Public Speaking Tips, Tricks and Training

I've seen a lot of reactions to the assignment of a speech in class, and the reaction is rarely "Yay!"

Usually its either, "oh man, this stinks", to "oh no, I'm doomed", or a combination of the two.

Now I'm a gotta-get-it-done right away kind of guy, but I learned pretty quickly in my school career that the first thing to do when the presentation assignment was offered was just back off. Its not procrastination, its preparation. I'll come back to backing off in a moment.

The teacher assigns the speech, and usually hands out a syllabus. The syllabus dictates how long the speech is supposed to be, what types of topics or formats are to be used/covered, how many sources are required for the hand in, and most important of all, when it's due. The contents of the syllabus are one of the keys to a good grade, as far as the instructor is concerned, the other being the actual performance of the material.

So many students can't see the forest from the trees and worry about their performance, while making a mess of the actual assignment, including the non-speech elements that are turned in afterwards (outlines, bibliography, visual aids).

Everyone is simply focusing on how terrible it will be to give a speech in 3 weeks. Of course, as I've said elsewhere, no one wants to "deliver" a speech, but just hork one up and sit down. That doesn't make the presenter feel very good about themselves, and serves up lousy grades.

Instead, think this way: Remember in first grade or thereabouts, you'd have Show and Tell days. Everyone (unless they had nothing interesting to show or tell about) was always excited to get up in front of the class and display something that was interesting to them, and they wanted everyone else to be interested by the item too (whether it was or not, sorry kids). The point is, we were excited to do it. There was no stage fright, except in the rare shy kid cases. Even the shy kids loved to get up and talk about their pets, or some souvenir from a trip, or a piece of gear from one of their hobbies. These were the first, very informal and unshaped presentations. The heart of it is the same, but as students get older, the school adds more rules to what a speech requires, mostly rules that apply to writing a paper, more so than giving speeches. As a result, giving the speech hasn't changed, the topics and the amount of work that goes into giving the presentation have changed.

If you can maintain the same enthusiasm you had for Show and Tell, you're most of the way there.

The next part is delivering what the teacher asks for - a presentation about a particular subject in a particular form, with specific criteria. Just like writing a paper, you have to follow certain rules and use certain conventions. All of this is on the syllabus, and you should follow it to the letter. That goes without saying, but once you have it, consult it regularly when writing up and practicing your speech so you know you've dotted all the Is and crossed all the Ts. We'll talk more about the syllabus later, but in the meantime...

...Just back off. The day you get the assignment, put the syllabus in your bag, agree that you'll start working on the project tomorrow, and just forget about it. Don't get keyed up about how much the assignment stinks, just let it go for a day. Get your head together tomorrow.

Later, with your friends/classmates, you can rip on how lame it is you have a presentation to give, throw around some ideas, figure out who's doing what topics (or decide as a group if you have to have partners) and then just chill.

For the sake of argument we'll say there's 3 weeks to prepare for presentation day(s). There's more than enough time to get started...tomorrow.

Now that you've had a chance to decompress, its time to get to work.

Hopefully you've settled down and aren't stressing as hard about having to give a presentation. You've had a little time to relax, get motivated, maybe even thought about what you want to do and brainstormed a bit.

If you haven't brainstormed yet, kick some ideas around before starting your research phase.

Research

Before you can work on the presentation itself, you need information to talk about. This is your research phase. Doing research for a presentation isn't very different from doing research for a paper. You find sources of information, you find the appropriate information from those sources, you record what info came from what source, and you go onto the next source. You don't need to organize it all just yet, but you do need to collect it.

Depending on where you get your research from, and what sources are permitted, now is a good time to hit the library, dust of your professional sources or set down in front of the internet.

Generally figure out what your speech topic is about, and what categories go into discussing that topic. Categories might be history, how something works, benefits, dangers, quotes, schematics/diagrams/pictures, myths, how-tos and the like.

As you gather information, put each bit of info into a category so you can sort it out later.

Generally, the best way to sort out information and the best way to build a presentation is to outline your research.

