Voice, eye contact, the microphone and the room
Pace, pauses and volume; where to look and what to do with your hands; using a microphone well and why to use it; room echo, outdoors and online; looking after your voice.
- Start here: the essentials
- Volume, pace and pauses
- Eye contact, hands, notes and the lectern
- The microphone
- The room, outdoors and online
- Looking after your voice
- Where makers differ, fillers, loops and voice care in full
- See it: three rooms, three plans
- Practice: a sound plan for your room
- Your talk
- Check your work
- Knowledge check and scenario
Start here Essentials
Being heard comes first, then everything else. Four moves cover the minimum for a talk in a small room, with or without a microphone.
- Ask whether there will be a microphone. If so, try it before the guests arrive (the microphone).
- If there is none, stand where everyone can see you, and wait for quiet before you start. Speak to the far wall (no microphone).
- Plan two pauses. One after your opening line and one before the toast or the close (volume, pace and pauses).
- Look at the person you are speaking about, and at three people around the room. Hold each look for a full thought (eye contact).
Minimum time: about 30 minutes, plus one question to the organizer. Done when: the day-of checklist has the microphone answer and your two pauses are marked on your card.
Volume, pace and pauses Understand
An audience can follow a talk only if it can hear it. Three things control that: how loud you are, how fast you go, and where you stop.
Volume. Stand Up, Speak Out says to speak loud enough for the back row, and clearly enough for people with hearing loss and for people listening in a second language to follow (Stand Up, Speak Out on delivery). Louder than conversation feels strange from the inside. Ask a friend at the far end of the room, or check with a recording from across the room, because your own ear is a poor guide to what the back row hears.
Pace. Lumen's open textbook gives the advice for public speaking as around 125 to 150 words a minute, slower than conversation. It names speaking too quickly as the most commonly identified speech problem after not being loud enough, and presents taking enough breaths as a way to control pace (Lumen's chapter on articulation, pitch and rate). Shaping a short talk explains how to turn your own measured rate into a word budget. The point here is the feel: if you are breathless at the end of a sentence, you went too fast. Convention
Pauses. A pause is a short stop, and it does the work that "um" tries to do. Stand Up, Speak Out calls well-timed pauses one of the most important timing skills, and notes that speakers who are uncomfortable with silence pass that discomfort to the audience. Hamilton College's speaking center says to pause instead of saying "um" (Hamilton College's list of common speech mistakes). Mark your pauses on your notes with a slash, a line or the word "pause," in the second color you use for delivery cues. Two are enough for a short talk: one after the opening line, so the room settles, and one before the last line, so the close lands.
Vocal variety, without overacting
Vocal variety means changes in volume, pitch, rate and pauses. A slower rate can convey seriousness or respect, and a rapid one enthusiasm. The textbook warns that over-rehearsing variety makes you sound artificial. The practical use is small: slow down for the line that matters, and do not try to perform a voice that is not yours.
Fillers
A filler, also called a vocalized pause, is a word or sound such as "um," "uh" or "like" that fills a gap. Everyone uses some. Exploring Public Speaking says they become a problem only when they distract, that there is no quick fix, and that the way to begin is to find your own filler and then catch yourself saying it (Exploring Public Speaking on delivering your speech). The way to find it is a recording (Rehearsing out loud): play it back and count. Replace a filler with a pause. Research on "uh" and "um" in conversation, under Go deeper, is a reason not to treat every filler as a fault.
Eye contact, hands, notes and the lectern Understand
Eye contact means looking at individual people, one at a time. Exploring Public Speaking says to hold it for at least five seconds at a time with individuals around the room, and rejects the tricks of picking three points on the back wall, glancing up like a swimmer coming up for air, and staring only at one person. Stand Up, Speak Out says real eye contact is better than faking it by looking at the back wall, though faking it is better than staring at your cards. Convention The working rule: finish a thought while looking at one person, then move to another. In a small room, that means looking at faces. In a toast, it includes the person you are toasting.
