The Sisyphus Comments

Instructor/Public Reading Tips

If you must give a speech or read in public, this post from the AIRDaily list might be useful. Although it is intended for podcasters, some of the tips will be useful for anyone who is tasked with a public speaking assignment that involves reading from a script. (I have edited it slightly to make it more readable).

Script Preparation:

Underline each operative and use forward slashes to indicate breath locations.

Warm Up:

Read one page two different ways to stretch mouth

1) Open your mouth as wide as possible
2) Spit out each consonant

Voicing:

1) Operatives-change tempo on operatives or pause after each one
2) Keep mouth open laterally
3) Breathe through mouth
4) Be in story (see it while saying it)
5) Use hand on stomach to feel air pulled in and then pushed out over cords

Reading Effectively

The key thing to remember when you’re on the air is that radio is an intimate medium; each listener feels like you’re talking directly to him or her. So your voice quality is a lot less important than your delivery. And as long as you’re being recorded, don’t worry too much about making mistakes; even veteran broadcasters sometimes stumble. We can edit out fluffs.

Tips for Reading Well

Don’t stress too many words in a sentence. In their effort to sound authoritative, many beginners get in the habit of stressing almost every other word: “President Bush said today the United States will not give in to the demands of terrorists, even at the cost of the hostages lives.” If you stress too many words, the listener doesn’t know what to focus his attention on. Usually there are only a couple of new ideas in each sentence; those are the ones you should emphasize: “President Bush said today the United States will not give in to the demands of terrorists, even at the cost of the hostages lives.”

Keep up your energy. Inexperienced broadcasters are sometimes so concerned about misreading a word, that they forget they’re reporting a story. Before you start reading, think about the way you’d tell someone the news you’re about to deliver if you met him outside the studio. Or recall the enthusiasm you had for the subject when you pitched the story originally. Bring that energy to your delivery.

Vary your pitch naturally. At the same time that you want to sound interested in your own story, you don’t want to lose the natural tonal variations of your regular speaking voice. For instance, it’s easy to fall into the habit of making your voice higher in pitch every time you want to emphasize a word. Be careful not to get into a sing-song pattern. Also, when people are behind a mic their vocal chords sometimes tighten up, making them talk in a higher register than their usual speaking voice. (That’s why it’s smart to warm up before you track a piece, or to track it twice.) A good exercise is to record yourself when you’re in a conversation, just telling a story about your day, or something you saw on the way to work, or an incident that a friend related to you. Then try to imitate yourself when you read your script.

Suit your pace to the sentences you’re saying. If you’re explaining something technical, or describing something sad, you may want to slow down. If you’re repeating the name of someone who’s been identified clearly and repeatedly earlier in your report, you can speed up. Again, if you record yourself in conversation [see the previous tip], you’ll hear that you don’t always speak with exactly the same cadence in every sentence, or in each part of a sentence.

Remember to pause. Many broadcasters don’t use even commas in their scripts… they use three dots instead… simply to remind themselves where to pause. Pauses allow listeners to take in what they’ve just heard before they’re hit with a new idea.

If you repeatedly have trouble reading a word or phrase out loud, change it. Do you find yourself running out of breath? If so, shorten your sentences. Can’t say, “Susan Sheffer says she’s sheltering sea lions”? Re-write it. Even the pros make edits in the studio when they discover they’ve written themselves a tongue-twister. You should always feel comfortable reading what you’ve written.