Let's say you're giving a simple 4-6 minute speech on a topic. Your speech, including introduction, sequeways, conclusions and 3-4 categories worth of info will run from 4-6 minutes. As a result, you want to have about 3-4 categories in your speech. Again, refer to your assignment sheet/syllabus to make sure you're following ALL of the teacher's criteria.

Let's say that after doing all of your research on the topic, and after recording all sources for each snippet of info, you have 5 solid categories about which to speak, and 3 more with good information that don't really go anywhere else.

Take your info and data home so you can organize it. Don't forget to photocopy or print and pictures/diagrams/etc that might be useful for blowups/slides/drawings/simulations/models for visual aids. We'll talk about visual aids later.

Organization

Assuming you have 5 good categories worth of information, (and some more miscellaneous info) let's outline it.

As you probably already know, an outline has a simple A,B,C format for categories, with 1,2,3 format for subcategories for each category, and each subcategory can have its own sub-subcategories labeled a,b,c, and so forth as information gets more and more specific. You probably won't have to go deeper than sub-subcategories so we'll stop there.

Typical Outline Format

Based on your 5 categories of material, your outline might look like this:

A. History
1. Some History
2. Some More History
3. Interesting Fact
4. Modern Day
B. Benefits
1. Great
2. Neato
3. Cool
a. Really Cool
b. Unbelievably Cool
C. Problems
1. Bad Thing
2. Worse Thing
3. Worst Thing
D. Myths
1. Scary Myth
2. Weird Myth
E. Facts
1. Not So Scary Truth
2. Not So Weird Truth
3. Unrelated fact
4. Bonus fact
5. Bonus fact #2

That's about it, a simple outline that allows for all 5 of your categories, and each category has 3-5 points about it. Point 3 under B even has 2 sub-points (you had a lot reasons to explain why it was cool).

You COULD present all of this information, but it may not flow well, and it would go way too long. A good rule of thumb is 20 seconds for each point or sub-point beneath a category. History should take about a minute twenty to deliver (4 points), while Benefits might take a minute forty (3 points and 2 sub points). This time is flexible and can be a lot shorter. We'll talk about that later.

In the meantime, you have 5 categories outlined, and it looks like a solid report, but you'll need to cut it down a bit. Let's say as you look over the outline, you decide that talking about the benefits and problems of the topic more interesting than the myths and truths. Maybe your presentation is about both sides in an argument about something controversial, or you're simply educating people on how something popular can be used correctly and incorrectly.

You decide to keep the history section as a starter, segue (segues are lead-ins to the next section - we'll talk later) to the section on benefits, and then seque by counterpointing to the section on problems. That's the basic skeleton of your presentation - History, Benefits and Problems.

There are 12 points beneath those three categories in the outline, which means that the presentation will probably come in at about 4 minutes (12 points * 20 seconds each) Your introduction should be about 30 seconds, and each segue should be about 10 seconds. Your conclusion will probably be about 15 seconds. Intro, plus 2 segues (1 between each category) and conclusion = 1 minute 5 seconds. Add that to the material itself, that's a presentation of 5 minutes and 5 seconds, comfortably within our example of 4-6 minutes for this presentation.

You can use your outline to organize your intro, segues and conclusion as well.

Based on what we're planning to keep for your speech, your outline would look like this:

Introduction
A. History
1. Some History
2. Some More History
3. Interesting Fact
4. Modern Day
Segue to Benefits
B. Benefits
1. Great
2. Neato
3. Cool
a. Really Cool
b. Unbelievably Cool
Segue to Problems
C. Problems
1. Bad Thing
2. Worse Thing
3. Worst Thing
Conclusion

Note: The Introduction contains a mini-segue at the end to transition to History. Techically, you could ad a line Segue to History between introduction and History if you wanted to. That's up to you.

Also note that the outline you hand in as part of the assignment may or may not include the intro, transitions and conclusion. Some teachers want you to add them and some do not, as its assumed that you are transitioning. Read your assignment sheet/syllabus to be sure!

