Public speaking is an art. To get better at an art form, you have to have an understanding of its various aspects. For example, if you wish to improve your public speaking skills, you should be able to distinguish between different types of public speaking. In this article, we shall talk about the five primary types of public speaking, how they are classified, and more.
Types of public speaking can be classified based on how you share the information with your audience. Simply put, public speaking can be classified into speaking to inform, speaking to persuade, speaking to entertain, speaking to actuate, and speaking to demonstrate.
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Top 5 Types of Public Speaking
Let's get straight into the 5 types of public speaking:
1. Informative public speaking
Informative public speaking is used to share accurate, well-researched facts with the audience. Its main goal is to educate and raise awareness, not express personal opinions. Credibility and clarity are key to ensure your audience retains the information. Keep your speech crisp, relevant, and engaging to avoid losing attention. Success depends on how well the audience understands and remembers your content.
2. Persuasive public speaking
Persuasive public speaking aims to influence your audience’s opinions or actions. You present arguments to support a point and sway your audience in your favor. It's commonly used in politics, sales, and marketing to inspire change. Use emotional appeal, strong logic, and audience engagement techniques. Mastering the art of storytelling helps you express your stance convincingly in academics and career.
You can improve your persuasive public speaking skills with practice, here are some tips that can add to your practice:
- Practice persuasive public speaking by incorporating emotions into your speech.
- Use the AIDA principle.
- Practice answering questions your audience may come up with after you have delivered your speech.
- Instead of concluding with a thank you, give a quick round-up of your speech.
3. Public speaking to entertain
Public speaking isn’t always formal. It can also be informal. This type is used in informal settings like weddings, farewells, or social events. It includes stories, humor, and emotions to entertain and connect with the audience. A personal touch makes the speech memorable and meaningful.
Ceremonial speeches are mostly informal as you speak to an audience with who you are acquainted. You can also include personal stories or events about the celebrant to make your ceremonial speech more meaningful, memorable and impactful. Ceremonial speeches can include humour and emotions, depending on the occasion.
Storytelling and comedy standups are other forms of public speaking to entertain. These forms of public speaking are intended to entertain your audience. Ceremonial public speaking techniques trigger an emotional response from the audience and establish an emotional connection. Developing ceremonial public speaking skills can help you understand how to captivate your audience with your effective presentation skills.
4. Public speaking to actuate
Public speaking to actuate is a higher form of public speaking. It actuate requires you to go a step beyond persuasion and convincing your audience. The primary aim of public speaking to actuate is to motivate people to take action.
Public speaking to actuate is a more powerful form of persuasive public speaking. It can take years of practice to master the art of motivating your audience enough to make them act. Starting early on in your career can prove beneficial. Only after years of practice and public speaking can you achieve the level of excellence.
Mastering the art of delivering motivational speeches might also prove helpful when you enter the professional world in the future. Big brands and employers hire motivational speakers to motivate their employees to work harder, bring in more clients, make more sales, and achieve targets.
5. Public speaking to demonstrate
Lastly, public speaking to demonstrate focuses not just on words, facts, accuracy, credibility, or conviction of the speaker but also on how the speech is delivered. The core idea behind demonstrative public speaking is to bring together both verbal and non-verbal communication methods. If you practice the demonstrative form of public speaking, you stand a better chance of delivering your message to your audience. With demonstrative public speaking, you can make your audience better understand what you are trying to say.
An example of demonstrative public speaking can be taken from the commercials you see play on the internet or your televisions. When a person goes on about explaining a particular product or service, including its features and how it's the best in the market; it’s an example of demonstrative public speaking. Furthermore, role-playing scenarios also fall under the purview of demonstrative public speaking.
If you wish to excel in demonstrative public speaking, you need to practice both verbal and non-verbal communication aspects. You should understand how both aspects of communication can add to your demonstrative public speaking.
Check here some insightful points about public speaking that you surely don’t want to miss.
Now that you are familiar with different types of public speaking, let’s get into types of public speaking skills that can help you get better at communicating, persuading, informing, motivating, and more.
Types of public speaking skills
Public speaking skills how well-versed you are with the given concept and how well you can engage your audience. Here are the top 3 types of public speaking skills that you can perfect over time with practice.
- Communication skills: To get better at public speaking, it’s essential to communicate your message, share your ideas and opinions articulately. Furthermore, you also need to practice different aspects of communication, including controlling your voice, speed of talking, self-awareness of your body language, and more. With practice, you can also excel at aligning your speech patterns to your audiences’ level of expertise.
- Clear articulation: Avoiding verbal interference while delivering your speech makes you an instant hit with your audience. Verbal interferences such as ‘um’ and ‘ah’ can distract your audience from your speech. Furthermore, excellent command over the language, a rich vocabulary, clear pronunciations and the use of proper grammar make you a good public speaker. Clear articulation lends your audience more clarity and understanding of the concept, issue, or topic.
- Ability to connect with the audience: When delivering a public speech, it’s important to establish a connection with your audience and gain their trust. The ability to connect with your audience goes a long way in persuading and motivating your audience to act. Creating an atmosphere that encourages your audience to engage with you is what makes you an effective public speaker.
Apart from the types of public speaking skills mentioned above, there are other secondary types of public speaking skills. These include confidence, presentation style, and passion.
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How to improve your public speaking skill?
Before knowing the ways to improve your public speaking skills, it is essential to build a basic understanding of how to become a good public speaker. In addition to to this, we have listed down some of the most common ways to improve your public speaking skills:
- Practice speaking on regular basis. The more you speak with others, the more confident and comfortable you get at addressing large audiences.
- Practice orating your speeches to yourself and then to your family, friends, teachers, etc. Get their feedback and work on points of improvement.
- Record your speeches and evaluate them to find areas of improvement. Also, focus on Voice change exercises to make your speech more effective.
- Your body language can either support your public speaking or it can undermine your performance. Focus on your body language, including how you use hand gestures and facial expressions to emphasize and highlight some parts of your speech.
- Don’t use a monotone voice. Play with your voice tone to engage your audience and trigger a response.
- Practice voice modulations and pitches to get your audiences’ attention.
- Hear well-known public speakers deliver their speeches.
- Don’t break eye contact with your audience. You can practice maintaining eye contact while you talk to your parents, classmates, and teachers.
- Look confident and be self-assured. It can take you a long way when you begin your professional life. The audience instantly connects with speakers who look confident on the stage.
- Lastly, but definitely not the least. Enroll in a public speaking class.
Bonus: Topics for Public Speaking
The following topics can help you to practise public speaking. You can choose some good topics for public speaking in daily basis:
| Types of Public Speaking | Topics of Public Speaking |
|---|---|
| Informative |
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| Persuasive |
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| Entertaining |
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| Actuating |
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| Demonstrative |
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Benefits of Joining Public Speaking Classes at PlanetSpark
Honing your public speaking skills, PlanetSpark use simplified methods to help you masterering different forms of public speaking. Here is a guide, the how we prepare from from scratch and help you master the art of public speaking.
- 1:1 Public Speaking Coaching by Communication Experts
- Step-by-Step Skill Building
- TED-Style Training Modules
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