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To recite a speech memorized from a script, you learn your script word-for-word and deliver it without looking at any text, notes, or outline. You behave like an actor on the stage who memorizes dialogue and recites the words as part of a performance. When would you want to deliver a speech by memorizing from a script? Memorization is only advisable when you are called on to deliver a precise message and you are already trained to memorize a great deal of text and deliver it flawlessly.

This delivery mode does offer some advantages over reading from a script. Specifically, there’s no barrier between you and your audience, so you can maintain eye contact with listeners throughout your speech. This allows you to be more natural when using gestures and visual aids. And like reading from a manuscript, you can control your word choice by precisely repeating what you’ve memorized; in fact, memorization was a key feature of classical rhetorical training. In contemporary thought, however, it is no longer considered the best form of speech preparation and delivery in most situations.

The reason? This mode of delivery has several distinct disadvantages. For one thing, memorized presentations often come across as slick and prepackaged, or “canned.” Listeners may view the speech as a stale performance delivered the same way every time, regardless of the audience. As a result, they may take offense or lose interest.

Memorizing is also very challenging, especially with a long speech. And people who speak from memory are typically wedded to their text; the presentation can grind to a halt if the speaker forgets so much as a single word or sentence.

Because this delivery mode’s disadvantages outweigh its advantages, we recommend avoiding it unless you have a specific background in memorizing large bodies of text (as a trained actor, for example) and your speech situation requires it.