Great! It looks like you have enough information, and it's well organized. Now you have to craft the speech.

So far we've been assuming that the requirements for the speech are that it must fall between 4 and 6 minutes. Our outlines suggests a time of about 5:05. The reality will probably be far different, and the only way to be sure will be to put the speech together and test it.

I bring up this next section with the obvious warning. When you present a speech, you are doing just that: Presenting. You aren't reading word for word from a script. That having been said, the best way to get started is to write your speech up in script form. Bear with me.

Write up your speech, everything you want to say, in a word-for-word script. Start with your introduction, your segueway into the first topic, your topic points, your segue into the second topic, and so on right through the conclusion.

Remember, you will not be reading this script for your presentation. On presentation day, you will have refined the script into cards with speaking points on them, and you will be presenting in a free-flowing manner, not reading word for word from the script. First things first.

You will want to read the script to see if you like the sound and flow of all of your information.

Read through the script a few times, out loud, standing, as if you were reading a paper you wrote to the class.

Make changes as necessary to the quality of the "paper".

Once you are happy with the content, you'll want to do some timed runs.

If you don't own a stopwatch, I suggest you get one. A cheap one that starts/stops/resets is all you need, and some cell phones have stopwatches, so you might want to check yours if you have one.

Stand up and read the script out loud as if you were in front of the class. Time your speech normally, and record the result when you are done.

Perform 8-10 trials of your speech. You want a good batch of trials so you get good time data, and this will also help ingrain your speech when you condense it to note cards.

Let's say you do 10 trials, and these are the following times.

5:38
5:35
6:17
5:42
5:45
6:02
5:26
5:48
5:39
5:53

Quite a bit longer than your 5:05 outline assessment. Is this bad?

Just looking at the times, it's hard to tell if you're doing well or not. Most of the times fall between four and six minutes, your time requirement, but there's a couple that fall outside of those boundaries. So, were these good trials or not? To find out we'll have to do a little math and some simple statistics (oh no!)

First, lets convert the times to seconds. Four minutes equals 240 seconds, five minutes equals 300 seconds and six minutes equals 360 seconds.
(60 seconds x minutes)

After the number of minutes, you can just add the number of seconds to get the total seconds.

For example:
4:50 = 240 + 50 = 290 seconds
5:21 = 300 + 21 = 321 seconds
6:53 = 360 + 53 = 413 seconds

Converting your times you get:

5:38 = 338 seconds
5:35 = 335
6:17 = 377
5:42 = 342
5:45 = 345
6:02 = 362
5:26 = 326
5:48 = 348
5:39 = 339
5:53 = 353

There are quite a few times that fall in the 5:30s and 5:40s, which is good, but what about the two over six minutes. We won't worry about those until we've figured out the average.

To do that, take out the highest and lowest of the times. Statistically, they represent the most likely errors in the series, and can be removed. That's not to say that if you present your speech the way it is, that it won't go over six minutes, but judging by the trials, you are more likely to be in the 5:30-5:50 range. Let's be sure.

To calculate the average, take out the highest and lowest second tallies above (I've highlighted them in bold above) and add together the total of the other eight trials.

You should get a total of 2762 seconds over eight trials. To find the average, simply divide 8 into 2762.
2762 divided by 8 equals 345.25 seconds. Don't worry about the fraction, we'll just round down in this case so that we get an average of 345 seconds or:

5 minutes and 45 seconds.

This is your average time after eight trials. The numbers look pretty good. You are under your required time requirement with 15 seconds to spare. Moreover, two of your trials were within three seconds of the average, and one was exactly on it! Even with one averaged trial over six minutes, you hit the required time period 7 out of 8 times. Not bad at all.

So your speech sounds good, and it seems to be in the time range, but lets talk about Speed Speak.

When you are nervous and trying to run through your presentation, you will have a tendency to talk faster, take fewer pauses and generally rush through the speech.

