How I did it for my speech class:
I disobeyed the teacher's orders: "Do not
ever write out your speech, or it won't sound natural when delivered."
I'd write it out, and read it at a calm speaking pace, as though I were delivering it to an audience. Then I'd use Word's word-count function; # words / minutes = WPM. That'll give you an idea of your speaking speed. Multiply by 3-4, and you've got the number of words to have in your speech. Maybe subtract 5-10% from your WPM before calculating. I found that I talked a bit slower when delivering to an audience than when rehearsing.
FYI, despite going against the "do not write" order, I got an A in the class. She apparently never noticed.
My writing also seems to be decent. I just about got a plagiarism accusation for not citing Carl Sagan for a large paragraph of text - we all had to turn in a writeup of our conclusions, to be recited during the speech, verbatim. She said that I didn't add in the quotes properly, that I didn't give Sagan credit. Well guess what, there was a reason for that: he didn't write it, I did.
Speaking speeds vary considerably, even just for one person. My usual speaking speed is 180-200WPM, but for delivering speeches, it consistently clocked in at a sluggish 138WPM, which often meant I had to significantly pare down what I'd originally intended to say.
Originally posted by: paulney
About 180 words per minute for a public speaker I believe.
That's a bit too quick. That's more like normal speaking speed. You want to talk slower for public speeches. From
The Art of Public Speaking, by Stephen Lucas:
- Average speaking speed in the US is 125-150WPM
- Daniel Webster spoke at about 90WPM, Franklin Roosevelt - 110WPM, John Kennedy - 180WPM.
"Martin Luther King opened his 'I Have a Dream' speech at a pace of 92 words per minute and finished it at 145."
It also will depend on your material. My speeches tended to deal with science-y subjects, delivered to a non-technical crowd, so I slowed down the pace a good bit. If your audience already knows the material well, you can speed things up, but if they don't know the difference between, say, Mars Observer and Mars Pathfinder, then you've got to take it easy, or you'll lose everyone in short order.
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