Samuel Clemens, whose pen name was Mark Twain, reportedly once had said that:
“The right word may be effective,
but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”
One way to think of pauses is the verbal equivalent of punctuation. As is shown above, they can have at least four different lengths, corresponding to commas, periods, paragraphs, and topics (sections). All those lengths typically are not mentioned in discussions of pausing. A post by Keith Bailey on February 12, 2013 at the Decker Communications blog titled Power to the pause mentioned three:
“When there should be a comma,
pause for one second. Where there should be a period, pause for two seconds.
When you see a new paragraph, pause for three seconds.”
Another post by Noah Zandan on February
19, 2013 at the Quantified Communication blog titled The power of pause similarly
said:
“Great public speakers often pause
for 2 – 3 seconds or even longer. Punctuation can be helpful for deciding where
to insert pauses. We use commas and periods as signs to pause when we are
reading. These are the same places to pause when giving a speech. An especially
useful strategy is to vary the length of your pauses.”
An article by Patricia Fripp
titled Public speaking – the importance of the pause shared Ron Arden’s explanation
of three length ranges: ½ to 1 second, 1 to 2 seconds, and 3 to 7 seconds.
Pauses can be used functions other
than punctuation:
At the beginning of a speech
For dramatic effect
After you ask a rhetorical question
After you present data on a slide
For emphasis after you present a
key point
After you deliver the punchline of
a joke
To recover when you lose your
place
Fripp’s article mentioned nine
types of pauses, and an article by Esther Snippe on February 7, 2017 at
SpeakerHub titled Speak volumes with your silence: 10 ways to use pauses has an
infographic with ten.
A four-minute YouTube video by
Darren LaCroix titled Presentation coaching: the pause says that Toastmasters
champions paused with purpose. Another four-minute YouTube video by Brian Tracy
titled Public speaking tip: the power of the pause is also useful. I was amused
by Brian’s constant gesturing, including his use of the ‘sternwheeler steamboat
paddle’ gesture - which signals illegal formation in football and traveling in
basketball.
The Twain quote appears in an Introduction by biographer Albert Bigelow Paine to the 1923 edition of Mark Twain’s Speeches. The
image of Mark Twain was adapted from a December 16, 1885 back cover of Puck
magazine found at the Library of Congress.
1 comment:
And the pre pause - the pause before you say something - elevates the importance of what you are about to say.
The post pause - the pause you have said a key point - allows people time to fully digest and comprehend that which you have just said.
And along with Mark Twain, Actor Sir Ralph Richardson said “The most precious things in a speech are pauses. A pause will fill the void, capture attention; it will punctuate, illuminate and build the tension in a speech”
Peter Dhu
Post a Comment