My Personal Public Speaking Guide

I always consider myself as an expressive speaker. I use not only my words, but also all kinds of gesture and facial expression to emphasize my point. Nevertheless, I never regard myself highly when it comes to public speaking. The problem doesn’t lie on the crowd, it’s just that my personality seems to be more befitting to an intimate kind of talk instead of the public talk type.

There had been times when my attempts at public speaking produce quite satisfying results. On the other hand, there were other times when I completely humiliate myself by blabbing and stuttering; which was the case on Philosophy of Science class, yesterday. Every time I did that, I always made a mental note that next time I’d be calmer, more composed, and certainly wouldn’t make a fool of myself in front of people. Unfortunately, mental note apparently is inadequate, hence yesterday’s incident. So, I decide to write a little something here: My personal guide to public speaking as an attempt to prevent any embarrassing episode in the future.

Step 1:
Understand the topic
It might sound very obvious, but it’s not as simple as that in practice. Speaking in public without proper understanding of the subject being talked is the first step towards total humiliation. If some things remain unclear, please spend some time to do a little bit of research on the subject prior to the occasion. The most important thing, make sure that I get the main point or in more stylish words: catch the essence. Understanding the subject would also make me more prepared for anything, including tricky questions from the audience. Of course, accidents could happen anytime. Out of nowhere, someone could ask me to deliver a material, unprepared. When that happened, just hope and pray that everything wouldn’t be too humiliating.

Step 2:
Make a mind-map
To transfer ideas to others, a mere understanding isn’t enough. Knowing how to transfer those ideas are just as important. Therefore, list all the things I wish to say and figure out how to tell them. For example, if I’m trying to inform people about pathophysiological aspect of bird-flue, should I make a brief intro about timeline of the disease or should I get on with the disease itself? Things like that. I’m not into practice-speaking, which we try to formulate all the things we’re going to say in words. It’s kind of limiting my creativity and flexibility in transferring the ideas. Besides, my successful performances in the past weren’t relied on practice-speaking prior to the presentation. So, I guess practice-speaking isn’t vital anyway. Just make sure that I know what and how.

Step 3:
Don’t get all smarty
Don’t say anything that I don’t exactly understand. For example, don’t use the word “fundamental” if I don’t know what fundamental means; if I’m not really sure how corona virus influence T-cells in SARS patient, don’t mention it. Don’t say things that too far out of the context just so people would be impressed. I don’t like people who show off, so I expect myself to not show off as well—even if I have the chance to. Besides, being all smarty doesn’t bring any good most of the times, it even got me into a worse situation (like being completely dumbfounded by a certain question concerning something that I’m not really know of, something that I confidently mentioned before).

Step 4:
Control the pace
My definition of a successful presentation involves the implementation of step 1-3. But this one, controlling my speaking pace, has always been a problem. I tend to speak very fast that it takes a fast thinking process as well to comprehend what I’m trying to say. In that sense, I make it difficult for people to easily understand my point. On the other hand, talking too fast also makes it difficult for me to synchronize my thought and my speech. The result: stuttering. Really, that makes me look like a total dork. So, please, just slow down a little.

Step 5:
Sweep the whole audience
Look at them all. Don’t focus my view on to certain imaginary point in front of me. It makes me look as if I am intimidated by the crowd; an impression that I certainly don’t want to give out to people. Hostile crowd would see that as a sign of the speaker’s lack of credibility. After that, they would try their very best to finish me off. Of course, I wouldn’t want that.

Hopefully, I will never ever humiliate myself again in front of people after this. Fingers crossed!