How to Be Articulate

hi everyone Anthony Fantan oh here Internet's busiest music nerd hope you're doing well and it is time for a video about a topic that I've gotten a lot of questions

about over the years it would seem that after watching quite a few of my reviews some of you have come away with the impression that I am articulate I speak

in an articulate manner and you're so well-spoken you never go mom or anything how are you so a while spoken I I would tend to disagree I don't think I'm the

most articulate guy in the planet however how I speak and what I say given my profession is something that I do try

to stay on top of and be conscious of so with that I thought that I would kind of recommend to you guys some tips and

tricks for ways that you yourself might be come more articulate bam-bam-bam-bam recommendation number one is know what you're going to say before you say it

because a mark of being articulate is your word choice and also being able to avoid and stray away from crutch words and crutch phrases I myself have had

issues with this in the past and in a way this channel right here that you're watching is almost like a bit of a training ground for me because a lot of these videos I don't script them super

heavily so I am going out on a bit of a limb when I record a lot of the material on this channel sure I have written myself a bunch of notes for this video and I've bullet-pointed the things that I want to say and the points that I want

to make but still a lot of the time when I am recording on this channel I am trying to be super conscious of the words that I am using and I am trying to be as conscious as possible to not

overload my sentences and not overload my paragraphs with um uh uh you know you know you know and there are other crutch words and phrases that you yourselves

may be familiar with that you might use on a regular basis to just kind of fill in the gaps of space and your speech and and your a communication and I think

then I just kind of did a little bit of an oh right there a few words ago and it certainly comes with I think this this pressure to not pause because I think a lot of

people assume that if you're pausing if you're waiting if you're not speaking as quickly as possible and you're not making your point as quickly as possible

you know speaking like a bench up here like if you're not rattling off everything that you're saying sort of at that speed or in that nasally weird

bossy tone then you must be slow or you must not know what you want to say don't be afraid of embracing space a little bit and slowing down your speech a little bit obviously not too slow but slowing it down just a little bit so

that you're not tripping over your words so that you're not messing up what you're trying to say so that you're not overloading every single point you're making with you know you know you know you know you know getting your point

across clearly and without distracting the audience with too much extra garbage and filler in baggage is most definitely the goal when you're communicating and I

would say a kind of a key tenant to being perceived as articulate and again to kind of bring it back to my original point here I think a key way to avoid

doing that to getting bogged down in that way is to know what you are going to say before you say it and that doesn't necessarily mean go to the extent of scripting out every single

word you make it can be as simple as knowing the point you want to make knowing the idea you want to communicate where you're going to start with that idea where you are going to eventually

take it knowing points and concepts that you want to communicate along the way my second recommendation Bam Bam Bam Bam for becoming more articulate is

listening to other people speak who are articulate which might seem kind of like a no dancer here but I think you become a better communicator through listening to other people communicate better as

well much in the same way that you may become a better drummer or a singer or a guitar player by listening to great guitar players and drummers and singers and kind of copying the best practices

that you see them executing I don't know if you guys know this but I got my start in radio and I got my start in public radio and I have four

years listen to a lot of political news shows and podcast I mean a political science was actually a concentration in my degree and communications speeches

lecturing communicating ideas is a pretty key characteristic to politics and I feel like all of my years in radio and all of my years consuming political

media political podcasts and political YouTube channels have have definitely informed the way that I speak in the way that I communicate to my audience sure I use a lot of jokes and colloquial

language and slang in my reviews as well and that's mostly because I I don't see my reviews as being like super uptight they're relatively chill I'm gonna talk to you in my video in the same way that

I would most likely talk to you if we were having a conversation about the record face-to-face although I try to be a little bit more proper about it and communicate in my videos as if I were

talking about the album to like a large group or maybe a small group of people like a hundred people or so so again I would recommend listening to other people speak who you think speak

properly and some individuals who I would definitely recommend are like sceptic James Randi who has a lot of talks out there on the internet that are

very well-formed very logical very persuasive very well delivered and what's amazing about a lot of James Randi speeches and videos is that that

dude does not pause he does not do jump cuts or anything like that it's like he has the whole concept of what he wants to say mapped out in his head before he goes out and says it as if he's

literally written the script on his brain and he's reading off his own brain but if you do listen to James Randi also take note he doesn't speak super fast he

takes the care to deliver every single word he communicates in a very pointed and a very conscious manner and I guess that's kind of a sub recommendation I

would make here be present while you're talking think about all the things that you're saying and what they are going to communicate who you are saying them to so I would highly recommend James Randi I would highly recommend David Pakman

over on the David Pakman YouTube he has a great political YouTube channel that in my opinion is very fair very balanced and while I do watch a lot of different political YouTube channels

David Pakman in my opinion is one of the best in terms of just having very clean very even speech and tone and delivery it's very calming it's very easy to

digest it's not very heated or aggressive or sort of out of pocket or anything like that and look there are some political youtubers who I like who you know do get heated in their delivery

I do like to see maybe some young turks every once in a while I do like to watch Kyle over a secular talk and this is not a you know a diss to them but I don't

necessarily watch those channels because I think the delivery is super articulate or anything like that I would say it's it's more passionate than it is articulate but if you're going to take the time to listen to other people speak

just make sure they're individuals who you think are speaking well actually speaking well listen to the words they choose also are they able to complete an entire sentence without tripping over

their words or using crutch words are they able to go multiple sentences and conclude a logical thought or point or

idea third recommendation here and it's a pretty straightforward and simple one but take the time to read a little bit more and also when you see someone or hear someone use a word that you don't

know what it means you've never heard it before you've heard it around but you didn't take the time to look it up please take the time to look it up especially since we all have our phones

here we all have our phones here and we could easily just google the dictionary definition of literally anything there's pretty much no excuse at this point not to just take a few seconds to look a

word up add to your vocabulary a little bit and just contribute to the quality of your own speech in everyday life the fourth point I want to make here and it's also straightforward is take the

time to write a little bit more because most people who I meet out there who are articulate speakers are also pretty decent writers they understand how to logically conclude a sentence or a point

they understand how to pack in a paragraph how to structure a sentence they understand how to successfully avoid word repetitions so reading more and

writing more is certainly key to being more articulate in my opinion the fifth and last point I want to make here is

don't speak when you're angry if you don't want to be perceived as not articulate because to me coming off that

way is very much about composure it's very much about delivery it's very much about being conscious of every single word you're using and I know in my

experience if I'm upset I'm mad I'm unhappy I'm whatever you know whatever state I'm in where I'm overcome with

emotion I'm going to be way less likely to come off articulate use the right word not offend somebody not say something in a way that I'm going to

regret so if you are somebody who values being articulate and indulges in a bit of public speaking wants to communicate an idea something like that doing it in

a state where you're pissed off you're angry you're mad you want to tell somebody off you don't care about how you look when you say it that's that's not necessarily the best state to be in

and look that's not to say that when you are mad or you're sad or whatever you can't talk you can't say anything but keep in mind in those emotional states your composure is not really going to be

there and your communication is most likely not going to be top-notch and coming off articulate and speaking publicly is kind of all about that so at the end of the day keep in mind this is

all just advice I'm not speaking facts of life here or anything these are not scientifically proven methods to become the most articulate person on the planet or anything like that these are just

some tips and tricks that have worked for me personally and I bestow them on to you and there you go there you go over here next to my head is a another

video hit that up or the link to subscribe to the channel you're the best you're the best you're the best you're the best Anthony Fantana articulate forever