Public Speaking

[Barrett]

These next few weeks are very stressful for any college student, full of exams and presentations. I am not the best public speaker. I was wondering if anyone here has any tips and strategies when public speaking. Has anyone had any experience at conferences or seminars?? Any help would be great thanks.

[LisaS]

Practice and know your subject. Sorry, no "picture them in their underwear tricks".

Know your material so you can talk to your audience rather than read to them - even if you have cards as reference. If it is power-point (or slide) based, don't read the slides to them. There are many resources online about designing effective slides so that the information is conveyed succinctly, timing a talk based on number of slides and time per slide, etc.

For the most part you are telling a story - so know your story. Any aides are illustrations of your story.

I assume these are not poster presentations in a science context - but if you have those, the basics are the same but there might be some techniques to the design itself that you can find online to help you.

How many minutes are we talking about - a 5 minute talk is quite different than a 20 minute presentation and that is different than a 50 minute presentation.

If you will be in college for a few more years - work on this offline. Join a Toastmasters group or even take a class. Years ago, I took a Dale Carnegie class and it gave me loads more confidence about speaking to groups, large & small, making presentations, teaching classes, even expressing ideas in meetings. Learning these skills and getting a level of comfort to speak off the cuff on almost any subject on little or no notice is a skill that will pay you back 1000-fold over your career and your life, no matter the field.

Chances are, no matter what you do, no one is going to throw things at you or lie in wait for you afterwards, so relax.

[dmw]

I'll echo Lisa, know the subject. I've done some speaking on a small scale for work (no more than 75 people) and the more I knew beforehand the easier it was. To paraphrase Peyton Manning who was paraphrasing Chuck Knoll - pressure is what you feel when you don't know what you're doing.

[Dr. Casey]

Lisa and dmw have both given good advice (Nice quote from Chuck Knoll, too, twice paraphrased or not). Do you have a video camera? You could record yourself giving the speech. If you enjoy listening to yourself, that should do your confidence some good. That could also help make it easier to adopt the mindset that you are giving these classmates something pleasant and enjoyable to listen to. You are doing them a service. Their day will be the lesser if they don't hear your presentation. You are the fucking man. I think that a good deal of peoples' fears regarding public speaking might stem from the fact that most assume their audience does not care about what they're saying. Remove that hurdle and you're quite a bit further along than you'd otherwise be.

[chris_f]

hands down the best website i've ever found on presenting is http://presentationzen.com. The site focus on PowerPoint/Keynote design, but has many great tips that aren't related to the use of slideware.

A recent post on the site best summarizes good speaking: http://www.presentationzen.com/prese...erfection.html

In the Presentation Zen approach, if we can call it that, we are more concerned with naturalness in delivery, a delivery on stage that is more similar to a natural conversation between two people, such as a teacher to student, a master to apprentice, or among equals such as a scientist to scientist, and so on. Naturalness in delivery, then, is more like a conversation between friends or coworkers than a formal one-way lecture...

[diamondpete]

Hi Barrett

I have been involved in public speaking training (corporate, scientific, and now uni). I assume from what I know of you that you are presenting your reseacrh/findings in science.

Some comments.

One reason that presenting is hard is that you need to deal three major factors:
Your message (the story you are trying to tell)
Your body (including but not limited to posture, voice, inflection, eye contact, gestures, gesture - though more limited since the introduction of powerpoint)
your visuals (which used to many things, but now is powerpoint and the components of powerpoint.

You need to juggle these three aspects at the same time, (much like he trouble of standing on one leg, rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time- not so difficult individually but thrown together, can be challenging.

Most important thing:
You are the star, not powerpoint
The focal point should be you, otherwise, you might as well make a slide show and stay home.

Message:
A spoken message is different from a written message in that the speaker controls the speed and flow of the information- the listener cannot "go back over" a point that was missed (sounds obvious, but when attend enough presentations you will notice that presenters often do not pay attention to this.

Physical.
Basically do not move your body.... That is not true, but start with that as your base (most poor presenters move too much because they are not conscious of what they are doing with their bodies). One way to make your self conscious of what you are doing with your body is to practice your presentation stand with your feet shoulder width apart, hands resting comfortably around belt level and DON'T move!! (this will help you become aware of what you are doing with your body and force you to make CONSCIOUS choices about when to move and or gesture.

Make eye contact - eye contact is not sweeping your eyes around the room- it is personal (you can see this if you make eye contact with someone for too long- they feel uncomfortable...) Think of it as a hand shake - three steps: Get, Hold, Release.

