Signaling the Ending and Managing Q&A

Signaling the End and Managing Q&A

Part of a successful conclusion is easing your audience into the end of your speech. If you end to abruptly, your listeners may leave with a feeling of incomplete knowledge or hurriedness. You want to round out the end of your speech—like slowing down a car. You want your conclusion to lead to the end of your speech slowly and gently; you do not want to slam on the breaks .

Signaling the End of Your Speech

There are several ways you can indicate to your audience that you have reached the end of your speech. The easiest way is to directly tell them by using phrases at the beginning of your conclusion, such as, In closing, In conclusion, or Finally. This way, they are clearly aware you are coming to the close of your speech.

Another good way to indicate you are approaching the end is using a change in the tone of your voice. Humans naturally slow their speech and lower the tone of their voices at the end of a sentence or paragraph. By doing this, your audience will intuitively know that you are reaching the end of your conclusion.

Once you have successfully ended your speech, it is often appropriate to offer the audience a question and answer session, colloquially referred to as Q&A. In a Q&A session, you will allow your listeners to ask you specific and in-depth questions about your speech topic and then provide them with the appropriate answer.

Depending on the content of your speech, this could turn into a hostile or confusing exchange, so it is important to know how to manage a Q&A session.

Managing Q&A

The first and most important way to avoid any embarrassing moments during a Q&A session is to be very well versed and knowledgeable about your topic. There is nothing worse than being asked a very poignant question by an audience member and having absolutely not idea how to answer it.

While it is crucial to know as much about your topic as possible, it is impossible to know everything and even if you do your very best to prepare, there is always a chance you will be asked a question you cannot answer. If that ever happens, it is important not to panic. The best strategy is to have a handful of diplomatic phrases in your back pocket to save face. Some good ones include the following:

• "I did not come across that in my research but I can find out and get back to you."
• "That's a really good question and I've actually been wondering that myself."

Since these are examples, you will want to word the phrases in your own style and according to your topic.

It is important to maintain control of the Q&A session. As the speaker, you are in charge of facilitating this interaction portion of your presentation. This means you must be aware of things like giving all audience members a chance to ask questions, not spending too much time on any one question, and not engaging in hostile rhetoric with your audience.

Finally, it is important to remember that while the conclusion is your audience's final impression of your speech, a Q&A session will be the freshest in their minds. You want to do your best to be helpful and informative. Hopefully, audience members are asking questions because they are genuinely interested in the topic. It is your responsibility to engage them and do your best to help them attain the knowledge and answers they seek. The Q&A is still part of your presentation, so continue to present yourself as you did while you were speaking; do not become overly casual or revert to bad habits like breaking eye contact or speaking too quietly.