Articulating your thoughts into something coherent and confident is not as easy as it sounds. It can be quite daunting if you do not yet have the skills to clearly communicate what you want to but you can certainly learn how to articulate better using how to articulate better books.
It is never too late to get better at articulation so that you can say and ask for what you want with confidence. One way in which you can work on this is by reading books (in general) as well as those specifically written to help you improve this skill.
Through this guide, I will take you through some of the best resources that you can make use of to figure out how to be more articulate by reading books. I also compiled some simple but powerful tips that you can use to become a better speaker. Let’s begin!
5 Best Books to Improve Articulation
Through this section, you can go through some of the best books to improve articulation as well as their pros and cons so that you know what to expect from them before buying them.
It’s the Way You Say It: Becoming Articulate, Well-Spoken, and Clear by Carol A. Fleming
This book by Carol A. Fleming recognizes that the way you communicate your thoughts, ideas, emotions and overall personality can make a huge difference when it comes to making an impression and having others truly understand your feelings, intelligence and intentions.
There are several tips, useful pieces of advice and practical exercises that you can gain access to through this book.
These cover aspects such as figuring out how others can hear you, how to conquer speech-related issues, how to alter your speech patterns, how to make accurate use of vocabulary and grammar as well as how to communicate non-verbally.
There are also several detailed sections of the book that focus on articulating yourself in your workplace in particular.
Features
- Length: 264 pages
- Format: Paperback, Audiobook, eTextbook
- Publication Year: 2013
Pros
- There are several exercises for you to gain more practical experience so that you can improve your articulation as you go along.
- The section on workplace communication includes real stories along with tips for interviews and presentations.
- You can learn how to make your tone more dynamic and interesting through this book.
- The book covers a wide range of speech issues and how to make them better.
- It offers a realistic approach to figuring out what you sound like to other people.
Cons
- It does not cover any advice for slow talkers.
On Speaking Well: How to Give a Speech With Style, Substance, and Clarity by Peggy Noonan
This book is aimed at making people feel more clear, confident and comfortable when it comes to communicating their feelings and ideas in as articulate a manner as possible.
This book particularly emphasizes good speech giving and how you can go about the process of preparing for it. It gives you several tips that you can make use of when it comes to speaking genuinely about something that interests you.
Relying on structure, substance and simplicity, you can become better at giving confident, interesting and relevant speeches. You can find several tips and exercises that you can then apply to your speech.
While this might relate to official or professional speeches, you can also use many of these tips for improving your articulation in general as well.
Features
- Length: 224 pages
- Format: Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle
- Publication Year: 1999
Pros
- This book can offer ways to give speeches in an authentic and clear manner.
- It offers important tips and advice that you can use for modulating your voice and making yourself sound interesting and clear.
- You can apply all of these tips to general articulation as well, especially if you need to deal with situations at the workplace.
- You can figure out how to simplify your content to make it more accessible to a wider audience.
- It provides real-life experiences and examples to get a more practical and realistic idea about giving speeches.
Cons
- It can feel a bit partisan towards the end of the book.
How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
This is quite a classic when it comes to using your (literal) voice to win people over and successfully get your point across. You can not only use the tips, tricks and advice mentioned in this book to present logical arguments and make people agree to your viewpoint but you can also learn how to converse in an articulate way.
A big part of presenting your ideas and winning people over is how you articulate yourself. Through this book, you can figure out how to be more articulate by using and uttering your words in an effective way.
This can apply to all kinds of situations where you have to converse and communicate including personal as well as professional contexts.
There are six methods to make people like you, twelve methods to make them agree with you and nine ways to make them change their own point of view. It also offers effective solutions for healthily critiquing others.
Features
- Length: 288 pages
- Format: Paperback, Audiobook, Kindle
- Publication Year: 1998
Pros
- This book offers tried-and-tested methods, especially since it has been in print for so long.
- It can provide you with detailed and organized tips to improve your articulation skills that you can then practice to perfect.
- It covers articulation and presentations when it comes to both personal and professional settings, making it versatile enough to learn from.
- You can find ways to make a great first impression simply by articulating your thoughts properly.
- You can find tips to use when it comes to offering constructive criticism in a way that your listeners will take you seriously.
Cons
- It might appear a bit dated at times.
Tongue Fu!: How to Deflect, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict by Sam Horn
Great for dealing with situations that usually leave you tongue-tied, this option is another effective way to learn how to articulate better through books. This focuses particularly on articulating yourself properly and standing your ground when it comes to verbal conflicts.
This can include personal as well as professional conflicts that you might have to face at some point or the other when it comes to your life.
