Listening back to myself in a podcast edit recently, I realised I was using the word ‘so’ an awful lot. Afraid to leave the empty space in my sentences, I was using ‘so’ as punctuation. I mentioned this to someone and asked if that made sense. ‘Perfect’ was her reply, as it was to everything else I’d said – perfect was her punctuation word.
If you’re reading this don’t think you have a word or phrase you use, you probably haven’t heard yourself back recently. If you’re reading this and agreeing you do use verbal punctuation, what can you do about it?
First of all, slow down. A presentation is usually spoken at 100-130 words per minute and if you’re speaking with the intent to be listened to, make sure people can process what you’re saying.
Next, don’t be afraid of silence. I’m not suggesting a 10 second pause, but one or two seconds between sentences will slow you down.
Breathe. We speak quicker to get the words out before we need a breath; slow down, breathe more.
Lastly, if you’re recording for a podcast, audio overlay, etc, if it doesn’t sound right, stop and do it again. If it still sounds wrong, get up, take a break and go again.
What’s your verbal punctuation word or phrase?
Lost and Desperate 
Listening back to recordings of yourself can be a humbling experience! My frequent word is “basically”. I do Technical Training and I often try to simplify things but that’s no excuse to use that word so frequently :-0. On a more positive note people seem to watch & enjoy my podcasts so it’s not all bad, although someone did comment recently that I’d crammed more useful information into an hour than they had ever seen and they needed to go for a lie down:-)
Gareth
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