Planning on giving a talk?

If you're a nervous speaker, you might be tempted to write your speech and then read it. Don't!

Here are 5 reasons why reading a speech is an invitation to disaster.

1. You'll irritate your audience.
They'll become disgruntled and wonder why you didn't just send them the script so they could read it themselves.

2. It's tougher to do a good job reading a talk than it is to present it. Reading a script in a conversational manner is a daunting task. It takes training and lots of practice to do it well. If you do it poorly you will bore your audience, lose their attention and put them to sleep. It's best to practice your talk until you know it well, and have notes with an outline in case you lose your place.

3. Speeches are often written in a foreign dialect known as "business-eeze". This business language is difficult to read and even more difficult to listen to.

4. You communicate your message through a combination of body language, voice quality, energy and words. When you read your script, you are trying to make the words do all the heavy lifting. It just won't work.

5.  The speaker hides behind his script and doesn't make eye contact with the audience. Eye contact is one of the important ways we make an audience feel like we care about them. Deny them this and they'll become restless and even hostile.