Visual
Most important thing!!

Use headline sentences and visual evidence (do not use "titles and bullets i. e. microsoft templates) For a quick overview of this look at :

M. Alley and K. Neeley, “Rethinking the design of presentation slides: A case for sentence headlines and visual evidence”, Technical Communication, vol. 52, no. 4 (November 2005), pp. 417-426.

Other points: Do not use cheezy clip art (impressive 30 years ago, now just anoying.
try not to use the mouse to "draw on your slides" or point attention - USE a well prepare slide with the points you want to draw attention to coming in as you need them - Also stay away from the laser pointer (which annoys the hell out of people ) try and follow the small shaking dot... after about 10 minutes of this I want to get up and slap the presenter....

I know everyone does it, but the problem stems from the lack of prep time and the culture of "doing what you see others do" - But this does not make it effective.


+++++++

Hope this helps, if you have any questions or cannot access find the article, PM with your email.

Also practice ... with a stop watch. Start on time, end on time.

Cheers

Peter

[Ogedei]

I've always taken reference cards in with me. I never used them.

As it has been said. Practice Practice Practice. Know what you are going to say.

Don't just practice in your head. Practice out loud. Talk slower. Do not rush.

What everyone else said.

Oh and did any of us mention practice?

Bad power point can ruin your presentation easily. If the slides are to crowded or to busy (Animations/clipart etc) they will detract and your audience will lose focus and interest.

[Jean-Paul]

Wow... Some excellent advice on this thread so far. I've done my share of public speaking for a wide variety of audiences over the last 15 years and Lisa and Pete pretty much nailed it. Wish I had read that advice before I got started. I really botched my first few speeches. Toastmasters is a good idea. I have never done it, but I have done similar things and it really helped.

Not much to add other than be real with your audience. You can be polished and that is great if you are, but if you are comfortable with them and speak to them as if you are talking to one person you don't have to be a professional speaker on your first gig.

The other thing is just do it a lot. You'll get better each time and somewhere along the line you might actually realize that you enjoy it.

I video-taped several of my speeches when I was doing a lot of corporate speaking gigs and I could see tremendous improvements in the second based on what I saw that I did in my first. Like Pete mentioned, being conscious of how much you move is important. I didn't realize how hyper I looked until I saw myself on video. Shifting weight back and forth, facial tics, saying "uh," stuff like that, all went away once I became conscious that I was doing it in a surprisingly short period of time.

Good luck!

[RobLL]

I also recommend Toastmasters. It was a lot more useful and more experience than the college courses I took. The other advice has been good too. Public speaking is a form of entertainment/enchantment.

An observation on humor: Jokes usually do not do what you want. But playing up intrinsic irony, difficulties, a little self-deprecation, and scattering them throughout you speech often helps.

[kmwest]

I do a lot of public speaking for work and the single biggest thing that helped develop my style is called the "murder board." Essentially, you give your presentation to 2-4 people who critique everything about the presentation and your delivery style. They have to be honest, though - which means that you need to find someone who isn't afraid to hurt your feelings, and you need to be open to criticism. You may find out that you say 'um' or 'well, ok...' a lot, have a distracting habit of rocking back and forth on your heels, etc. You may find that a certain part of your presentation, while clear to you, is not as clear to your audience. Assuming you're doing this for a class, if 4 or 5 of you sit down and do a murder board with each other it will help flesh out the little problems. Then, do a murder board again before your actual presentation for grade.

[cycomiko]

Please please please, never read the powerpoints to people

it is painful to see.

Especially from people who are considered leaders in their field.

[eastcoastsurfer]

Practice, practice, practice. This means speaking at every chance you get. It's one of those things that only gets easier the more you do it.

Know your material. Don't just memorize your talk, know the material and just talk about it. This will let you speak naturally and allow you to answer questions or dive more deeply into topics that seem to grab people's interest. Knowing your material also conveys genuine excitement about what you're talking about. This keeps the audience engaged.

This goes without saying, but speak with authority. The people are there to hear and watch you speak. Make sure they can both hear and see you (walk around and don't stand behind a podium for example).

Powerpoint slides should be short bullets and/or simple graphics. Personally I use Powerpoint slides as my notecards. If you know your material you should be able to see a Powerpoint slide and then start talking about it. Use them to guide you from topic to topic and augment your talk. You don't want so much text on a slide that people end up reading the slides.

