“Advantages of Reading Your Manuscript Aloud” - Professor M.S.Rao

”There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave.  The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” - Dale Carnegie

I was invited to lead a webinar on “Soft Leadership” by International Leadership Association recently.  To enable the webinar to be successful, the organizer invited me twice for practice webinar. Then I wrote key ideas and insights about the concept, and made it into a synopsis, and I started reading it aloud for preparation for the practice webinar. I was amazed to find a lot of improvement within me as I created more ideas and insights, improved my accent, and realized the grammatical mistakes that I make.  I decided to apply this idea whenever I send manuscripts for publication to prestigious global journals. In fact, there are several advantages when you read aloud. Here are a few of them:

• When you read aloud, you hear your own voice and find out if there are any inaccuracies while presenting your content.  In contrast, when you read within yourself, you don’t hear, and often don’t observe any inaccuracies.
• When you read aloud, you will be able to hear your voice and observe the areas where you need to improve your accent. By focusing on those areas where you find it difficult to pronounce, you will be able to substitute with the words that are easy for you to pronounce.  This is applicable when you deliver presentation publicly. Over a period of time, you will be able to minimize variations from the accepted standards of your accent, and neutralize your accent and become a successful speaker.
• It is said that to teach is to learn twice because while teaching you develop more clarity, improve your communication skills, and thought process. However, you cannot jot down the points during the teaching session. However, when you read your script aloud during non-teaching sessions, you may jot down the ideas you get immediately as you can stop reading the script aloud for some in order to write down the main ideas.

Finally I read the manuscript aloud seven times, improved the script, and successfully led the webinar. Hence, don’t be ashamed to read your manuscript aloud when you want to impact your audience and ensure effective takeaways to them. Joseph Addison rightly said, “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”  Great speakers like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln did a lot of practice before they delivered their speeches, and excelled as great orators.

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.” -  A C Grayling, Financial Times

Professor M.S.Rao

Founder, MSR Leadership Consultants, India

Email: profmsr12@gmail.com

Blog: http://professormsrao.blogspot.com

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