Public Speaking: The Power of the Pause

When speaking, a pause is like a comma or period when you are writing. A pause is used to break up ideas, help emphasize an important point and acknowledge your audience's responses.

As you are practicing your prepared speech, consider pausing for a count of 2 when you encounter a comma and a count of up to 4 for a period.

If you are having difficulties pausing, because silence can be uncomfortable, then you will want to practice pausing even longer. When you exaggerate your pause during rehearsal, you will become more comfortable with the silence and your pause will be the appropriate time during your real speech or presentation.

Right before making an important point pause.

This grabs your audiences attention and lets them know they need to pay attention.

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Pause again after you have made the point.

This allows your audience to think about what you just said.

You never know how your audience will react to any one phrase or sentence, so you need to be paying attention while you are delivering your speech or presentation.

You want to react to your audiences reactions.

If you have a line that you think is funny and you don't get any laughs. That's okay, You want to react as if you did not expect a laugh. In this case you don't need to pause as long as you may have planned. On the other hand, if you get a laugh where you did not expect one, then you need to pause and let the laughter die out before continuing one.

If you don't pause then you will be speaking over your audience. When you speak over your audience it is like saying to them "I don't really care what you think". If you do that too many times, your audience will just shut you out and you have lost any connection you may have made.

Think of your pause as verbal punctuation. You can add impact, interest and intent by adding a pause.

You can say as much or more with what is not said than can be said with words. Consider utilizing the pause in your next speech or presentation and see the difference silence can make.