# Public Speaking Tips That Work

> Public speaking tips for students, professionals and nervous speakers anywhere: pick one message, learn the first minute by heart, rehearse out loud standing up, breathe through the nerves, speak slower with pauses, and handle questions and mistakes. With a one-week plan.

Public speaking is a skill, not a personality trait. The people who look relaxed in front of a room were not born that way; they prepared in a particular order and practised in a particular way. Here is that order, from the week before to the question at the end, for a class presentation, a work update, a conference talk, a wedding toast or a pitch.

## The short answer

1. **Decide the one sentence you want people to repeat afterwards.** Everything in the talk serves that sentence. Cut what does not.
2. **Build it as an opening, three parts and a close**, and learn the first minute and the last two sentences word for word. The middle you speak from a short list of keywords, never from a script.
3. **Rehearse out loud, standing, at least three times**, and record one run. Reading it silently is not practice. Time it and cut it to fit with a minute to spare.
4. **Calm the body, not the thoughts**: slow breaths with a long exhale for two minutes before you start, feet planted, a pause before the first word. Nerves fade after the first minute you already know by heart.
5. **Speak slower than feels natural, and pause instead of saying "um".** Look at one person per sentence, in different parts of the room.
6. **Expect questions and small mistakes.** Prepare the three likely questions. If you lose your place, pause, look at your keyword list and continue. The audience notices far less than you think.

## Why public speaking feels so hard, and what actually fixes it

Three things go wrong at once when you stand up to speak. Your body treats the room as a threat and floods you with adrenaline: fast heart, dry mouth, shaking hands, a mind that goes blank. You have to produce words in real time while people watch, which is a different skill from knowing the material. And most people have practised it perhaps five times in their life, so of course it is not smooth.

That tells you what the fixes are. The body calms with breathing and with a first minute you know so well that nerves cannot touch it. The real-time word problem is solved by rehearsing out loud, not by reading more. And the lack of practice is solved by practising, in small daily amounts, long before the talk. None of this needs talent. All of it needs a few hours spread over a week.

| What you feel | What it really is | What fixes it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| "My mind will go blank" | Adrenaline blocking recall of a memorised script | Speak from keywords, not a script; learn only the first minute by heart |
| "Everyone can see I am nervous" | The audience sees about a tenth of what you feel | Slow breathing, planted feet, a pause before the first word |
| "I will run out of things to say" | No structure to hold the content | Opening, three parts, close; each part has one point and one example |
| "I talk too fast and say um" | Fear of silence | Pauses are for the listener; practise stopping at the end of each sentence |
| "I am not a natural speaker" | Lack of practice, not of talent | Short, daily, out-loud practice on topics you did not prepare |

## Before: decide the one thing, then build the talk around it

A talk with one clear message is easy to follow and easy to remember, for the audience and for you. A talk with eight points is forgotten by everyone, including the speaker halfway through.

1. **Write the one sentence.** Finish this: "When I sit down, I want everyone to think..." For a project presentation it might be "our method cut the error rate in half". For a toast, "Amara and Daniel make each other braver". For a sales pitch, "this saves a clinic two hours a day". Pin it above your notes.
2. **Know who is in the room.** What do they already know, what do they care about, and what do they need from you: a decision, a mark, a laugh, a yes? Classmates, a board and a wedding party need different openings for the same content.
3. **Choose three parts.** Three is enough for almost any talk under twenty minutes. Each part has one point, one piece of evidence or one story, and one line that links it back to the one sentence. Cut everything else into a "questions" pile; you may need it later.
4. **Write the opening and the close in full.** The first thirty to sixty seconds and the last two sentences are the only parts you learn word for word. Open with something that earns attention: a question, a number, a short story, or the problem your talk solves. Never open with "Um, so, today I am going to talk about...". Close with the one sentence and a clear next step or thank you.
5. **Turn the middle into a keyword list.** One card or one page: the three parts, each with three to five words per point. This is what you will glance at. A full script invites reading, and reading kills the talk.

A useful test: say the whole talk to a friend in ninety seconds from the keyword list. If you can, the structure is sound. If you cannot, you have too many points, not too little time.

## Practise: rehearse the way you will perform

Rehearsal is the step most people skip or do wrong. Reading your notes on the bus is not rehearsal. Rehearsal is standing up, speaking out loud, at full volume, to the end, with a clock running.

- **Run it out loud at least three times, standing.** The first run will be rough and too long; that is what it is for. The third run is usually close to the real thing.
- **Time every run and cut to fit with a minute to spare.** Live talks run longer than rehearsals. If the slot is ten minutes, rehearse at nine.
- **Record one run on your phone, audio is enough, and listen once.** You are listening for three things: pace, filler words, and places where you lost the thread. Fix one at a time.
- **Rehearse the transitions most.** "That is the problem. Now, what we did about it." The joins between parts are where speakers stall; make them fixed phrases you know by heart.
- **Practise with the real equipment once if you can**: the slides, the clicker, the microphone, the room or the video call. Half of on-the-day nerves come from unfamiliar kit.
- **Do one run in front of a person**, even one. Then ask them a single question: "What was my main point?" If they say your one sentence, you are ready.

