Gestures, both descriptive and emphatic to highlight important points can add colour as well as clarity to your presentation but don't mark your script or notes with reminders to gesture at a certain point.
Nine times out of ten they are going to look to mechanical and awkward as in the case of a young man giving a reading before an audience of about 100 persons recently.
He gave an excellent reading, but every once in a while without any pause for emphasis or even looking at the audience his right had would pop up to make some descriptive gesture, giving him the appearance of a wind up doll or robot programmed to make a certain circular gesture every few minutes.
Instead of listening to an otherwise excellent reading much of his audience ended up watching to see how many times he would do this. Any emphasis he tried to create was lost
If you have difficult giving gestures it is not a bad idea to practice both emphatic and descriptive gestures during practice sessions just as you might practice deep breathing. I know such rehearsals helped me to become a much more relaxed and colourful speaker when I was younger. But do not plan what you're going to going to use before a live audience.
Sometimes -- you'll get away with it but generally such rehearsed gestures will look awkward and do not reinforce or clarify what you are saying. What you want are spontaneous gestures.
So, while preparing your speech or presentation think about how things look or what they could be compared to as well as important points you'd like to make and then when you're on stage become fully engrossed in your material and you'll find that both the emphatic and descriptive gestures will come naturally -- without any mechanical planning.
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