Use Index Cards to Prepare and Deliver a Speech

A Proven Approach to Successful Presentations

Apr 26, 2009

Use Index Cards to Plan and Deliver the Speech, jpk

Reading a speech is almost always a sure-fire way to bore an audience. An effective way to engage them is to use index cards to prepare and deliver the presentation.

It's a question everyone preparing a speech or presentation asks: Should the script be written out, word-for-word, and then memorized?

In most cases, the answers are no and no. Here's why:

Different mediums. Sentence structure and word choice vary greatly between writing and speaking. The words people select for their writing tends to more formal, less "human" than the words they choose when speaking to someone face-to-face.
The temptation to read. When someone spends a lot of time writing and polishing a speech or presentation, there's the temptation to read it as written. Reading a speech or presentation to an audience almost always induces boredom.
Memorization can lead to brain freeze. Memorization is a building process. One word or phrase triggers the memory for the next. The problem is, a forgotten word or phrase can mean that all the words and phrases that follow are instantly forgotten, too. This is every speaker's nightmare.

Use Index Cards to Plan Your Presentation

A powerful tool to help plan, practice, and deliver a speech or presentation is a stack of index cards. Here's how:

Brainstorm. Write each thought that might be included in the speech or presentation on a separate card. During this activity, don't make any decisions about whether an idea or point will stay or go. Just write it down and move on to the next card. Go for quantity. Worry about quality later.
Separate and stack. After brainstorming, the next step is to create several different stacks, each of which should represent groupings of similar thoughts, ideas, and topics. Consider a stack for the opening of the speech or presentation, three to five stacks for the major points that should be made during the presentation, and finally a stack for closing. Go through all the cards generated during the brainstorming phase. Group similar ideas. Throw the duplicates in the recycling bin.
Categorize and arrange. Decide on a major "title" for each stack so that each stack will represent one of the key topics to be covered in the speech or presentation. Move the stacks into the order that seems most logical and compelling. This is a lot easier to do with index cards than with blocks of text in a word processing program.
Streamline and "bulletize."Now, look for ways to reduce the number of index cards in each stack down to three or four cards each. Each card should have one to three bullet points. It's important to use bullet points instead of complete sentences.This helps the speaker address each point in a more engaging, human way.

Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse

The final step is to rehearse, using the index cards. Rehearsing the speech does not mean simply flipping through index cards, planning what will be said. Instead, it means actually standing and delivering the presentation out loud. The idea is to get as comfortable as possible with using the cards and delivering the content without relying on a script.

Many speakers find that as they rehearse in this way, they find additional ways to further streamline, rearrange, and strengthen the overall flow of the speech or presentation. They also find that using index cards instead of a script helps the speaker maintain more eye contact with the audience, which is critical to building trust and credibility with an audience - and the success of the speech or presentation.

***