Through it, you can not only learn how to present your argument better but also how to quit the conflict at the right moment. This book focuses on the importance of accepting defeat as well as your wins, learning how to concede the argument, how to make use of silence efficiently and more.
Through these tips, you can save yourself from breaking down the next time you have to firmly put your thoughts across. This can also help you gain more confidence in your feelings.
Features
- Length: 256 pages
- Format: Paperback, Hardcover, Kindle
- Publication Year: 1997
Pros
- You can learn how to hold your ground in verbal conflicts through this book.
- Instead of simply providing tips about arguing effectively, this book also suggests ways to concede the conflict and be the better person in the fight when it calls for it.
- You can practice its methods to prevent yourself from getting tongue-tied or unprepared when the situation arises.
- It can help you deal with people being rude to you so that you can stand your ground against them, helping you gain self-confidence.
- You can learn how to wield silence well through the tips provided in this book.
Cons
- It can seem a bit dated.
Simply Said: Communicating Better at Work and Beyond by Jay Sullivan
This book focuses on communicating and articulating yourself well in professional situations such as in the workplace. It also goes beyond that and offers some useful advice that you can then apply to all aspects of your life that involve you to articulate your emotions properly.
Apart from simply listing down some tips for you to contextualize, this book takes it a step further and offers specific contexts and how you can hone your skills for each kind of situation.
These tips, pieces of advice and exercises can help you put your point across successfully, manage otherwise difficult situations, serve as a good example for others and solve conflicts in a way that works well for everyone.
It also provides regular tips to listen properly to others.
Features
- Length: 288
- Format: Paperback, Audiobook, Kindle
- Publication Year: 2016
Pros
- It can help you listen to others better.
- It can provide you with ways to deal with conflicts.
- It can apply to both personal and professional situations.
- It combines tips with context to provide realistic exercises.
- You can figure out how to deal with all kinds of difficult situations.
Cons
- It can seem a bit wordy.
12 Proven Tips to Be a More Articulate Speaker
Moving on to the second part of this article, I’ve gathered 12 effective tips to enhance your articulateness that you can try out to become more articulate. You can go through a few of them in detail below.
Record Yourself
One of the best ways to make you more articulate is by recording yourself with a recorder. Whenever you have something to say, prepare each sentence in your head and speak it out loud.
You can then use the voice recording function on your phone to record your entire speech, whether personal or professional so that you can listen to yourself speaking.
This can help you understand how others will hear you while also being able to spot mistakes such as gaps, filler words, voice modulation and more. You can then improve on those aspects and record yourself again to note the difference.
You can also record videos of yourself while speaking to enhance your body language. Maintaining good posture while speaking not only boost your confidence but also aids in effective communication, making your words sound more articulate.
Understand Speed Requirements
Being mindful of your speaking speed is crucial. You should try to regulate the speed with which you communicate your thoughts, ideas and feelings. This can make you sound a lot more interesting and layered so that people will listen to you attentively.
It is important not to talk too fast as this could make it difficult for your listeners to understand what exactly you want to say. On the other hand, talking too slowly could easily make people lose interest or track of what you are saying.
It is important to maintain a balance while also changing up your speed at different points of your speech or conversation so that you can draw attention to all the right parts.
On average, you should aim for around 140 words per minute when it comes to conversational speech.
Enunciate Each Word
Make sure you pronounce and enunciate each word accurately and clearly so that people can have an easier time following what you are saying without you needing to backtrack or repeat what you were saying.
In case there are certain words or phrases that you are unsure about, it can become too easy for you to skim over them to cover up your lack of confidence. This can make it confusing for the listeners and can also be off-putting in professional contexts.
If you can help it, then you can try to practice enunciating all the syllables of difficult words by looking up their pronunciation so that you are not caught off-guard later on. If you have to speak spontaneously, then don’t feel too embarrassed about mistakes as this can allow you to learn from them later!
Deal with Fillers
Filler words are usually words that you might subconsciously add to your speech so that they can provide you with a gap to collect your thoughts and move ahead with what you were trying to say.
Some common fillers that people tend to use include “like”, “so”, “um”, “okay”, “yeah” and many more. While they can help you take a breath or collect yourself, these filler words can easily end up diverting the attention of your listeners, making them lose track of important elements.
Make sure you don’t mumble these fillers in your speech so that you can talk in a more flowing manner. It can be more effective to eliminate these fillers and leave a small gap instead.
Listen to Podcasts
Podcasts can be great ways for you to learn how to become more articulate. This is because podcasts include people talking at length about a certain topic or even having a conversation or discussion with other people about something relevant to them and their podcast.
By paying attention to their speech patterns in different contexts, you can make your own notes and try practicing those habits in your own speech.