There are techniques for slowing down, which I will get to, but many people speed up, because the brain and heart, powered by adrenaline, tend to make you talk faster.

Due to Speed Speak, you might perform up to 10% faster during your actual presentation. If you were to run the same ten trials in front of an audience, you might average as low as 5 minutes and 10 seconds or 35 seconds less than your 5:45 trials would indicate, just because you're nervous and excited.

Although Speed Speak can benefit you if your project is near the upper time limit, it can have a disastrous effect on your speech quality due to slurring, rushing and lack of breath. It's better to be calm, have a good pace and hug the six minute mark, then it is to rush and be closer to the middle.

So Speed Speak *can* help if you're long, and we should prevent Speed Speak, so what other methods are there to reduce time?

If you've gone long, check your outline. Do you have more than two sub-points under each point? If so, take one or two points out. Present the two, most important sub-points to back up each point.

Check your introduction and conclusion. Generally, you should be able to hook in one or two sentences. Some presenters like elaborate hooks, particularly if they are telling a story to warm up the audience. Consider a briefer hook, maybe one to two sentences, one to two sentences for your intro background, and a single sentence for your final introductory statement.

Conclusions can be very brief if time is an issue. A single sentence to recap your speech followed by a quick appeal is all that's necessary to be complete. If you've already laid everything out in detail in your speech, you shouldn't have to go on for very long for a conclusion.

Also, don't forget that a quick, efficient transition can buy you a couple of precious seconds.

Okay, but what if you fall short of the time? Just reverse the above. Is the body too short? Add more sub-points. Give more detail about your subject. If the introduction is skimpy, consider telling a story as your hook to stretch it out a bit. A good story can go on for 3-4 sentences and take up a good chunk of time, while still being relevant.

You probably won't beef up the conclusion too much, because it is the last place to try and provide a lot of information, but you can still draw it out a bit, perhaps changing some of your language and pausing where appropriate.

Again, don't forget your transitions. You can spread them out a bit to add time.

Also, if you're running short, add more pauses, generally for dramatic effect. If you say something funny, allow a couple seconds for laughter. If you say something particularly interesting or ominous, let it sink in for a moment. Don't be too jumpy to get to your next point. Let the audience savor what you are saying. The only danger with pauses is not to let them run too long, or to use them too often.

In short:

When trying to decrease your time, decrease your content, be more efficient in intros, conclusions and transitions and speak (a little bit) faster.

When trying to increase your time, increase your content, beef up intros, conclusions and transitions, concentrate on speaking slower, and add pauses (where appropriate).

When in doubt, add or subtract points from the heart of your speech. This is where the bulk of your time is stored.

For this example, we're on-time, and we anticipate a little bit of Speed Speak, so we're pretty comfortable with 5:45. The speech reads well, and you've had a chance to ingrain the flow of the speech through practice.

However, all this time, you've been reading your speech. Now, let's work on presenting your speech by developing your presentation outline.

The presentation outline is just for *your* purposes. No one else will see it. It's designed to give you a one word prompt for each point or sub-point so you can keep your thoughts in line, without upsetting the flow of the speech.

When you speak, you want to be able to look towards and speak directly to the crowd. If you look down at your notes while speaking, you don't look as if you are addressing the audience, your volume will be lower, and you'll look unprepared, all of which can reduce the performance part of your grade. Remember, the difference between this assignment and a paper is the *presentation*, so your posture and performance are very important.

Your speech is already pretty solid in your mind, because you've gone over it 10 (15, 20) times and you know the ins and outs of it pretty well. If after those trials, you were to write up a quick presentation outline, you could probably get through another run of your speech without any help from the script. All you would need is keyword prompts. Try it.

Check your outline and write it out again with single word prompts. The briefest of phrases is also permissible, but the less the better. You want to be prompted by your notecards which offer a keyword that will trigger the next part of your speech. The more you have to read, rather than intuit, the more it will slow you down. You want to be able to look down, get that keyword in an instant and go back to addressing the audience, without a long, uncomfortable pause.

