We’ll go over six suggestions in this article that you can use to make a speech longer; some can be done beforehand as preparation, while others can be used in proceedings.
A speech can seem like a chore if you don’t know how to keep it interesting and thorough while covering everything and staying on topic.
There are many reasons to know how to extend a speech, whether you’re a lawyer trying to add more detail to your closing arguments, a history professor trying to lengthen your lesson, or someone making a strong argument. But it’s not always simple to know where to begin.
If you find that challenging, keep reading for some clever suggestions on how to extend your speech and make the minutes fly by!
Including Helpful Stories
When used properly, stories can be a potent tool for lengthening a speech and engaging your audience. Invoking emotion and generating engagement are two things that stories can do for speakers.
You can emphasize your speech’s message and give it more weight by using real-world examples or pertinent anecdotes.
However, if they are used excessively, stories can divert the audience. Any story you include should be relevant to the argument you are attempting to make. Keep anecdotes out of speeches if they don’t add anything meaningful. Make sure your stories are succinct and only cover one or two main points.
You can add more information about your subject and help your audience better understand it by including helpful stories in your speech.
Remember to keep your story succinct and pertinent to your point in order to make it both effective and entertaining. After achieving this objective, it’s time to move on to a different strategy for understanding how to lengthen a speech: connecting with your audience.
Connect With Your Audience
One of the most crucial components of writing an effective speech is engaging your audience. An audience’s natural interest will usually keep them attentive when they can relate to the speaker.
If you want to connect with your audience and make a lasting impression, think about using stories, humor, and conversations.
Conversely, engaging your audience without prior experience can be difficult. Even if you have prepared some hilarious jokes or stories, you won’t be able to use them effectively if you don’t know how to read your audience and adapt your material.
The tone and energy you use during your presentation are also crucial; if you are too quiet, the audience may lose interest, and if you are too loud, you might come off as desperate.
By engaging with your audience, you may be able to extend your speech, but you should do so with care and consideration. While increasing the length of a speech by finding ways to engage the audience is possible, it should always feel natural and pertinent to the topic being discussed.
You can make a longer, more interesting speech that is sure to make an impact by learning how to connect with an audience. The importance of thoroughly outlining key points when writing a longer speech will be covered next.
Repeating Ideas
A presentation’s length and impact may be increased by choosing to repeat important concepts repeatedly. Repetition actually frequently fosters better memorization, comprehension, and thought coherence.
Additionally, a deeper understanding of the speech’s main points is promoted by using repetition as a tool for amplifying them.
In order to make complex subjects understandable for listeners who may not be experts in the field, it can be helpful to reiterate ideas. During the delivery of the speech, more concentrated emphasis is placed on those points by repeating specific terms and phrases.
In order to achieve understanding between speaker and listener, repetition serves as a catalyst for breaking down complex ideas.
Layout a Timed Schedule for Your Presentation
By estimating how long you will spend on each section of the presentation, you can schedule your speech. This includes the introduction, all key points, the closing remarks, and any engagements you have planned, such as a Q&A session with the audience.
This gives you a more accurate idea of how long your presentation will last and enables you to identify the sections of your speech where you can choose to add more information or stretch out your speech.
This action needs careful planning, so the presentation structure must be established in advance. You could also start by adding a presentation outline.
Using Effective Transitions
A speech’s length can be increased by using transitions that are effective. Figures of speech can be used to fill in the gaps between ideas when switching topics, forming an intriguing connection, and extending the length of your speech by a few crucial seconds.
Metaphors, similes, analogies, puns, and proverbs are a few examples. Not all stories will work for all speakers in all situations, so the use of transitions ultimately comes down to effective rhetoric and the speaker’s personal style.
Choosing a transition that complements their topic and audience is crucial. When you run out of ideas, it may be tempting to use transitions as time fillers and crutches, but this isn’t a long-term solution and isn’t very good at keeping the audience’s attention.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that transitions should be employed to join together related ideas rather than to cover up awkward pauses in the flow of a conversation.
Incorporate Fun Segments to Lengthen Your Speech
A speech or talk is more likely to be enjoyable if it is interesting rather than dry. A more difficult task is to deliver one after having to listen to some for a long period of time. It is therefore advisable to include collaborative segments in your speech to make it less difficult and more interactive and enjoyable.
- Polls: wherein you can put up a question and ask the audience to vote and choose a particular option. For example, “ Shares vs. Property,” which is a more risky investment?” can be an example of a poll question.
- Games: This can be done in a more casual manner, such as by providing a picture, locating something, answering a riddle, etc. Word puzzles based on investment strategies, for instance, can be entertaining and light.
- Quizzes: A series of questions with more options and detail than polls may be included in this. One such question could be – “What is the most effective way to learn about investing—books, news, media, or none at all?”
Reasons You Might Need a Longer Presentation
Having a shaky appearance is undesirable. A presentation that is too brief, if done incorrectly, could convey that you lack knowledge of the subject matter or that you did not put enough effort into creating the presentation.
This is true even if you effectively conveyed your point and covered all the necessary ground. You can demonstrate your competence and subject knowledge by giving a lengthy and compelling presentation.
Talking just for the sake of talking is not a good idea; in that case, it would be wise to be upfront with your audience and end the presentation early. But in some other situations, this is not the case, and you need to use all the time that you have available for the presentation
You need them to be invested in your message. There is a balance you should strike when delivering a message to ensure your audience connects with you and understands your key points, according to studies from military training. Usually, a presentation that is too brief does not give the audience enough information or time to fully engage with the subject.
Your presentation time was changed at the last minute. In case of a schedule change when giving a presentation as a panelist, you must always be ready to shorten or lengthen your speech. If you have been asked to fill in for another presenter, you’ll have to find a way to stretch the presentation to make it longer.
What is the ideal presentation duration? It will depend if the presentation you are making is a speech (and not a workshop). It may be between 10 and 20 minutes in those circumstances. You might want to extend your presentations in some circumstances, though.
Summary: Make a Speech Longer
Long presentations are the way to go when you need to explain your topic in-depth and intensively. To avoid losing your audience’s attention, keep in mind that longer presentations must be interesting.
Finding ways to extend a speech’s length is helpful, but it can also be very important to create a speech that is captivating, memorable, and engaging. In order to accomplish this, speakers should concentrate their efforts on the overall caliber of their language and the information they convey.
FAQs
How Long is a 3-Minute Speech?
On average there are 450 words in a 3-minute speech.
Is a 7-Minute Speech Too Long?
Speech and publication coach Daphne Gray-Grant found that, on average, people speak at a rate of 125 to 150 wpm so a 7-minute-long speech uses between 875 to 1,050 words. You can check the average speaking time of your text using our word counter tool.