Posture and timing
Body language
Face
- Eyebrows are lifted slightly.
- A sincere smile ('Duchenne Smile').
- Expressions for social sharing; surprise, happiness, admiration, peacefulness and dislike.
Hands
- Hand motions to emphasize information; to call, reject or ask.
- Hands out of pockets.
- Raised hands with palms up with important information.
- No folding of arms or finger pointing.
- Controlled walking.
- Limited gestures.
- Hands on/off podium (no leaning).
Eye motions
- Shorter gazes to gain attention from members of the audience.
- Longer gazes to build emotional stability.
- Seek opportunities for eye contact with as many audience members as possible.
- No prolonged gazes.
Thoughts and emotions
- Use more emotions to introduce yourself.
- Positive, power words to encourage loyalty, trust and respect.
- Negative words and attitudes to demotivate wrongfulness and cause avoidance.
- Display anger, happiness and gratitude appropriately to influence trust.
- Audience invitations (express emotions, viewpoints and encouragement for questions).
- Enjoy with the audience emotional rewards for making changes (peace, gentleness, kindness, happiness, joy, self-control,
goodness, charity, patience and love).
- Make a call to action using truth and emotions.
Attitude
Remembering
- Shorter explanations.
- Warmth, social motivation and gratitude.
- Self-references like first-person singular pronouns (I, me).
- Less use of third-person pronouns (he, she, they).
- Explain with causation/transition words (because, effect, hence).
- Avoid creating over focus (ordering action to see, touch or listen).
Imagery
- Respect all your information as important.
- Remember your presentation using visual imagery of a path of truth.
- Label each guidepost on the path with your topic points.
Word Choice
Words
- Power words, focus words, positive words, first person pronouns, transition words.
Methods
- Details, emotions, sensory and similarities.
- Useful for helping memory recall, motivation and creating interest.
Clear emotions with pitch patterns
- Shorter sentence length, accurate terminology, social humour, storytelling, avoidance discussion and thought-provoking
questions.
Voice
Voice tone
Joy, happiness and confidence for enjoyment:
-with indignation pitches at start of a sentence
-and neutral pitches at end of sentence.
Anger, happiness and gratitude to appropriately influence trust.
Fluency
Intonations in grammar with a fall pattern:
- statements
- commands.
Intonations in grammar with a rise pattern:
- open questions
- closed questions or sentences.
- A warm pitch of voice focusing on truthfulness (supportive tone).
Speed and pacing
- Stress fewer words in a sentence with higher intonation pitches.
- Pauses during long content for planning speech with minimal self-correction.
- Slower speech to focus on emotions.
- Approximately 100 words per minute.
Pausing
- More pauses when reading your speech.
- Reflect on past experiences.
- After a phrase or transition that creates impact.
- During your opening statement.
Volume
- Loudness enhances activation states of formality, indignant, interest, stress and happiness. Softer voices are used to
activate states of apology, boredom, intimacy, relaxation and sadness.
Equalizing vocal sounds with a microphone:
- 1KHz to 5KHz range (improves intelligibility and clarity).
- 3KHz to 6KHz range to add brightness (improves intonations for second language speakers).
Posture and timing
Facial expressions
- Avoid fear, anger, sadness and shameful expressions with your eyes.
- Use facial expressions to affect voice.
- Mouth expressions are more obvious during emotions of joy and disgust.
Gestures
- Pitch of sound effects hand gesture position (power verbs, important topics).
- Higher vibratory tones synchronize with gestures.
- Hand gestures are used in persuasion and to emphasize points; to create attention, rebuke or ask.
- Higher position of hand gestures with important information (raised hands with palms up).
Gait
- Relaxed comfortable attentive stance.
- Lean forward to emphasize information.
- During transitions or to stimulate audience attention to move sideways or towards the audience.
Excerpt from: Joanne Cantoni-Pudniks. “PRESENTATIONS.” iBooks.

Checklist
Body language
Word choice
Attitude