Alongside rehearsing this talk, practise speaking without preparation for a few minutes a day: pick a random topic, give yourself a few seconds to think, and talk for a minute. The talk itself is prepared, but the moments that scare people, the question you did not expect, the slide that fails, the introduction that puts you on the spot, are unprepared speaking. A little of it every day makes the first words come faster, and that is what being "good on your feet" actually means.

## Nerves: calm the body and stop fighting the feeling

You will be nervous. Experienced speakers are nervous too; they have learned that the feeling peaks just before the first word and drops sharply within a minute of starting. The goal is not to feel nothing. The goal is to be able to speak while feeling it.

1. **Two minutes of slow breathing before you go on.** Breathe in for about four counts, out for about six. The long exhale is what slows the heart. Do it quietly in your seat; nobody can see it.
2. **Plant your feet and drop your shoulders.** Shoulder-width apart, weight even, hands relaxed or holding your card. A steady stance makes a steady voice and stops the swaying that broadcasts nerves.
3. **Pause before the first word.** Walk up, look at the room, breathe once, then begin. The two seconds of silence feel long to you and look like confidence to everyone else.
4. **Deliver the first minute you know by heart.** This is why you learned it. The nerves are at their worst exactly when your most-prepared material is running. By the time you reach the keywords, your body has settled.
5. **Rename the feeling.** A racing heart before a talk and a racing heart before a football match are the same body state. Telling yourself "I am excited, this matters to me" is not a trick; it is an accurate description that your body accepts more readily than "I am terrified".
6. **Find the friendly faces.** There are always two or three people nodding. Speak to them early. Their reaction tells your body the room is safe, and it believes evidence over reassurance.

Two practical notes. Avoid a large coffee right before; caffeine adds to the shaking. And keep water within reach, because a dry mouth is the most common physical symptom and a sip is a perfectly natural pause.

## Delivery: voice, pauses, eyes and hands

| Area | Do this | Because |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pace | Speak slower than feels natural; about 140 to 160 words a minute in English | Nerves speed you up and listeners need time to process; slow sounds authoritative |
| Pauses | Stop fully at the end of each sentence, and for two seconds after an important line | Pauses replace fillers, let a point land, and give you time to find the next keyword |
| Fillers | When you feel an "um" or "so" coming, close your mouth instead | Silence sounds confident; fillers sound unsure, and the audience counts them without meaning to |
| Volume | Speak to the back row, and vary it: quieter for a story, fuller for the main point | A flat volume sends people to sleep whatever the content |
| Eyes | Finish one full sentence to one person, then move to someone in another part of the room | Everyone near that person feels addressed; reading from slides or notes breaks the connection |
| Hands | Let them move with the meaning: counting on fingers, showing size, pointing at the slide | Hands hidden in pockets or clasped look anxious; natural gestures help you remember too |
| Feet | Stay planted; move only on purpose, such as a few steps to begin a new part | Pacing and swaying distract; a deliberate move marks a transition |
| Slides | One idea per slide, big text, few words; the slide supports you, you do not read it | If the slide says it all, nobody listens to you |
| Notes | One card with keywords, held low or on the lectern | Glancing at a keyword is fine; reading a page is not |

If English is not your first language, do not aim to sound like a native speaker. Aim to be clear: slightly slower, fuller pauses, and the key words of each point said distinctly. Clear accented English is understood everywhere; fast mumbled English is not understood anywhere.

On a video call the same rules hold with two changes. Look at the camera lens, not at the faces on screen, when you make a main point; that is what eye contact looks like to the audience. And since your hands are often out of frame, your voice does more of the work, so vary the pace and the pauses even more deliberately.

## Questions, interruptions and things going wrong

- **Prepare the three questions you are most afraid of.** Write the answer to each in two sentences. Most question sessions contain at least one of them.
- **Repeat or rephrase the question before answering.** It gives you ten seconds to think, makes sure the room heard it, and lets you check you understood.
- **Answer in one or two sentences, then stop.** A long answer to one question steals the time of everyone else and often talks you into trouble.
- **If you do not know, say so and say what you would do.** "I do not have that number here. I will check and send it to you today." That is a stronger answer than a guess that gets corrected.
- **If you lose your place, pause, look at your card, and carry on.** Do not apologise and do not explain. A three-second silence is forgotten instantly; "sorry, I have lost my place, I am so nervous" is remembered.
- **If the technology fails, keep talking.** You rehearsed from keywords, so you can give the talk without the slides. Say "while this comes back, let me tell you the main point", and do.
- **If someone is hostile, stay slow and polite.** Acknowledge the point, answer the part that is fair, and offer to continue afterwards. The room judges your composure, not their argument.

## A worked example: a ten-minute presentation in one week

Priya has to present her group's project to a class of forty, with two lecturers marking, next Thursday at 11:00. Ten minutes plus questions. She has never spoken for longer than a minute in front of a group. Here is the week, about thirty minutes a day.

