Public Speaking. Utterly Horrific

Lying in bed tonight, imagine yourself going into the lecture. Do everything you would want to do in a perfect presentation. If you make a mistake, go back to the beginning and start again. Rehearse it in your mind over and over again. Don't forget the rapturous applause from your audience at the end. It won't totally take your nerves away, but nerves are good because they get all sorts of excited chemicals pumping round your system that will make you brilliant.

Take note shy kids: this technique also helps with chatting up the lady or gentleman of your dreams.

Rehearsing it (actually going through the presentation aloud with a friend or two) can help.

And keep in mind most people in your class are probably zoning out and thinking about sex, paying the bills, etc. when you're up there giving your speech and aren't paying that much attention, so the focus isn't really all on you.

You can probably actually prove this to yourself by deliberately talking bollocks firmly, if you like. But it seems a bit tacky.)

Go into lecture and just talk, not at any one person but kind of as if scanning the room, that way, people think you're still making eye contact (lecturers like that). And make sure you can answer the questions they will ask, a lot of times this is considered more important tthan the talk itself as it shows in-depth knowledge and the ability to think on ones feet.

At college we had to give presentations weekly and I do it now at work, it's a question of getting used to it.

I have just found out that in the countdown to redundancy, my job title from the first of February will be "training and support" oh great.

At least that's a good day. On a bad day I have been called wacky.

Yes, prepared jokes are a mistake, since they always sound prepared and are therefore DUD. Luckily you are one of the funniest off-the- cuff people I know. Good luck Lix.

Saturday night you were supremely self confident & entertaining in public.

Perhaps being Tipsy-Lix helped.

Lixi, how did it go?

HELP ME.

in the 2nd and 3rd years there were minipresentations which you had to do in seminar groups for each module, but they didn't count towards your degree (even though they were compulsory). i chose the penultimate week every time, and then just didn't show

Debilitating fear of public speaking is widespread, and it would infuriate me that instructors would never acknowledge this and offer some concession for it. I think my problem with it is that I never give a flying fuxz0r about whatever it is I have to speak about, so therefore the whole speech is just an act -- me standing in front of a room not as myself, but as someone who has some sort of genuine interest in and motivation for giving this speech. I guess I'm just not much of an actor.

The other scary thing is that my anxiety level preceding the speech was never an indicator of how I'd perform: I've felt loose and confident going in only to bomb magnificently, and other times I was a pallid sweating wreck only to give a relaxed, even enjoyable speech... ugh.

I had it today. It went alright, until my notes ran out and I realised I needed some form of conclusion. And I just stodd there for about 30 seconds and I think I ended up saying something like, "And it all means a better experience for everyone involved. And that's all I have to say about that". I think I passed.

Genius!

(It's from Forrest Gump, obv.)

That's actually a great save Graham! If it were me, I usually end up saying stuff like, "Er...hmm. Don't know where my notes went. Um, I forget what I was going to say to wrap up, so I guess this ends my discussion". Public speaking, not really my strong suit. Speaking in general is not even my strong suit.

you guys do 90 min talk eh? we do 30 mins max (w questions afterwards)

(Mark is unfortuantely OTM).

i just wish this was the case with inorganic chemistry.

What you've got to rmember is that your audience wants to be there about as much as you do.

''What you've got to rmember is that your audience wants to be there about as much as you do.''

um, even the profs who will scrutinise every word i'll be uttering on march 21st.

biggest talk of my career on wednesday. c4ltech is scary! in state of pretty much constant anguish for past couple of days. rewarding myself with major time by the ocean after this is done.

I seem to be the only person in my workplace that has a huge problem with public speaking. I've actually overcome some of my fear of speaking to strangers in 'venues' just by practicing like hell and having done it a few times. Pro-tip: if it's appropriate, I find it helpful to have the audience arranged at tables (like a wedding!) rather than in rows staring at you.

So anyway, that's semi-ok - it's having to present complex information at smaller meetings that I cannot seem to do. Everyone else is articulate and confident because we all know each other, yet as soon as I have to do it I get flustered and mix up words stupidly, then become very aware of the sound of my own voice which makes it worse. I'm actually feeling a bit sick thinking of one I did this week because it's stuff I know really well yet I sound like I'm learning it myself for the first time. I think people have some sympathy as I'm obviously nervous, but this is probably wearing thin after being in the job for years and being a generally functioning adult.

Do you practice these presentations too? The only solution is to practice until you get used to the sound of your own voice and as a by product you will know the material better.

I did not, well only in my head and talking about it with a colleague. I should have, but I also have this feeling that I shouldn't need to, I should just be able to chat about this stuff.

in a few days i have my big final-year-of-phd presentation that they make us do, 45 mins of talk and 45 minutes of questions with an audience of ~60. inconveniently the time i'd set aside as preparation time has coincided with a viciously persistent infection so instead of a few weeks prep time i effectively have a few days. boned.

here's how my partner helped me prepare when I just *couldn't* (he is pretty experienced at it)... taking my own notes and doing the presentation at me, with absolutely no idea what a word of it meant. It helped me hear the content more objectively when you have probably learned it on repeat until it becomes meaningless. Then you can jump in and explain how it should be done and engage with your own material a bit better, and identify tricky points that might need help to get across.

just talk to them about stuff

I don't actually understand the point of presentations.

I just had to sit through a 90 minute prevention and question session today. As usual, the presentation contained less information than could fit on a singe sheet of A4. It must be the least effective way of disseminating information ever!

Presentations seem like a 'badge of honour' - like proof of some kind of macho ability of being able to play live. Usually based on a time-honoured cliched format.

It's more interesting to be like the Pet Shop Boys and "quite like proving that we can't cut it live". The best presentations for me are ones that turn into an informal conversation.

I agree to an extent, although the ones I've had to do are like teaching - where we've already produced the information but it needs breaking down and practical exercises talked through.
Turning into an informal conversation *is* often the point, ime

part of my problem is I have some physiological reaction to having multiple sets of eyes on me at once and that sends 50% of my brain into panic mode

I did see a really impressive presentation by a Banking chief recently. Informed on the way into the event by an aide that the audience was 'hostile', he basically ditched his prepared speech and said to them "I hear you're a bit feisty. Ask me anything!" - and carried it off.

If you know your audience and it's a fridndly one, just try to give yourself the chance to be as natural as possible, which means getting over your nerves which means practicing. No shame in being well prepared. (I teach public speaking and take ESL students from terrified to "I have a toolbox for this situation" in ~ 16 weeks. The only students who don't improve are the ones with such strong language egos that they expect perfection from themselves and get upset when they don't achieve it.)

Or they're overconfident and think they don't need/shouldn't need to practice, so they don't.

Ugh, friendly!

seems even more terrifying now that Alix never returned to report on how it went… (public speaking: the one-way ticket)

thanks LL, you are doing God's work
in this case, I wasn't nervous at all until ppl started looking at me!