4 ways to speak better from a script (if you must)
An error-free script doesn’t mean you’ll give a perfect speech. Instead, it destroys the vital inner life of your message. Want to avoid looking like a cardboard cut-out? Read this.
Many speakers like to type out their speeches.
It’s easy to imagine these presenters hunched over their laptops for days, a steady stream of caffeine their only companion. Despite sleep deprivation, their hard work results in carefully-edited, near-perfect speeches.
Their scripts look perfect. But when the speakers read their words aloud for the first time in their presentations, they sound stiffer than a newly-hired telemarketer reading the script his boss just thrust into his hands. Audience members can tell that the speaker is reading and might conclude it would have been more efficient if the speaker distributed his text and let them read it.
These speakers are often dreadful to watch because they fail to remember that writing for the eye is different than writing for the ear.
Still, writing out a full speech does have advantages. Writing out a speech can help speakers create a tight structure and discover a few ideas, themes, or cleverly-worded phrases they wouldn’t have stumbled upon.
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