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Pacing

If you search "pacing" in the dictionary, you will find that pacing is simply the rate of speed at which one walks. When talking about voice and speech, you can translate this concept into the rate at which one speaks.

One simple way of keeping an audience's interest is to vary your speaking speed. Compare the following (spaces indicate pauses):

Bad management costs jobs.
Bad    management     costs     jobs.

This is probably the single most important thing I've said.
This     is probably     the single    most important   thing    I've said.

In general, you should slow down to make your most important points. This gives your message time to sink in.

The following exercises will give you the chance to practise the pace at which you speak, in order to make your speech more interesting for the listeners.

 


Exercise 1

Listen to the recordings of famous business quotes. Which of the following chunked statements don't work?
 
Please note that the symbol ... is used to indicate a pause.
For example:
 
Exercise 1.1 
 
a. The person who never made a mistake...never made anything.
b. The person...who never made a mistake...never...made...anything.
c. The person who...never made a...mistake...never...made anything.
 
 

Exercise 1.2

a. Management...problems...always...turn...out...to be people problems.
b. Management problems...always turn out...to be people problems.
c. Management...problems...always turn out...to be people...problems.

Exercise 1.3

a. Big companies...are small companies...that succeeded.
b. Big companies...are...small companies that...succeeded.
c. Big companies...are small companies that succeeded.

Exercise 1.4

a. Hard work never killed anybody,...but worrying about it did.
b. Hard...work...never.....killed anybody,...but worrying about it did.
c. Hard work never...killed anybody,...but worrying...about it did.

Exercise 2

Five different sentences are given below. Imagine you need to say these as part of a presentation. Experiment with changing the pace of the text. If possible, record yourself and compare your recording with the examples below:

  1. This has never ever happened before.
  2. We keep getting the same result - time after time after time.
  3. Believe me, we will win the business - it's only a matter of time.
  4. If we'd known then what we know now, we'd never have gone ahead.
  5. We were number one then. We're number one now. And we always will be.

Refer to the recording to see if you have found similar results.

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