Clean Your Speech from Filler Words: Easy and Effective Tutorial

Identify the reasons behind the excessive use of filler words to get rid of them more easily

Welcome to the second part of my article on filler words. Here, I will focus more on the crutch word usage in oral speech. Let’s discuss their types, underlying causes, and prevention strategies.

🔗 Don’t miss the guide on filler words in writing — The New Look on Filler Words — The Worst & Better Ones [Part I]

Why Do We Use Filler Words in Speech?

Many reasons drive us to use filler words in our speech. Thus, by understanding the root causes of the problem, you may eradicate it quickly and more effectively. Let’s have a look at the most popular reasons:

• Nervousness. Anxiety is a natural part of public performance. It’s anxiety that makes us resort to filler words and fill in the space when shifting from one idea to another.
• Poor preparation. Filler words are a counter-productive strategy for collecting your thoughts. A remedy to this poor tactic is good preparation and rehearsal of the speech.
• Speaking too fast. Nervousness makes you speak faster, worsening the clarity of your speech. Therefore, you might try to compensate for this vagueness with filler words, which, in fact, worsen the speech perception even more.
• Distractions. Speakers may be easily distracted by many factors, from a noisy AC to blinking lighting or someone’s sneeze. Even a rambling thought may distract you during a well-prepared speech, causing you to pause and use filler words.
• Abundance of rare or complex words. Using words you don’t typically employ requires more intellectual effort and time. This might lead to awkward silence and a desire to fill it with crutch words.
• Habit. As simple as it may seem, many people say filler words just because they’re used to them. So, they don’t see anything bad about their use (even heavy use).

The Worst Fillers in Your Speech

Oral speaking gives us less opportunity to polish the text than written texts. It would be fair to say that their occasional use won’t damage the quality much. Most people are used to hearing crutch words now and then, yet abusing them will hardly go unnoticed. Besides, over-reliance on fillers will erode your credibility as a public speaker, especially in formal settings.

The most widespread filler words and phrases by groups:

🔴 Interjections. This category includes words like “umm,” “er,” “uh,” “oh,” and the like. They don’t serve any substantial purpose and are commonly used to fill the silence you create by recollecting thoughts or switching ideas.

🔴 Redundant introductions like “well/so” also make no sense if they’re often used as a coordinating conjunction.

🔴 Redundant intensifiers like “literally/actually/basically/really” only add an unnecessary exaggeration effect to your attributes.

🔴 Redundant summarizers like “at the end of the day.” You can do fine without it, so give it a second thought when moving to a conclusion and trying to pinpoint it somehow.

🔴 Adverbs like “honestly/frankly/in fact” may increase your credibility, but usually they undermine the audience’s trust in your speech.

🔴 Redundant finalizers like “or something/or so” add an element of confusion to your speech, as they mean that you are not sure what the content is really about.

How to Stop Using Filler Words — Once and for All

Are you ready to work on the filler word problem? Use this step-by-step guide to achieve quick results.

#1 Identify Your Personal Fillers

The first stage is determining the most problematic filler words and phrases in your speech. The best way to identify them is to record and listen to your natural speech, spotting the parasite words. You may also ask someone to listen to you and take note of the excessive empty phrasing.

#2 Identify the Reasons

Now, return to our previous section and consider the causes of using these words and phrases. Once you realize the drivers of your filler words abuse, you can find a solution much quicker.

#3 Slow Down Your Speech

Try to speak slower than usual and think of each next phrase you will say. This technique is highly effective for addressing filler words because it gives you time to formulate the idea better and voice it without rambling or restructuring your sentence on the go.

#4 Spend Time on Preparation

The next remedy for crutch word usage is thorough preparation. Give yourself time to master the topic of your presentation in-depth and learn all the details. This way, you will sound more confident during public speaking and won’t need to use filler words to buy time for thought formulation.

#5 Practice

As wise people say, “Practice makes perfect.” Thus, the more you practice public speaking with various people in various settings, the better you will be prepared for all social contexts. Hone your speaking skills whenever and wherever you see fit, and the number of filler words will inevitably reduce as you grow more proficient.

Here you go with the easy tutorial to filler word eradication. Take your time to analyze your speech patterns, determine the most annoying parasite words, and direct your attention to them to ensure your speech is clean, informative, and listener-friendly.

Extra Tips for Your Speeches

As a farewell, I’d like to treat you to a couple more non-trivial hacks to improve your rhetorical skills.

• Mind your audience. Though you create a speech, your audience is its main recipient and judge. Consider your listeners when choosing words, arguments, and emotional appeals.
• Work on feedback. Don’t perform in isolation; it should be a reciprocal process. Collect feedback from your listeners and use it to improve your skills and performance impact in future presentations.
• Use humor and storytelling. A bit of humor is always timely in public speeches; personal stories add a human touch and establish your connection with the audience. Yet, you should use these tools sparingly to avoid turning your speech into a personal revelation.
• Mind your hands. Nonverbal language can be a potent aid in delivering your message and impacting the listeners. Add powerful hand gestures to strengthen your appeal, but avoid too much hand movement, as it may distract people.
• Don’t stick to notes. Reading from a sheet of paper is the worst you can do with a performance you’ve been creating for so long. Read only if you have to; in all other cases, just glancing at the notes will be enough to keep you on track.

Try these tips out, and I bet you will quickly become a presentation guru. Good luck, and see you in the next post, where we will discuss various learning styles and how they will help you with different tasks.