Q&A for How to Win a Public Speaking Competition

Don't act as if you knew you were going to win. Thank them. They may feel bad if you start explaining to them what was not good in their speeches. Wish them all the best for the next time, and say they were good as well.

Dress properly and with confidence, know every word that you are going to speak, its grammar, and its pronunciation. For enhancement, practice often, and search the program on how to speak eloquently.

Although this may sound odd, it helps to speak to a pet to practice your speech. It then becomes a repetitive routine; that is an easy confidence trick. After that, you can also practice on one or two individuals, such as siblings, parents or friends.

Be confident and try not to show nervousness.

Take deep breaths, and speak slowly and with as much confidence as you can muster. Focus on speaking to one audience member at a time. Keep in mind that stage fright is extremely common, but diminishes the more you practice.

Practice memorizing one sentence at a time. Once you memorize the first sentence, add the next one. Continue until the entire passage is committed to memory.

Confidence will come with preparation. If you take the time to be totally prepared for the competition, confidence will be a natural byproduct.

Make some inside points for your topics. For example, explain the topic, and then produce some facts about it to emphasize your point.

Fill them with a lot of inspiration. Make them believe they are unique. Get elocution steps from internet. Always remind them that they must work hard to obtain success.

Don't let that get in your head. Just go ahead and present your speech. Who knows? You might win and the popular girl will be jealous of you. Try your best and you can feel proud of yourself. That's the most important thing.

Practice regularly with a timer and leave a little time for any inconveniences on stage.

Look for anything repetitive or unnecessary in your speech. Find phrases that can be shortened into one word.

You can use a thesaurus to find some other words you could, but make sure you understand what the words mean before using them. In general, reading lots of books is the best way to increase your vocabulary.

Research the person and give an outline of his life.

Yes, it does. Not so much the type of voice you have, but the manner in which you project your voice. For instance, if you do not have a microphone for the competition, then your voice projection becomes significantly important. Having said that, your pronunciation and voice tonality and variety are equally important. So whether you have a heavy voice or not, it's working on the whole vocal skills which is necessary.

Begin by asking your audience questions, or by telling a story about yourself. Try finding something which captures their attention right from the beginning. Start your speech with something thought-provoking, something original which immediately gets the audience listening and interested. The start of your speech is the first impression the audience will have of you, so make it poignant.

Practice is the best thing to do. Practise in front of family and friends or find a mentor who will be able to pinpoint areas of your voice modulation which you must work on. Get some feedback from others. Remember to keep every feedback that is favourable and work on the negative feedback. For voice modulation, recording several vocal attempts with a recorder and playing the recordings afterwards is a great way of identifying where you went right or wrong.

Capture your audience's attention with something thought-provoking. It may be a shocking statistic or fact, a funny story, a set of questions that you ask directly to the audience, or even a quote relevant to your speech topic.

Think of funny personal stories that happened to you and then include those depending on the topic of your speech. Talking about yourself as the source of humour is a great way of connecting with the audience. Alternatively, you could think of humour in relation to the audience. You could point out something funny about them, something they can relate to. Also, describing situations inspired by jokes can be very humorous. You can look for jokes all over the internet and then try adapting the scenarios in your speech.

You and your opponent cannot be on the same level. If you want to win, you must differentiate yourself from all other opponents. This can be through the originality of the theme of your speech or the humour you use, and even a deeper maturity of thought. Try focusing on how you will make your speech different from all your opponents so that when the jury compares various performances, you are clearly the one who stands out. Also, assuming you know the strengths and weaknesses of your opponent, you can work on your own strengths so that others' weaknesses compared to your speech become apparent.

If you have a free choice on the topic of your speech, try finding something that, in addition to being original, is something you're profoundly passionate about. This way, you will derive pleasure from sharing what you personally find interesting to the audience. In turn, the audience will show appreciation of the novelty and particularity of your speech topic. Additionally, the mere topic of your speech can set you apart and make you win the competition, assuming others will choose more conventional topics.