Usage in Presentations

• Gestures should be used in presentations to support the tone and volume of a speaker's voice. Based on "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Successful Business Presentations," Lin Kroeger explains that gestures should be used spontaneously. He further explains that when gestures are unrehearsed, they enable a natural flow of content as well as shaping of content during speech presentation. Kroeger suggests that you use a "gesture window" which is the area from your head to the middle of your torso. In this area, lift your arms and increase the spread between your elbows as necessary.
  
  

Benefits of Gestures in Speech

• Based on "Gestures: Your Body Speaks," available through ToastMasters, a nonprofit organization that helps its members with public speaking, gestures clarify your words, dramatize your ideas, emphasize and vitalize your words, minimize nervousness, serve as visual aids and promote audience participation.
  
  

Cultural Impacts

• Since the meaning of gestures are not universal, gestures may be easily misinterpreted. In the United States, what is represented by the peace sign is considered a representation of obscenity to the British. When a finger is circled to express "ok" in the United States, Brazilians deem this gesture as obscene, people of Japan interpret this symbol as "money" and in France this symbol represents worthlessness, according to Kroeger. Also, when U.S. citizens wave someone to come to them, Africans may view this gesture as calling them dogs. If you cannot remember some of these tips when traveling, be sure to pay attention to responses that you may receive from others. Their responses will let you know what is and is not acceptable.
  
  

How Many Gestures Exist?

• There are at least 260 forms of body language. Dictionary.com defines body language as gestures, postures and facial expressions. Though as postures and facial expressions comprise body movements, they are gestures. For this reason, the terms body language and gestures may be used synonymously. Nevertheless, due to the usage and cultural variances of gestures, an accurate measure of gestures is difficult to obtain.
  
  

Other Uses

• According to the book, Hegde's PocketGuide to Treatment in Speech-language Pathology, M.N. Hedge explains that gestures are used in treatments of patients with aphasia--impairment to the brain which causes a language disorder.
  
  Avoid using gestures that conflict with the message that you want to relay in presentations. Sending mixed signals will decrease the credibility of a presenter.