HOW YOU CAN USE SRESS AND TONE IN YOUR PRESENTATION

Stressing the right words in your presentation helps you get your points across with impact.

The stress and tone that you give to certain words serve as audible clues for your audience; like signposts pointing to your meaning. That's effective presenting.

So when you want to help your audience, you can do so by stressing all the right words.

5 tips for getting the right tone to your words

There are five main tips for building more emphasis into your presentations:

1. Practise. Aim to practise your presentation well before the real thing. Read your script out aloud. Note the meaning of each passage and test where the stress on your words works best.

2. Mark-ups. Mark your script, cue cards or notes with a highlighter or sharpie. These highlights should help you place the emphasis where it's needed best.

3. Edit. Remember to edit your script as you practise. Remove those tricky words and the long sentences. Substitute with shorter, simpler words and sentences. Put the stress into those words that help build meaning.

4. Repetition. You can always combine stress and repetition. Repeating a key word or phrase is enhanced when you lay on the extra tone.

5. Pause. Presenting at too fast a pace prevents you from placing the right stress where you need it; too fast a pace and all your words carry pretty well the same tone. Slow down and pause. Suddenly your pausing helps you to place some exaggeration on key words.

Stress, tone and emphasis help your audience to actively listen to your main points. Your audience gauges the relevance of those points by the stress that you apply. As audible sign posts they can' t be overlooked.

For more skills tips, you can always attend a PresentPerfect presentation training course.

"Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make clearer."

Joseph Joubert