During a presentation, your choice of language and other nonverbal behaviors can gain or lose the respect of your audience. When speaking publicly, you want to influence your audience to listen by using a powerful speech style. Audiences will pay more attention if they respect you and will lose motivation to listen if they don’t. You achieve a powerful speech style through the words you choose and the way you use your voice. Additionally, your dress and physical appearance will affect how the audience regards you and your message.

Language.A common mistake speakers make is to use powerless language during a speech—words that suggest they’re uncertain about their message or themselves. Examples of powerless language include hedging, or words that lessen a message’s impact, such as sorta, kinda, and somewhat. Such words can confuse an audience and suggest you’re holding something back. Disclaimers—phrases that remove responsibility for the statement you’re making—are another example. For instance, saying “I’m not an expert, but . . .” or “I could be wrong about this, but . . .” reduces your power. A final example is using unnecessary words—known as intensifiers—to overemphasize a point (“It was a really, really good movie” or “The decision to increase tuition was totally wrong”). If you use a lot of powerless language while delivering a speech, you might be viewed as unlikable and fail to earn the respect of your audience (Holtgraves & Lasky, 1999).

Vocal Delivery.Your voice also projects confidence—or uncertainty—and influences how your audience perceives you. Consider your vocal volume, or how loudly or quietly you speak. Speaking too softly can make it hard for listeners to hear you and may cause them to doubt your confidence and credibility. Conversely, if you speak too loudly, your audience may see you as overbearing. You want to talk just loudly enough for people sitting in the back row to hear you.

Poor articulation can further erode how you are viewed, because it can cause your audience to misunderstand what you’re saying. Don’t run through words (“Whaddayougonnado?” rather than “What are you going to do?”) or drop the endings of words (“How’s it goin’?” rather than “How’s it going?”). Likewise, pay attention to your pronunciation, or the way you say words. Poor pronunciation—for example, saying “ambalance” instead of “ambulance”—may cause your audience to question your credibility.

Finally, avoid overusing vocalized pauses and fillers (um, ah, you know). Since these are common in ordinary conversation, your audience can tolerate occasional use of them. But researchers have found that frequent occurrence of such hesitations in a presentation leads to a negative impression of a speaker (Johnson & Vinson, 1990). If you need time to collect your thoughts about what you’re going to say next, just pause briefly.

Dress and Physical Appearance.How you dress and your physical appearance can build or undermine the impression you make on an audience. If you want your audience to take you seriously, you should look the part. In addition to being properly groomed, this may mean not dressing as though you’re headed to the beach, to sleep, or to the dance club. You’ll also want to avoid chewing gum or wearing “noisy” jewelry, sunglasses, flip-flops, or a baseball cap during your presentation. In short, there should be nothing about your appearance that distracts the audience from listening to your speech. Instead, you’ll want to look your best.

Click to view DOUBLE TAKE: PROPER VS IMPROPER CLOTHING

Start by matching your dress to what is appropriate for the occasion and your audience. In some situations, you may need to dress formally, whereas in others, a more casual appearance will be appropriate. For example, you might wear business attire when giving a presentation to college alumni at a fund-raising event, but you might choose more casual attire for delivering a speech in your communication class. A general rule of thumb is that you should dress slightly more formally than you expect your audience to dress.

Another consideration for determining how to dress is the speech topic. Shorts and a T-shirt could be proper attire for an informative speech about setting up a weekend campsite but would be completely inappropriate to wear for a persuasive speech about donating time to visit the elderly. Check with your instructor when in doubt about any special dress requirements for class assignments.