For the outline, you want to use notecards, lined or unlined, your choice. I like the unlined ones, because that way the lines don't pull my vision away from the words on the card, and I can write as big as I want, which makes it easier to read. This isn't a first grade writing lesson and you don't have to be neat. No one else will see your notecards. You just have to be able to read them quickly at arms length.

You will probably have anywhere from 5-10 cards for a 3-5 point speech.

Possible cards would be for for Intro/segueway to first point, First point and sub-points, segueway to second point, second point and sub-points, segueway to third point, third point and segueway, conclusion.

There are no rules for what you put on each card. If you memorize your intro (especially if its long), segues and conclusion, you may not write cards for these. You might write a card for each sub-point. Do what works for you.

Once you've finished the presentation outline on cards, stand up as if you were about to present, and run through your speech again, this time only using your presentation outline for support.

Warning: It may not be pretty.

That's okay. You're changing gears and doing it a little differently from before, with prompts instead of fully fleshed out text. Avoid the urge to check your script. Work your way through the speech with just your presentation outline notecards. If the first run was clunky, do it again. And again. And again. Time the better runs and see how your times come in. Run through your speech until it's as comfortable as it was when you were reading the script.

When you can present your speech, briefly checking your notecards as you go, under time and with good speech quality, you know you're just about ready.

There's only a few more things to do before presentation day. If you've gotten this far, the hardest part of preparation is over. Kick back a bit, check in on your classmates and when you get the chance, check out your presentation area.

So far, all of your work has been in private. Now's the time to check the classroom or auditorium for all the info you need to properly present where your grade will be recorded.

Next time you can go into the class when its empty, take a friend and sit him or her at the *back* of the room. Talk to your friend in a conversational tone and check to see at what volume you must speak at to be heard well, without shouting. Ask for feedback as to how well your friend can hear you. You do not have to present any of your speech, just chatter about anything you feel like. Practice talking calmly, taking breathes as needed and not talking too fast. Take into account any echoes or ambient sounds, like air conditioners, heaters or even the electric hum from fluorescent lights. Your friend should be able to give you a seal of approval on volume, tone and speed.

The placement of your friend is critical. Your teacher will probably be sitting at the back of the room to grade presentations, so if he or she can't hear you, you're in trouble. Also, this guarantees that everyone in the room can hear you.

Once you have the back of the room covered, check the front. In addition to space for yourself, the presenter, you will need room for visual aids.

Every classroom should have a blackboard/whiteboard with a ledge for chalk and markers. This is a perfect spot for placing thin visual aids (posterboard and the like).

Check the front for sockets. If you need audio/visual aids, make sure you have somewhere to plug the device in. Classrooms usually have multiple sockets, but you don't want to be fumbling around for them during set-up. Scout them out now. Do you need extension cords? Do you need more outlets than are available? Do you need splitters/power strips?

Is there enough space to put a big display, a table, a stand or some other large prop? If not, would you have to/be able to move chairs, desks and other impediments to make room?

Is there a podium/lectern at the front of the room? Do you want one? Just because its there, doesn't mean you have to use it.

Frankly, I don't like podiums/lecterns. It's a crutch. Speakers hide behind them and lean on them and teachers hate that. If you put your cards on it, its hard to pick them up again, wasting time to go to the next card. If you need to interact with visual aids, you have to move away from them to go into view of the aid and then what's the point of putting your cards there, besides the fact that the podium will obscure some people's view of the visual aids. If you have to have a surface, I think a table is better, where you can control the contents and its visible to just about everyone. Bring your own table (the taller the better) and move the podium, if it moves.

If you're not at some gala event where there's a head table and a podium, and all you're doing is speaking, you probably don't need one. Remember, we're talking about a classroom here (usually).

Is there a screen for slides and movies? Is there a tv/vcr/film projector for media? The classroom probably has a screen if you need one, and the A/V department will probably provide a t.v./vcr/projector if you ask, but you still have to consider film standards, projection size and the like. Unless your visual aids are being shown by high-tech A/V gear or your movies/slides are big clear pictures, you may want to avoid them. Text on screen is very difficult to read on film/video/overhead unless its *BIG*, and you may not be able to make it big enough, depending on the venue. Stick to pictures for A/V displays.

