Most audience members are completely unaware of the delivery approach a presenter has selected … until they realize that someone is reading to them. For most audiences, that's a horrible feeling. Why? Because most people read aloud in a monotone voice and, unless they were trained as an actor or an announcer, most people can't handle a full script and an audience at the same time. The result: no eye contact, no vocal projection, no sense of personal commitment to the presentation. The reaction: “Why am I here? He or she could have e-mailed this to me.”

So, let's give some thought to methods of delivery. You have basically four options for delivering a presentation, but probably shouldn't depend on more than just one or two of them.

Memorized presentations are delivered verbatim, word-for-word just as the authors wrote them. The problem with memorized speeches is that, unless you are a trained actor, you cannot deliver them with any level of conviction. They sound wooden, contrived and artificial. Worse yet, you may forget where you are and have to start over. Unless you're doing Shakespeare from the stage, forget about memorized talks.

Scripted presentations are far more common among managerial and executive speaking events. The problem with speaking from a script, as I just noted, is that it sounds read. The impression from the audience is almost always negative. Reading a fully scripted speech ensures that you will include each key point and resist the temptation to ad-lib, but without a TelePrompTer to display your script, you lose eye contact with the audience and seem distant or remote to them. You also drop your chin and compress the pitch of your voice. Unless you have no other choice, don't work with a verbatim script. If you must, then rehearse carefully and try looking up frequently, making regular contact with the audience.

Even though I advise against reading from a script, keep in mind 25 that it can serve a number of important functions for you, and perhaps for your employer. First, it is one way of assuring that you'll deliver the speech exactly as written with no additions or deletions.