Posture and hands
Start by standing up straight. The textbook says slouching or leaning can read as unprepared or anxious. For hands, Exploring Public Speaking calls its approach the "Goldilocks" way: avoid both overdone and stiff delivery, and gesture the way you would in conversation. When you are not gesturing, rest your hands lightly, at the sides of a lectern without gripping it, or at your sides if there is none. Shaping a short talk covers what to hold.
The same book also lists what to leave behind: jewelry that jingles, shoes you have not worn before, and anything you will keep fixing, such as loose hair. Bring only what you need to the lectern.
Notes and the lectern
A lectern is for resting your notes, not for hiding behind. Stand Up, Speak Out says to use it to hold notes and to step beside it. That puts your body in the audience's view and leaves your hands free. If the lectern has a microphone on it, step out only as far as the microphone can follow you; a podium microphone picks up your voice only when you stay in front of it (see below).
The microphone Understand
If there is a microphone, use it. The reason is who it helps. A student at UMass Lowell described a presenter who asked whether everyone could hear, got a yes from most of the room, and skipped the microphone, while the student at the back could not hear. The campaign behind the story advises speakers not to ask whether a group can hear them, and simply to use the microphone; it lists reasons beyond hearing loss: air vents, side conversations, people at the back, and listeners using English as a second language (UMass Lowell's Use a Mic campaign). The University of Edinburgh goes further: its accessibility page says "make sure you use the microphone" and that its lecturers are required to (University of Edinburgh's accessible lectures page). Convention
The reason a loop or an assistive device matters is mechanical. A hearing loop is a system that sends the sound from a public address microphone, through a hidden wire and a magnetic field, directly into a hearing aid or a cochlear implant that has a telecoil, a small coil that picks up the signal, or into a portable receiver (Hearing Loss Association of America's hearing loop page). An assistive listening system is the wider name for such systems, which include loops, FM systems and infrared systems in large facilities (NIDCD's page on assistive devices). All of them start at a microphone. A speaker who skips the microphone sends nothing into the loop, so a listener relying on it hears nothing, or only what the room carries. That conclusion is our inference from how a loop works; the pages describe the technology and do not state it in those words. Edinburgh's page also says to make sure the loop is switched on.
The kinds of microphone, and what each asks of you
Manufacturers give general advice for each kind. The advice is product-specific, and a technician who runs the room's system overrules it. Product-specific
| Kind | What it is | What it asks of you |
|---|---|---|
| Podium or lectern microphone | A microphone on a stand or a flexible neck at the lectern | Aim it at your mouth, because the last speaker may have been taller or shorter, and stay in front of it. Walking away to a screen takes you out of range. |
| Handheld microphone | A microphone you hold | Hold it steady in front of your mouth. Move it closer for a quiet moment and a few inches farther when you raise your voice. Do not let it drift down. |
| Clip-on (lavalier) microphone | A small microphone clipped to your clothing | Wear it where the technician puts it. Turn it off before and after you speak, so side conversations are not broadcast. |
| Headset microphone | A microphone on an arm beside your face | The element sits just off to the side of your mouth, not in front of it, where it picks up breathing. |
Shure's guide for presenters is the source for the first four rows (Shure's guide to mics and mic techniques for presenters), and Stand Up, Speak Out adds that a clip-on is generally the easiest to use. Shure gives no distance for a handheld. Oregon State University's event guide gives one university's rule: keep your mouth 6 inches, about the length of your fist, from the microphone, and allow about 15 seconds for the technician to set the level (Oregon State University's tips for presentations and speakers).
The sound check
A sound check is a short test, before the audience arrives, where you speak at your real volume while the person running the sound sets the level. Say your opening line and your closing line, because they differ in loudness. Ask the technician or a friend to listen from the back. Shure's guide recommends checking in with the audio technician, and Lumen's list of questions for the host includes whether microphones are used or expected and who operates them (Lumen's Mastering the Location). Ask the organizer early; Saying yes covers the questions. Ask the authority
Stand Up, Speak Out offers one line to remember: a microphone only amplifies, it does not clarify. It makes a mumble louder. You still need to pronounce each word and to leave pauses.
The microphone advice is general guidance from manufacturers and one university, and it differs between sources. Shure and DPA, for example, disagree about where a clip-on belongs (see Go deeper). The person who runs the sound system and the sound check in your room settle where the microphone goes and how you hold it. This chapter does not decide that, and it does not decide what a venue must provide.
