Good article; interesting idea and technique.

I am an atty. My words have been taken down in countless depositions, trials, hearings, etc. Transcripts get produced of proceedings, and, there you are, in all your glory, your words laid out on the printed page for all to see and to be quoted.

OMG what a wake up call!!

Seeing your pathetic articulation of a thought, quoted in a Brief, filed in a public court proceeding, is embarrassing.

This is similar to what this article is describing, feedback from your colloquy. It s an eye opener. In time, you learn how to more carefully shape your speech to avoid some of the pause / placeholders: “umm, OK, so, well,” etc.

If you start thinking about your statements being quoted and published somewhere, you tend to start crafting them better. But this also means that you tend to slow down your dialogue and inject pauses where there used to be “ummms.” As you start to real-time edit your statements, it sounds unusual to the other party in the dialogue, but it looks much better on paper. You can’t really have it both ways.

Using the technique described in the article, try recording a conversation. Don’t use the pause button. That is cheating.

Then bask in your brilliant elocution LOL.