HOW TO USE VISUAL AIDS FOR PUBLIC SPEAKING

giving speech is hard enough but then you have to also use visual aid don't panic I'm here to help but first things first what is visual aid visual aid is clarifying device that helps your audience to understand your speech your visual aid should be supplement to what you are saying it should enhance and help your audience to understand your message visual aid could be PowerPoint presentation video clip handout an artifact or even some sort of prop that you bring to class for most public speaking classes you will be required to bring photo or some sort of digital presentation these visual aids will be used in conjunction with your speech in order to better inform persuade or entertain your audience here are five basic points for using visual aids one plan or write your speech before finding your visual aid your speech should not be centered on your visual aid you should have cohesive effective speech that has been enhanced by the use of your visual aid to make sure that your visual aids are assisting and accomplishing the purpose of your speech they should help to clarify provide information or to persuade make sure that your visual aids are helping with your presentation not distracting from what you are saying 3 make sure your visual aids are visible to the entire audience your visual aids should be big enough and also should be clear enough for everyone in the audience to be able to see easily for practice with your visual aids at any time it is so easy to be clumsy and awkward with visual aids so here are some steps to practicing with your visual aids ahead of time one thing to keep in mind is not to stand in front of your visual aid if you're standing in front of the visual aid you're blocking someone from being able to see what you are presenting also don't show your visual aid for the entirety of your speech pick out certain points during your speech that would make sense to have your visual aid being displayed and only show your visual aid during that specific part and then put it away one way you can do this is by putting blank slide in between your photos in your digital presentation so if you have photo that's displaying what you're talking about you can refer to it and then click it to the next slide and have it be blank slide so it's not distracting step 5 have back-up plan things happen all the time especially on important days like when you need to be giving speech technology fails us so you need to have backup just in case the way to do this is have multiple ways of accessing your presentation if you have Prezi or PowerPoint have it saved in multiple locations be able to access it off of the Internet another thing to do is to prepare yourself in case your technology or anything does not work in the moment what are you going to do when you are giving your speech and you can't access the photo that you are going to refer to plan ahead so you don't get freaked out in the moment and you can keep your composure and finish your speech these five tips will help you with using visual aids to accompany your speech so present with confidence you're going to do great