Plan introduction

Use suitable content

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  The content of your speech is also important. When preparing your speech, make sure your message is suitable for your audience and stay away from acronyms and jargon words if your audience is not familiar with the topic.
  
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  Using metaphors and quotations can help bring your speech to life and keep the audience engaged. You should make sure that your speech starts and ends on the most powerful statements or the points you most want your audience to take away with them.
  

Know your audience

One of the most difficult but essential oratory skills is the ability to connect with your audience. This can be done through what you’re saying and your body language. Remember that your audience are just people and people connect over shared experiences or values.
You could begin your speech with an anecdote that shows your personality, which will create a positive energy in the audience and will instantly make you feel more relaxed too.
Eye contact is also essential to form a connection with the audience. Try looking at one person for 2 sentences, then another person for 2 sentences, and so on. That way, you’re making a solid connection with many members of the audience, and they’ll perceive you as confident, trustworthy and knowledgeable.

Eye contact is essential to form a connection with the audience.

Make use of your vocal range

Your speech will come across as boring if you speak in a monotonous tone and your audience will lose interest very quickly. The human voice is technically capable of 24 notes on a musical scale, yet most people only use 3 in their everyday conversations.
Practice your speech while going up in pitch, and then back down again. This will sound strange and, of course, you should not present in such a comical way, but it will give you an idea of how much of your vocal range you could be using.

Exercise - Extend your vocal range

1. 
   Warm up. Always warm up for a while before starting the actual exercise, you can do this by vocalising in the middle of your vocal range.
   
2. 
   Scales, Thirds and Fourths. All types of scales that go through your entire vocal range. Practice them as often as you can. This will gradually strengthen both your current vocal range and its boundaries.
   
3. 
   Hum. While practicing the scales mentioned before, try to hum them. This has proven to be the most effective exercise for me, especially for higher pitched notes.
   
4. 
   Push the boundaries once in a while, but not too much. You don't want to end up with a raspy voice at the end of your practice.
   
5. 
   Try to sing. Breathe with the diaphragm and use your breath to support your singing.