otherwise if you are nervous and are holding a piece of paper, you will look like a leaf in a tropical rainstorm!
