Voice Tips

Voice Tip 6. Why is a pause like a full stop?

Mark Twain once said “The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause”.

Pausing when speaking is like the white space on paper when reading. We need these pauses to process the information, and determine what are the key points. Add phrasing to pausing and you get chunking, you create easily understood chunks of meaning. Here’s a great way to learn how to pause fluently and with ease.

1. Use a speech or presentation that you are familiar with.

2. As you read through, mark where you think the pauses should go. Use one / for a short pause and // for slightly longer.

3. Record yourself pausing at those points. Do it subtly or it will sound choppy.

4. Listen back. The pause is where you breathe, so if you are pausing too much then it won’t sound authentic.

What do you notice in terms of stress? If you are doing this correctly, you will notice that each chunk has a key word. That’s the word you should be stressing. So you can see that pausing, stress and breath all work together.

We look at this and a lot more on our CPD accredited workshop “Gravitas: Voice and Presence”.  Email us to find out more.

Helping Good Speakers Become Great Speakers