One of the techniques that great public speakers have is knowing their material.
You cannot be a master mechanic and give a speech on “How to Grill the Perfect Steak”.
It is very important for a speaker to have a mastery of the topic that he will present so that his audience will be properly informed.
After all, you want to be known as a reliable speaker so it is really vital for you to have a mastery of your topic.
Below are three easy steps on how you can master you material when you need to address the public or make an oral presentation:
1. Make an outline.
Do not go to a battle unprepared.
When you need to give a speech, make sure that you have all the necessary equipments to deliver an informative presentation.
First, gather all the materials that you can about the topic.
Second, sift through all the written material that you have and pick out the useful bits and pieces of information.
Read the articles which you have picked out from the lot. Do not memorize, though, because this might cause you to be confused if you forget a particular part of your speech.
Be as spontaneous as possible, yet knowledgeable enough about the topic. This is so that you can answer any question to come up through the discussion with enough confidence.
The lesser you know about the topic, the more your anxiety will increase.
2. Review the outcome of the actual speech.
Now that you more or less have your actual speech prepared, you need to review your presentation.
Scrutinize the outline and make sure that you have all the important points covered.
For example, if you are giving a speech on “Hybrid Technology”, you might have discussed the definition of the term but missed out on stating examples of the products of hybrid technology.
Give ample attention to detail because there might be someone in your audience who knows about your topic and point out the things that you failed to discuss.
3. Rehearse and master your final material.
Before you are given a topic to present, you are first informed of the time that the presentation should run.
It is vital to rehearse your speech and determine exactly how long it will run.
If you only have twenty minutes to present but you have material enough for a thirty minute speech, you can still trim it down.
Finally, by “hearing yourself” rehearse the speech, you would have a preview of how your actual presentation would run and make the necessary improvements, thus coming up with the perfect oral presentation.