With no microphone
Many talks have none: a family dinner, a small club room, a graveside. Then you are the amplifier. Our convention, built from the textbook's advice on volume and on waiting out interruptions, has three parts. Our convention
- Stand where the room can see you. At a long table, that may mean standing at one end, or in the middle of a long side with space behind you. Ask the host where.
- Wait for quiet before you begin. Stand Up, Speak Out says that when latecomers, phones or alarms break in, you pause and wait until you can regain attention and be heard. The same goes for the start (Stand Up, Speak Out on coping with the unexpected).
- Speak to the far wall. Aim your voice at the farthest person, so the nearest one hears you too. Look at faces for eye contact, but send the sound beyond them.
The room, outdoors and online Understand
The same talk sounds different in different places. Stand Up, Speak Out notes three effects of the setting (Stand Up, Speak Out on speaking contexts).
| Setting | What changes | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| An echoing room (a hall, a gym, a stone church) | Your words blur into the echo of the last ones | Speak more slowly than usual and use pauses to mark the ends of phrases |
| Outdoors | Glare, weather and ambient noise | Ask the organizer about sun, wind and noise, and use a microphone if one is offered |
| A window behind you | Backlight puts your face in shadow, and people who lip-read cannot see it | Edinburgh's page says to face the audience and not to stand with your back to a window |
| A very large room | Distance from the back row | Use the microphone, and rehearse in the room if you can (Rehearsing out loud) |
The first two rows and their effects are the textbook's, and the third is Edinburgh's. The fourth row and the "what to do" column are ours, except where we name a source.
Speaking online
For an online or hybrid talk, the room is your desk. Hamilton College's guide to presenting virtually gives six practices (Hamilton College's Presenting Virtually). Convention
- Put the camera at about eye level. Stack books under a laptop if you need to, so the audience is not looking up your nose.
- Frame yourself from about the navel to the top of your head, with your head in the top third of the screen.
- Look into the camera, not at the screen. Gestures are less visible on camera, so keep them in frame.
- Keep strong light in front of you, not behind. A window behind you turns you into a silhouette.
- Use an external microphone if you have one, and check the input volume from where you will sit or stand. The guide says standing is better for the voice.
- Use a plain background and solid-color clothes.
Test the whole setup with a friend before the day. The checklist in A short presentation covers screens and slides for an online talk.
Looking after your voice Understand
A talk asks more of your voice than a conversation. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) lists public speakers among people who make great demands on their voices. Its advice, and ASHA's, come to a few habits (NIDCD's Taking Care of Your Voice; ASHA's Losing Your Voice news release). Convention
- Stay hydrated. Keep water within reach on the day and sip between sections.
- Do not shout over noise. Both organizations say to avoid it. At a loud dinner, wait for quiet or move closer.
- Support the voice with breath, not by talking from the throat. NIDCD says so.
- Use amplification when it is offered. NIDCD says to consider using a microphone when appropriate, and ASHA says to use amplification when needed.
- Rest a tired voice. ASHA says so.
- Sip water instead of clearing your throat. A Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust leaflet gives this tip (Royal Berkshire NHS Foundation Trust's voice care leaflet).
The sources also speak to caffeine and alcohol. They do not agree on how much to cut, and the comparison is under Go deeper. The chapter's default is the one that is not in dispute: water, rest, breath and the microphone.
This is general voice care, not a diagnosis. We cannot tell you why your voice is hoarse or tired. ASHA lists warning signs that call for an evaluation: hoarseness lasting longer than 2 weeks, pain when speaking, frequent throat clearing, a voice that weakens through the day, and difficulty projecting. NIDCD says that if you are hoarse, see an otolaryngologist, a doctor for the ear, nose and throat, who may refer you to a speech-language pathologist. If any of that fits you, see a doctor or a speech-language pathologist.