This can also give you a listener’s or audience’s perspective so that you can figure out how to address that the next time you have something to say.
By observing how podcast hosts express themselves articulately, you can gain valuable insights into the use of effective language, which you can adopt in your own speech.
Speak Simply
While it can sound impressive when people use technical or professional jargon to convey information or even to lead discussions, this can usually be quite confusing to the listeners, especially if they are not well-versed in the topic.
In this sense, you should try your best to speak as simply as possible by breaking down all possible jargon and explaining it in simple words. Using fancy vocabulary just for the sake of it can also prove counterproductive at times if people don’t know what you’re saying.
You should also consider who the audience or listener is here so that you can adjust your conversation or speech accordingly.
Also be mindful of using long sentences. While they can convey in-depth information, they should be structured well to maintain clarity and not overwhelm the listener.
Pause
Do not be afraid to pause while talking as this can actually be an effective strategy when it comes to clearly conveying your thoughts and ideas to people.
If you are making a speech or a formal presentation, then taking deliberate pauses during certain parts of your speech can not only help you take a moment to breathe and move on but can also serve to tell your listeners that they are listening to an important piece of information.
Allow them to absorb the information and understand the weight of the matter.
When it comes to regular conversations, then a pause can also be effective in a similar way. It can also give you some time to think before you speak so that you can gather and articulate your thoughts better.
Here, you can also rely on nonverbal cues to help you out.
Volume and Pitch
Volume and pitch are also important aspects of articulation and communication. These can add plenty of depth to what you are trying to say so that people can maintain their level of interest.
When it comes to volume, you should ensure that everyone can hear you clearly enough. Being too loud, however, can end up being too grating and distracting for your listeners, especially if you are talking into a mic.
You should change up your pitch at different points of your speech as well so that people can understand the essence and mood of what you are saying. While some elements might require a higher and passionate pitch, others might require a gentle and low pitch.
Develop Confidence
Developing your confidence level while speaking can make a huge difference when it comes to actually making your speech or initiating a conversation. Figure out some breathing techniques for managing your nerves or anxiety effectively before your turn to speak.
While it is completely normal to feel nervous while speaking up, it is essential for you to manage this by initiating a point or participating in public speaking more and more. This can allow you to get used to the idea better so that you are better equipped next time.
Even if you make mistakes, you can simply note them down and avoid them next time.
You should also learn to make eye contact when you talk to people. Eye contact is a powerful tool to engage your audience and make you appear more confident.
Practice
You should get as much practice as possible before articulating yourself. While this might not always be possible in casual and spontaneous situations, you should certainly try to make preparations beforehand if you have the option to do so.
Keep repeating your speech mentally as well as out loud. It can help to write things down to be able to recall them later.
You can also practice with some people that you are close to so that they can provide valuable feedback and help boost your confidence.
Visualize
An effective strategy for becoming more articulate is to visualize your listeners or audience to anticipate how they will look and react. This can help calm your nerves a bit before actually facing them.
You can further practice what you have to say by looking at yourself in the mirror so that you can learn how to interact with people in front of you while also preventing yourself from relying too much on your notes.
Read
Reading extensively can enhance your articulation for several reasons.
Firstly, it expands your vocabulary, providing a wider range of words to express your thoughts clearly.
Secondly, exposure to varied writing styles improves your sentence construction, fostering an understanding of how to effectively structure your thoughts.
Thirdly, reading engages your mind in understanding different contexts, making you more adaptable in your speech.
Lastly, it offers insights into persuasive techniques, helping you articulate your ideas more convincingly.
To reap these benefits, ensure you diversify your reading materials, covering various genres, authors, and subjects. The key is consistent, thoughtful reading, which in turn, molds you into a more articulate communicator.
Related Articles:
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- 3 Reasons you’re Wondering “Why Can’t I Articulate My Thoughts Clearly?”, and What to Do About It
- How To Articulate Better In Writing: 10 Tips To Put Your Thoughts Into Words
- Goals For Public Speaking: Why And How To Set Goals For Success
- Difference Between Public Speaking And Interpersonal Communication
- The 6 Most Common Public Speaking Strengths And Weaknesses (& How To Improve)
- How To Be Less Abrasive At Work
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Does Reading Books Help With Articulation?
Reading such books can widen your perspective and equip you with tips to be more well-spoken and articulate.
How Else Can Reading Help With Communication?
Reading can build your grammar, vocabulary, perspective and more so that you can simplify and contextualize your ideas.
Parting Thoughts
Through this guide, I have taken you through some books and tips that can teach you how to be more articulate in everyday speech. You can now take a pick, start applying and keep practicing how to articulate yourself well.
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