Sound Recordings are ok, but make sure the quality is very good. Try the sound in your classroom when you test your own voice. Have your friend listen to it to see if its understandable, loud enough, no distortion, etc. Consider bringing your own A/V equipment if at all possible. What looks great on your machine at home may look awful on the school's unit.

I've always been a proponent of good old posterboard as a visual aid, unless I have props or the actual item I'm talking about. I'll go into much more detail on posterboard development and maintenance later.

Note to Teachers: If you're really feeling benevolent to your students, when you hand out the Assignment Sheet, you could also hand out a Classroom Diagram complete with outlet locations, dimensions and a list of A/V and presentation hardware available to the students for presentations. Although I recommend students get into the habit of inspecting on their own, this is an invaluable resource to assist in producing high-quality presentations, especially when its sanctioned by the teachers themselves.

One more thing. Before you leave, measure the room front to back, so you know how big to make your visual aids.

Once you have all the information you need from the classroom, you can go back home and work on polishing your presentation with visual aids.

As we discussed in the previous section, you have a lot of options for visual aids, and the planning that goes into them for proper use.

Do you make a simple marker/posterboard visual aid? Make up some overheads sheets? Bring in props and items? Shoot a movie or some slides and get a projector? Whip up a PowerPoint presentation and get a viewer? There are a ton of options. Be as creative as you want, but my recommendation would be to start as simply as possible, and only get more complex when you absolutely have to.

Any 4-6 minute speech can be done with a single posterboard visual aid. Props are also easy visual aids because you can handle them and display features on the actual item.

Audio and Video take longer to set up, produce and edit, and are open to more problems like dead bulbs, busted tape, over exposed film, power outages (at home, while you're working on them) and the like. A/V is much better suited to big auditoriums where a poster usually isn't big enough. Unless its critical, leave the fancy tech at home.

Remember, your visual aids don't have to be incredible, they just have to be descriptive and high enough quality to get the job done. They augment your presentation, they are not the bulk of it.

Due to its simplicity, low cost and commonness, we will devote the majority of our time on developing posters.

Note: You don't have to be artistically inclined, particularly neat or brilliant to make good visual aid posters. I am *not* able to draw worth a darn, and my handwriting is chickenscratch (hooray for computers), but there are plenty of tracing tools, stencils, photocopiers and pictures that you can paste, staple and trace. If you can cut, follow lines, color within the lines and use a ruler and pencil, then you're 99% of the way there.

Posters don't have to contain a tremendous amount of information. It could hold your main points, but more likely it will show images/diagrams of the item itself, location or equipment used. Maps, diagrams, and represented images are perfect for one or more posters to display. Anything that compliments the speaking portion of your presentation. You can draw diagrams or get them from books, and pictures are easy: Books, magazines, internet or take your own. Blow up pictures/diagrams as much as possible, and consider making a poster with just the picture on it, with another poster with text describing it.

Lettering and Layout

Lettering is easy to do, and will make up a good portion of your visual aids. Before you start, you need to know how big text needs to be. This is one of the most common mistakes most people make - the text is just too darn small.

Your letters should be about an inch tall for every 10 feet of classroom. When you were scouting out your classroom, you measured the room front to back, right? Let's say the room is 35 feet deep, from chalkboard to back wall. This means that your poster lettering should be a minimum of 4 inches tall for legibility (round up). You can't go too big, so go BIG.

The best posterboard is plain white. If you get colored board, make sure it is very, very light. Even gel pens on black don't provide very good visibility. What looks good at 3 feet, won't be legible at 35. Darker board is a good contrast to a lighter picture or a picture on white paper, but text will not appear on it well. Use your best judgment.

Posterboard also has a shiny gloss side and a dull matte side. You always want to work on the dull matte side. The shiny side causes smearing, is harder to print on and produces glare which makes it hard to work on and difficult to view. Always work on the dull side.

