Pausing can improve your public speaking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The August 2023 issue of Toastmaster magazine has a good article by Joel Schwartzberg on pages 18 and 19 titled 9 Surprising Ways You Can Benefit From a Pause. They are:

 

Pausing puts your mind in charge of your mouth.

Pausing gives the audience time to process.

Pausing draws and holds attention.

Pausing looks like thinking.

Pausing puts power behind key ideas.

Pausing controls speed.

Pausing lets you breathe.

Pausing defeats crutch words.

Pausing costs you nothing.

 

Why did I say good and not excellent? Because his second paragraph says:

 

“Read on to learn more about the great powers of the pause, including some that will almost certainly give you pause!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pause wrongly implies there is only one type. Back on November 16, 2019 I blogged about Please don’t just tell us about ‘the pause’ – because there are several different types and lengths. Five types (and punctuation lengths) are shown above. Also, at the top of page 19 in Joel’s article there is a photo overlaid with the same pause icon I showed at the top of this post.

 

There is another excellent article by Marsha Zinberg at The Write Touch on October 24, 2022 titled Pausing for Effect: Seven Reasons Pauses Enhance Your Speeches (and Eight Ways to Ace Them). She lists eight types:

 

Punctuation

Look at Me!

Remember This!

Have You Ever….?

Ta-Da!

Rimshot

What Just Happened? Or Where the Heck Am I?

Dying of Thirst.

 

Think about using different lengths of pauses when you speak in public.