ROSHAAN AMEER DISCUSSION PUBLIC SPEAKING Vocalized Pause- A pause that occurs when a speaker fills the silence between words with vocalizations such as “uh,” “er,” and “um.” This is important to me as a speaker because when I get nervous I tend to forget what I’m trying to say. And fill in the words with vocalized pauses. As I got older I began to hear it more and more in other’s speeches. That made me think how much I’m probably saying these words as well. So as the grades passed teachers started to put into the speeches curriculum that points would be docked each time these are used. Unfortunately, my grades were not great thanks to this but at least I knew about another problem I had and took the steps to correct it. Not saying that when I talk in front of others you won’t sometimes hear me say these but it’s an improvement and that’s all I’m wanting. Learning how not to fill in the awkward silences with these words will improve your speeches quality exponentially. You will sound like you know what you are talking about and the people you are talking to will listen and more likely believe your words. Not to mention that saying um or uh every few words can be annoying and distracting. Just think of yourself having to hear it and you realize you did not hear a word the speaker had said because you were counting to amount of um’s that was said. So my question is when you are blinded by fear and forget everything that you need to say what should you say?