Break A Leg - Articles - Andrew Schwartz

Products - Articles

ReadySetPresent Articles can be purchased for $15.00 and are reproducible for a $1.00 royalty fee per copy. Once purchased, download instructions will be sent to you via email. (PC and MAC Compatible). You can purchase all additional royalty copies by clicking here or visiting the reprints page.

Break A Leg
by Andrew E. Schwartz

Next time you watch a basketball game, watch the players warm up before the game actually starts. Even the very best players run through their moves and shots before the game begins. They’re rehearsing, practicing their skills before the presentation.

Presentors are no different — they must warm up their skills and rehearse before their presentations get off the ground. Preparation of your speech begins with the concept — the thought or idea you wish to impart to others. After the initial conception, you develop your idea through support, proof, and reinforcement. Once you come up with a clear overall plan for the presentation, it’s time to consider rehearsal.

Essentially, rehearsal is the act of thinking aloud to yourself. Just as you developed the original concept by clarifying ideas and thoughts, so should you rehearse by thinking and then going over your thoughts again and again until the presentation has solidified in your mind. Rehearsal does not mean rote memorization — let thought guide you at each step.

First, develop a sturdy rehearsal by memorizing the actual conceptual pattern of the presentation. This will leave you free to improvise or collect certain points without resorting to the text or plan every few minutes.

This approach to rehearsal is called “pre-thinking the presentation.” By thinking and immersing your presentation, you will uncover cues to help you remember thought you’ve had and now wish to share. This is the key to developing skills for impromptu deliveries, which is the best method for attaining maximum contact and interaction with an audience. Spontaneous presentations flow naturally and save your audience from boredom of being read at.

In mentally rehearsing your presentation, keep in mind the following suggestions:

Know your presentation outline completely, and create a mental picture to it.
Repeat this mental picture and become familiar with every “landmark"-your points, subpoints, supportive equipment, and aids.
When you reach each element along the journey, imagine you’re actually giving the speech to your audience.
Test yourself to see if key words will remind you of specific details. From here, you can recall in your own words without needing to rely on written notes.
Some things you may want to commit to memory are your opening statement and your closing remarks. Also memorize quotes or other material that you wish to quote verbatim.
If you’re using a microphone in your presentation, use it in rehearsal.
Make note cards and carry them to rehearse whenever possible.
Repeat your thesis again and again.

When to Rehearse: Begin rehearsing the moment you first phrase your thesis. Notetaking invariably produces a brilliant phrase or two which you would want to state to your audience in its original wording. Allow these epigrams to gestate. Brooded over them, try them out, and refine them in conversation. If possible, live with a presentation and its parts for as long as possible before you give it.

The longer you carry your notes with you prior to the presentation, the more familiar you’ll be with them—and the less of them you’ll need. Make sure your entire presentation package—notes, aids, and handouts—is ready for two complete rehearsals. Divide your speech into parts, so that you can pay special attention to the parts that are giving you trouble. Last minute rehearsals are undesirable, as they create unnecessary tension and nervousness, and they don’t allow you sufficient time to adjust your presentation.

Schedule your first full-blown rehearsal a week before the actual presentation. Rehearse in the room you’ll give the presentation in, preferably when it is empty so that you won’t be disturbed or interrupted.

Verbal Rehearsals: As you become more experienced, your rehearsals will become more introspective. Your style and method of delivery will become familiar and you will already have made and corrected many of your mistakes. If you know your subject, you will have already memorized many facts and supporting material, and you’ll have predeveloped methods of getting the point across. Because you’ve been rehearsing visually and mentally, you’ll start to “hear” your own performance. At this point, an actual verbal rehearsal will help you develop and polish specific effects, use visuals effectively, and test the effects of your presentation on a live audience.

Choosing an Evaluator: Choose one to three people to function as a sounding board and to provide feedback. For large, important public presentations, select an evaluation group the same size as your expected audience. Have them ask questions and act like a public group might. When choosing your evaluators, look for the following qualifications: technical knowledge of your topic to check its accuracy and validity, ability to evaluate your style and objective, and interest in and willingness to help you with your work.

:Speaking to an Evaluator: Convince yourself that your evaluators are your actual audience, don’t act, but present as if you’re in a real-life situation. Ideally, you should conduct two full rehearsals, one to find mistakes and the other to rehearse your speech in corrected form. Additional rehearsals will be determined by the available time and the need for polishing. Decide with your critics whether you should rehearse the entire presentation or just parts of it. Rehearsing a single part is far less desirable than going through the entire presentation each time, but time restrictions often make this unrealistic. Once started, there should be no further interruptions. Tell your critics to save their comments until you’re finished delivering your speech.

Like the actual presentation, rehearsals should not be totally extemporaneous. On the other hand, what you want to say or do should not be memorized word for word or stowed “on the cuff.” Each time you rehearse the presentation, you’ll notice subtle changes, although you’ll restate most of the information identically each time. Expressions that arise spontaneously are fresh from moment to moment, and they create personal and real communication.

Rehearsing a Manuscript Presentation: On the occasions that warrant manuscript speaking, follow this rehearsal procedure.

Read silently, absorb, and ponder each thought several times. The more familiar you are with your points, the less your listeners will feel you’re reading them.
Read the manuscript aloud two or three times.
Lift your eyes up from the paper as often as possible to maintain contact with the audience.
Do not speak in a monotone! Use different levels, as in normal speech. Similarly, do not over-dramatize the reading.
Pause between key points and at transition points.
Make a conscious effort to read slowly and deliberately.
Use colored pencils for additional cue marks during rehearsal. Underscore words that need additional emphasis, and insert ellipses ( … ) when you need to pause.
Retype your manuscript after you make final revisions.
Place your manuscript on a podium high enough so you don;t have to bend over and large enough so that you can easily move note pages aside.
Do not turn pages; simply slide them aside. Your manuscript is like an open book; keep two unread pages up at all times to prevent stumbling or unwanted breaks in thought.

A checklist will make your rehearsal more meaningful and useful. This is a point of good planning which will assist the people who you have asked to evaluate the rehearsal. Your checklist provides them with a guide for their criticisms and allows them to help you on the specific points that will be important later. A critique is worthless unless it is clinical and objective. At this stage, you are looking for what is wrong with your presentation more than for what is right. The critic must be merciless. Better to receive your criticism before the final event.

Using the Microphone: The thought of using a microphone makes many people uncomfortable. But microphones, as well as a lot of other available equipment and techniques, make presentation easier for you and your audience. A lot of equipment can be adjusted to the individual. For example, with public address systems, you can hear your voice and determine how far away to place the microphone.

Rehearsal is far more integral to the presentation process than is the traditional model of rote memorization. The rehearsal period offers an opportunity for refinement and revision, and evaluation at this stage heads off negative criticism later on. Used effectively, the rehearsal can make the difference between a good presentation, and highly effective one.

Andrew E. Schwartz, CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates of Boston, MA a comprehensive management training and professional development organization offering over 40 skills specific programs and practical solutions to today's business challenges.

When ordering, if you need an extraction program to unzip the file please visit one of these sites below.
These programs all have free trials that can be used to unzip our files. Make sure you have your pop-up blockers disabled.

Winzip - http://download.winzip.com/winzip120.exe
Winrar - http://www.rarlab.com/rar/wrar380.exe

Purchase this article for $15.00.
Articles are Reproducible for a $1.00 royalty fee per copy.