“Decisive speech is a wonderful confidence builder. To be sure of your voice and words will help you to be sure of yourself and will certainly lead other people to be sure of you,” says Dr. Julia Wing, author of Speak for Your Self.   I found those words typed on a warn piece of paper provided to me by my speech professor at Temple University.   The script scribbles reminded me of a great technique I learned and still put it into practice to this day for myself, and for clients – it’s called simply…

Script Marking.

It’s a bland way to describe a dynamic and meaningful exercise that improves upon the written word.

Script marking became real to me when I worked in news and operated the manual teleprompter for the 6 and 11 pm newscasts at WRIC-TV 8 in Richmond, VA. As I scrolled through 30 minutes of scripts, I saw how news anchors decorated their scripts with pen marks, smiley faces, underlines and highlights as a means to perfect their delivery and clarify meaning. The markings were evidence of rehearsal, practice and depending on how late the story was making air, at least some level of preparation.

Script marking gives you a road map to delivery. It requires you to think ahead about your phrasing of sentences and ideas, and how that impacts listeners’ ability to understand something on which you have probably worked very hard!

Make up your own, or use some examples shown here.

• // – Significant pause or breath
• / – Separate from other phrases by a brief pause

• Double underline – give words heavy emphasis

• Single underline – give words emphasis but don’t slow speaking pace

• [____________________________________________] – Brackets set apart phrases of words that are related

• You can hyphen words that aren’t technically hyphened as a way to trick your mind into speaking multiple words as one phrase

“Subtleties and nuances of meaning can be found only in grouping the right words together and stressing key words within each phrase,” says Dr. Wing.

Use your iPad to mark your script, or a pencil on printed scripts so you can change marks until you have captured your nuances. If you work long enough on your script, you will adjust your phrasing until you get to a point where it’s second nature.

This / isn’t / kids stuff. The professionals do it. It’s called / preparation / and it’s what makes a good speech a great speech.