Articulation refers to the crispness or clarity of your spoken words. When you articulate, your vowels and consonants sound clear and distinct, and your listeners can distinguish your separate words as well as the syllables in your words. The result? Your audience can easily understand what you’re saying.

Articulation problems are most common when nervousness increases a speaker’s rate of delivery or when a speaker is being inattentive. Whatever the cause of your articulation issues, focus on this rule to get better results: when you deliver a speech, clearly and distinctly express all parts of the words in your presentation, and make sure not to round off the ends of words or lower your voice at the ends of sentences.