Where makers differ, fillers, loops and voice care in full Go deeper
Clip-on placement: Shure and DPA
The chapter says to wear a clip-on where the technician puts it. Here is why we do not give a single placement. Shure recommends clipping a lavalier at about breast-pocket level, saying too high and your chin muffles the sound, too low and you are too quiet. DPA, a maker of miniature microphones, tested identical microphones around a speaker in an anechoic chamber, a room built to have no echo, and found that the forehead placement sounds closest to the natural voice, and that chest, tie and neck positions are the worst for intelligibility because they sit below and behind the mouth (DPA's How mic placement affects the recorded sound of the voice).
| Maker | What it says | What it applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Shure | Breast-pocket height, clip not too high or too low; turn off before and after | Presenters using a lavalier on a stage or at a lectern |
| DPA | Forehead is closest to the natural voice; chest positions need equalization | The raw tone of a miniature microphone in a laboratory chamber |
The two can both be right. DPA describes raw tone, and chest-worn microphones are commonly built or adjusted to compensate. That reading is ours, not stated by either maker. For a presenter the practical line is the same: let the technician place it, and do the sound check.
Fillers in research
Clark and Fox Tree (2002) argued from spontaneous conversation that speakers use "uh" to signal a minor delay and "um" to signal a major one, and that fillers can show that the speaker is searching for a word or wants to keep the floor (Cognition 84(1), 73 to 111, doi 10.1016/S0010-0277(02)00017-3; we read the abstract). Their evidence comes from conversation, not prepared talks. It supports the textbooks' position that some fillers are normal and a problem only when they distract. It does not support a rule against them.
Hearing loops and assistive listening systems in more detail
NIDCD says a loop system has four parts: a sound source such as a public address system and microphone, an amplifier, a loop of wire, and a receiver or telecoil. To pick up the signal, a listener must wear the receiver and be inside or near the loop. FM and infrared systems are the other kinds NIDCD lists for large facilities. Which one a room has is a fact about the room, and the venue's staff can tell you. If a listener asks about the loop, the useful reply is "I will use the microphone, and I will ask staff to check the loop is on." Whether an organization must provide any of these systems is a legal question we do not decide (A short presentation points to the ADA National Network).
Voice care in full, with the caffeine disagreement
NIDCD says to stay hydrated and to balance caffeine or alcohol with plenty of water, and suggests rest and a humidifier. The Royal Berkshire leaflet suggests about 2 litres of water sipped through the day, taking regular breaths at the ends of sentences, and reducing caffeine and alcohol, which it calls dehydrating. The two differ: one says to balance caffeine with water, the other says to reduce it. Neither supports a strict ban. Both are general guidance for people with healthy voices, and a doctor or speech-language pathologist advises someone with a voice problem.
See it: three rooms, three plans See it
Lena Park (she/her), Theo Grant (he/him) and Sam Reyes (they/them) are fictional, and every fact about them here is invented for this manual. They are three speakers in three rooms.
Lena: no microphone. Lena, 29, gives a two-minute toast at her grandmother Ruth Park's 80th birthday dinner, in the private room of a restaurant, to 14 family members around one long table. There is no microphone. Lena's plan: she stands at one end of the table, where everyone can see her, and waits for her uncle Daniel to settle the room. She looks at Ruth for the toast and at three people along the table. She marks two pauses on her card: after "Grandma Ruth taught each of us grandchildren to cook one dish," and before "Please join me in raising a glass to Grandma Ruth."
Known: no microphone, one long table, two minutes. Assumed: that the room is quiet enough to speak without one once the family is seated. Open: whether the room is loud enough to need her to stand at one end. Daniel's call to the restaurant settles it, as Saying yes suggests.
Theo: a handheld microphone. Theo, 34, is best man at his brother Marcus Grant's wedding to Priya Shah. The reception is in a hotel ballroom with 140 guests. A wedding planner and a DJ run the program, and Theo's three-minute toast comes first, as soon as the guests are seated. The DJ supplies a handheld wireless microphone and holds a sound check at 5:30 pm. At the check, Theo says his opening and closing lines at the volume he will use, holds the microphone steady in front of his mouth, and asks the DJ to listen from the back of the room. He lets the DJ set the level, and moves the microphone a few inches farther away when he raises his voice, as Shure advises. Known: the microphone type and the sound check time. Open: how to hold the handheld. The DJ, at the sound check, settles it.
