Know Your Subject Well

Proficient public speaking requires a thorough knowledge of your subject matter. Your perfectly pitched voice may be pleasing to the ear; you may be a master of delivery and have a fine command of the English language. Despite all these attributes your performance still might be a flop if you are not thoroughly conversant with your subject.

This lack of thorough subject knowledge is the rock that wrecks more public speakers’ ambitions than any other. Veterans of the hard roll and fruit cup circuit frequently pop up with a talk at the sight of a bread crumb, but often their urge to be heard is hardly worth while because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Audiences are quick to sense it when your knowledge of your subject is superficial and your speech goes over like a lead balloon. Contrariwise, a person may not be considered a first-rate speaker and yet be much in popular demand because he is a recognized leader in his field and knows his subject thoroughly.

How to Master More Subjects

If effective public speakers confine themselves to subjects they know well, how then, you wonder, do you expand your subjects? Where do you acquire background for further fields? Your personal experiences primarily are your foremost source of speech material; those things that happened to you and around you in the course of your lifetime furnish a storehouse of material. You have talked about these incidents and now you extend those conversations to a larger audience. It is the experiences that you remember most vividly and leave a lasting mark on your memory that count. A world traveller exposed to a wealth of unusual experiences may be so blase that he is thoroughly bored and spends his time in the bistros. Consequently, he adds next to nothing to his storehouse of speech material.

On the other hand, an office worker who trudges the same paths day in and day out takes an interest in his fellow men and the things that go on about him. He is keenly alert, pays attention to details, and is impressed by all he sees. Something as simple as a trip to the super-mart may increase vastly his storehouse of recollections and add more conversation material to his mental reservoir than that blase old goat after a trip around the globe. Then too there is the “creative memory” type of person; give him a little makin’s and he can manufacture a conversational masterpiece much as Mark Twain did in his day.

Another source of material is the written word. The effective public speaker broadens his understanding by extensive reading. He keeps his storehouse from becoming lopsided by digesting editorials, news columns, sports pages, and even the comic strips. By reading, he can mull over the material and what he reads has more time to register than the things he hears. A further source of material covers the broad field of luncheon meetings, dinners, banquets, the theatre, concerts, lectures, and regular radio and TV programs covering current events. The outcome of any or all of these is your own analytical and imaginative thinking in reviewing the experiences you have had and the things you have read, heard and seen.

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