Arresting Attention and taking pause

Arresting Attention

An audience rarely pays attention automatically, their interest must be sparked and maintained by the speaker. Many factors may cause an audience to become inattentive. One offender is monotony. When the listeners’ interest is obviously lagging, audience attention may be restored by attention arrestors. These are rhetorical questions the speaker puts out. He may ask, dramatically, “What are you going to do about it?” While he intends to answer that question himself, his technique arouses curiosity.

The speaker should of course be prepared for an unexpected answer from the audience, and if the answer is right, he should express his thanks. If it’s wrong, he should use that as an excuse to repeat the high points of his argument.

Take a Pause

The oratorical pause has a place in your delivery. In private conversation we frequently ask “Do you see what I mean?” or “Do you get the point?” During the oratorical pause, the speaker in effect is asking the audience, “Do you get what I say?” Good speakers employ punch lines but sometimes the listeners are unprepared for them. The oratorical pause permits the audience to digest one point before you go on to the next. The audience neither likes to lose out on a chance to laugh, nor to laugh and lose out on a good line. This is the place to pause.

His mastery of the oratorical pause makes Bob Hope’s appearances hilarious. He makes his point, then waits for it to sink in. If the praise is plentiful, he starts in again but adds another pause and so creates the impression that his comment was far funnier than he expected the audience to think it was. These might be called pluperfect pauses. There is no objection to a speaker using long pauses during delivery providing they mean something; but if the pause is a cover-up for a memory lapse that’s as bad as rattling through lines that are word-perfect but are delivered without change of pace or emotion. (The mind is a wonderful thing. It starts working the minute you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak!)

Your Listeners’ Pleasure-Your Guiding Light

Let your listeners’ pleasure plot your course at all times. The basic aim of your delivery and all of its instrumentalities-your appearance, vocal variations, words, gestures and the pauses you employ are directed toward them. Good delivery is good manners and nothing more. By keeping your audience rather than yourself in mind while speaking, your personality improves. This is true in ordinary conversation and is likewise true in public speaking-for people are people whether you appeal to them singly or severally. When you have finished your talk, SIT DOWN. Don’t stand there waiting for applause! After you are seated if the applause continues you may rise again and acknowledge it with a nod and the broadest smile you can muster.

Tags: public speaking

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