Sam: a room with a hearing loop. Sam, 41, gives a ten-minute proposal in a library community room to about 35 members of the Oak Hollow Neighborhood Association. There is a handheld microphone, and the room has a hearing loop. Two members use hearing aids. Sam's plan is to use the microphone for the whole talk, to repeat each audience question into it, and to ask the library staff before the meeting whether the loop is switched on and fed by this microphone. Known: a handheld microphone, a loop, two members with hearing aids. Assumed: nothing about the two members' aids; Sam does not know whether either has a telecoil, and does not need to. Open: whether the loop is switched on. The library staff settle it. Whether any member needs another aid is for the member and the association's officers to decide.
These plans do not promise that anyone will hear every word. They give each speaker a step to take before the day.
Free pages that show the method: UMass Lowell's story behind the Use a Mic campaign (why not to ask whether everyone can hear), the Hearing Loss Association's explanation of loops (how a loop receives the microphone's sound), and Hamilton College's guide to presenting virtually (camera, framing and light).
Practice: a sound plan for your room Practice
Minimum: the microphone answer on the day-of sheet, two pauses marked on your card, and three people picked to look at. Time: about 30 minutes. Materials: your cards or script, your phone, a person to stand at the far end of a room, and the day-of sheet.
- Ask about the microphone. Write the answer on the ask sheet and the day-of sheet: yes (which kind), no, or not known yet. If it is not known, ask the organizer (Saying yes).
- Mark two pauses on your card. One after the opening line, one before the close or the toast. Say the opening aloud and let the pause last for a breath.
- Test your volume. Say your opening line at the volume you plan to use, while a friend stands at the far end of the room. Ask whether they heard every word, and adjust.
- Record one minute. Play it back and count your fillers. Replace each with a pause on the next run.
- Plan where you stand and what you do with your hands and notes. Write it on the day-of sheet: where you wait, where you stand, where the cards go.
- Add the room. If there is a microphone, plan the sound check and the loop question. If the talk is online, set up the camera and check the sound with a friend.
Rehearse with the real equipment. If the organizer lets you in early, run the opening and the close with the microphone at full volume and note where you stand. Then compare a recording made across the room with one made beside you. The difference is what the back row hears.
Your talk Your talk
Check your work Check your work
Criteria
- Do you know whether there will be a microphone, and which kind, and is the answer on the day-of sheet?
- If there is one, do you have a sound check or a plan to ask for one? If there is none, do you know where you will stand and how you will wait for quiet?
- Are two pauses marked on your card?
- Did you test your volume from the far end of a room, or with a recording made across the room?
- Do you know your own filler, from a recording?
- Have you planned where to look, where your hands and notes go, and where the light and the window are?
- If you are speaking online, did you check the camera height, the light and the sound with a person?
Worked example
Lena's day-of sheet says "no microphone; stand at the end by the window; wait for Daniel's cue," and her card shows two marked pauses. She tested her volume from the far end of her kitchen with her mother standing at the door. It passes. It does not settle whether the restaurant is loud on the night, which depends on the room and on the other diners. Theo's sheet says "sound check 5:30; DJ sets the level; opening and closing lines." Sam's says "microphone for the whole talk; ask library staff about the loop."
Common mistakes
- Asking "can everyone hear me?" People who cannot hear rarely say so. Use the microphone, and ask a friend to listen from the back before the guests arrive.
- Skipping the microphone because the room is small. A loop and a hearing aid carry only what goes into the microphone.
- Walking away from a podium microphone. It picks you up only in front of it.
- Leaving a clip-on switched on. It broadcasts what you say before and after.
- Standing with a window behind you. Your face goes dark.
- Ignoring a hoarse voice. Hoarseness lasting more than two weeks is a reason to see a doctor, not to wait for it to pass.
What is still unresolved
Where the microphone goes and how you hold it is for the technician and the sound check. Whether the loop is on is for the venue's staff. Whether the organization must provide an aid is for its officers and the law; the ADA National Network's fact sheet is the place to start (A short presentation). A voice that stays hoarse is for a doctor. Nerves that dry your mouth or speed your pace are in Nerves and the unexpected.