- **Thursday (one week out).** Writes the one sentence: "Our survey shows students skip breakfast because of time, not money, so the fix is speed, not price." Lists everything she could say, then keeps three parts: the problem, what the survey found, what the canteen should change. Everything else goes into a "questions" page.
- **Friday.** Writes the opening in full (a question to the room: "Hands up if you ate breakfast today"; then a number from the survey) and the close in full (the one sentence, then "we have sent the canteen manager the two-page version"). Turns the middle into one card of keywords. Builds six slides, each with one chart or one line.
- **Saturday.** First out-loud run, standing in her room: fourteen minutes, rough, lots of "so, yeah". Cuts one chart and half the problem section. Second run: eleven minutes. Starts two minutes of unprepared speaking each day on a random topic, to get used to talking without a script.
- **Sunday.** Records a run on her phone and listens. Hears herself speed up in part two and say "basically" nine times. Marks "SLOW" and "pause" on the card at the start of part two. Writes the three questions she fears and two-sentence answers.
- **Monday.** Run in front of her flatmate, who says the main point back almost exactly. Rehearses the two transitions ten times each until they are automatic.
- **Tuesday.** Books the room for twenty minutes, plugs in her laptop, finds the clicker does not work with it, borrows one that does. Full run with slides at nine minutes thirty.
- **Wednesday.** One light run, then stops. Lays out clothes, prints the card, sleeps early.
- **Thursday.** Arrives twenty minutes early, loads the slides, two minutes of slow breathing in her seat. Walks up, plants her feet, looks at the room, pauses, asks the breakfast question. Her hands shake for the first minute, which nobody mentions afterwards. She finishes at nine minutes fifty, repeats each question before answering, and says "I do not have that figure, I will check" to one of them. One lecturer's feedback: "clear structure, good pace".

Total preparation: about four hours across a week. The same four hours spent re-reading the slides on Wednesday night would have produced a talk read off the screen at speed, with a blank in the middle.

## The mistakes that make a talk worse

- **Writing a full script and learning it.** Under adrenaline, memorised text vanishes and you have nothing. Learn the opening and close; speak the rest from keywords.
- **Opening with an apology or a warm-up.** "Sorry, I am a bit nervous" or "Um, so, I guess I will just start" throws away the moment when attention is highest.
- **Trying to say everything.** Eight points are zero points. Three parts and one sentence are what people take away.
- **Rehearsing silently, or not at all.** The mouth has to practise, not just the eyes. Out loud, standing, timed.
- **Reading the slides.** If the audience can read it, they do not need you to. Big text, few words, and you add the meaning.
- **Filling every silence.** Pauses are where points land and where you find your next line. "Um" is a pause you were afraid to take.
- **Speeding up to get it over with.** The faster you go, the less is understood and the more nervous you sound. Slow down most at the moments that matter most.
- **Treating one bad talk as proof.** Everyone's first talks are rough. The second is better, the tenth is fine. Nobody skips the first.

## Your public speaking plan

1. Write the one sentence you want repeated afterwards. Cut whatever does not serve it.
2. Opening, three parts, close. One point and one example per part.
3. Learn the first minute and the last two sentences by heart. Keywords for the rest, on one card.
4. Rehearse out loud, standing, timed, at least three times. Record one run and fix one thing.
5. Practise a few minutes of unprepared speaking every day so the first words come faster.
6. Prepare the three questions you fear, each with a two-sentence answer.
7. Before you start: two minutes of slow breathing, feet planted, a pause, then the first line.
8. Speak slower than feels natural, pause instead of "um", one sentence per face, and keep going when something goes wrong.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I calm my nerves before public speaking?

Breathe slowly for two minutes with a long exhale, plant your feet, pause before the first word, and start with an opening you know by heart. Nerves peak just before you begin and drop within the first minute. Avoid a large coffee beforehand, keep water nearby, and tell yourself the racing heart is excitement, which is an accurate description your body accepts.

### How do I stop saying um when I speak in public?

Pause instead. An "um" is a silence you were afraid to leave. Practise stopping fully at the end of each sentence during rehearsal, record one run and count your fillers, and speak from a keyword card rather than a script so you are not searching for memorised words. Daily unprepared speaking practice, a minute at a time, reduces fillers faster than anything else.

### How do I start a speech or presentation?

Never with an apology or "today I am going to talk about". Open with a question to the room, a surprising number, a short story, or the problem your talk solves, then say in one line what the audience will get. Write this opening in full and learn it word for word; it is the one part of the talk you deliver while nerves are at their peak.

## Practise speaking without a script

In the LoWisa app, Speak gives you a short set of speaking games each day: a few seconds to think, then you talk about something you did not prepare, and the thinking time shortens as you improve. Stop Saying swaps one flat word a day for better ones. Both are in the app on Google Play and the App Store, and the free credits a new account receives let you try them in full.

---

Source: https://lowisa.dev/guides/public-speaking-tips/ · Updated 2026-10-30