Prepare extra material. I learned early on that when I give a presentation that usually I talk a bit faster, so I always make my presentations longer than they need to be. This way I won't ever run out of material and can adjust the time up and down as I go. Most talks (technical presentations on various topics) I give now I let people know at the start to feel to stop me at any point and ask questions. Again, this where being prepared comes into play.

[Phaedrus49er]

Originally Posted by cycomiko

Please please please, never read the powerpoints to people

it is painful to see.

Especially from people who are considered leaders in their field.

This. Slides are supplemental, not primary. If your speech is broad-based, use the slides to give more detailed information (but not so much that people stop listening to you). If your speech is pretty detailed, use the slides for big idea one-liners to keep people focused on what you're talking about (the latter option is preferable).

[Aoife]

Originally Posted by cycomiko

Please please please, never read the powerpoints to people

it is painful to see.

^^^
Definitely the single most irritating thing about all the presentations I have to watch at school.

More than a few words on a bullet point is too much. If you're making your PP to hand out for notes later or to the instructor, and you want that info there, have another one that you actually hand in.

And, of course, don't read the paper you wrote either.

I like to be conversational, it gives a good response. When you talk and you make eye contact and are conversational, people respond back. They nod and what you say, show surprise at your shocking statistic, and look confused if you're not being clear. This kind of response makes the presentation better because everyone is engaged, and it makes it easier and less awkward.

The stand still is important too. Not in a stiff, uncomfortable way, but in a rooted, relaxed sense.

Know your material.
Practice out loud in front of people.
You'll get better the more you do it.
Have fun. Enjoy yourself. Find something to love about your topic.

[Deserve]

Everything that everyone has said is presenting gold. The only thing I will add is Do not try to memorize a speech for the presentation. Know the salient points you want to get accross and just work them into the flow. It also comes accross as much more of a conversational tone.

For God sake please don't read the presentation from the slides. That is huge. Instead fill in the blanks

We could do a whole new thread on how to do a PPT presentation.

[Barrett]

Thanks Everyone for such great advice. I have a presentation in which we(my group) developed a strength and conditioning program for our college football team. We included everything from a crituque of the current program, a new program, nutrtion, plyometric program, interval training program, and sports psychology. But once agian thanks for all of the input.

[ninja]

cock.in.hand.

[eastcoastsurfer]

Originally Posted by Barrett

Thanks Everyone for such great advice. I have a presentation in which we(my group) developed a strength and conditioning program for our college football team. We included everything from a crituque of the current program, a new program, nutrtion, plyometric program, interval training program, and sports psychology. But once agian thanks for all of the input.

Make sure some dolt in your group isn't chewing gum. When I was a senior in college I got stuck with this slack group and had to give a presentation for the class final. I ended up being forced to give 80% of the presentation because everyone was well slack. The teacher gave us a B+ and when I asked him why. He said everything was great, EXCEPT some girl in my group was chewing away on her gum for the entire presentation. I about lost it!

[chris_f]

Originally Posted by cycomiko

Please please please, never read the powerpoints to people

it is painful to see.

Especially from people who are considered leaders in their field.

+1000

[jruck37]

Don't forget to spellcheck the slides in your Powerpoint.

[Ogedei]

Along the same lines as not reading your powerpoint...

Do not write up your presentation in a word document, print it and then read it.

In fact don't even do it with point forms. They will be to hard to find quickly. It will look like you are reading it.

Your Audience is your primary concern, not the power point slides. I personally have no problem with pointing things out on a slide, but do not spend the whole presentation facing it like it is who you are really interested in talking to.

I always sort of think of the slides as an outline.

When slide 1 is up I want to talk about A B and C. When slide 2 is up I want to talk about D, E and F etc. But you are talking about the points, not reading them not memorizing them.

Og.

[Ogedei]

Oh and the best way to be not scared stiff when doing it is to do it alot. When I was in college here last year and giving them I was not that nervous about going up, but a little. I didn't dread it as much as some though.

When I was in college back in the day I took an English course, probably one of the best ones I took in terms of lasting impact. In short it was a public speaking course. Each week we wrote a 5 minute presentation and each week we got up infrong of the class and presented it with much dread.

Looking back now I know taking that class improved my ability to be up infront of a crowd. Even 10 years later it was much better than my peers who had no such class.

[chris_f]

http://presentationzen.com... seriously, best site ever.

If you have an hour, watch Garr's talk at Google: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2vtQCESpk