If you make a mistake, you *can* flip it over, but I find the gloss side to be too much of a pain to work with. Posterboard is cheap, and you can use the scrap for something else.

Once you have a nice clean sheet of poster board, lightly sketch out your lettering, maps, pictures, etc. in pencil. I like the thin mechanical pencils which make a line that isn't visible at a distance but shows you what you're doing up close. The nub on the end of mechanical pencils make for poor erasers, so get a good big gum eraser. For the lead itself, look for a low hardness number (#1), and if you use a standard pencil, invest in a fine point (F). You're good old #2 pencil may be too dark if you make a lot of mistakes, but will work if that's all you have. Press Lightly.

A ruler or a t-square will help you make lines for placing photos and as guidelines for text. Draw in top and bottom guidelines for titles. Calculate to make sure you have room for all words, and where you will have to wrap words around. Since the letters in this example are 4 inches high, they should be about 2 inches wide. Make the spacing as big or small as makes you comfortable. Sketch them in and then erase the guidelines.

Some people like to buy stencils for this purpose. I freehand block letters myself, which look a little less clean, and take a little longer, but I can freehand as big as I want. If you're artistically inclined you can do a lot with freehand lettering. The other drawback of stencils is if you're doing non-roman characters (Chinese, Japanese, Russian) then a roman stencil won't help you.

Continue to sketch in whatever lettering or pictures best display your speech. When you are happy with the pencil results, I like to use a fine-tipped Sharpie marker to ink it. They are reliable, accurate, and come in a variety of colors so you don't have to use basic black if you don't want to. Black is best for most text, but you may want some color here and there for emphasis and to make things pop on your poster. Keep in mind, black lettering on a white poster board will be the most visible, although red, blue and green also work well. Experiment to taste, and at your own risk.

If you're worried that one poster isn't enough to serve your visual needs, don't cram. Spread two elements onto two separate posters, and refer to them separately. If you're really talented, you could stretch a map or diagram across two linked posters. I wouldn't go any bigger, and even linking 2 is unwieldy.

If no one can stop you from linking 2 or more posters, be sure to seal the edges from behind with good old gray duct tape. The tape will never come off(!) and it will give you a nice hinge for the poster. Make sure the chalkboard or easel will hold your bigger poster. You may have to attach something that big to the wall using tape.

Generally, your poster should be able to stand on a ledge by itself. Needing something like tape to hold it in place is a risky proposition.

If you're adding pictures, I recommend using paste or white glue. Staples are a bit crude, and paste/glue is strong enough to keep pictures in place. If you want to take them off the poster after the presentation, and don't want to tear them, consider using blue-tack. You can apply it to the back of the picture and adhere it to the posterboard. You may have some tack on the picture afterward, but it shouldn't tear the picture when taking it off if you are careful.

Once you are finished with the poster, you should practice with it. Break out your speech and read over it with the visual aids in mind. When should you direct attention to your visual aids? Is it part of a point, or can it be introduced in the introduction or segueway? Will it be referenced more than once? Do you need to stand on one side or the other of it for easier pointing? (Ah, bet you didn't think of that when you were designing it).

Work your visual aids into your speech and while standing up, give the speech as if you were in front of the class. Read through your speech, pointing to or addressing your visual aids as needed. Mark your presentation outline cards with a note to help remind you to access your visual aids.

You may not be able to control when your speech is due, but you may be able to take control of when you deliver your speech.

If you're like me, you dread waiting in your seat for the teacher to pick you by whatever method is being used (sometimes alphabetically, sometimes, by rows, or purely by random).

If there is a signup sheet for when to go, here are a few ideas about when to go.

Most people try to go as late as possible and the bottom of the signup sheet fills up pretty quickly. These people are just nervous, or need more time to finish, or both. Fear and procrastination shouldn't drive you on this project. You should be able to call confidence and competence to get you through the speech and get a good grade.

Embrace the deadline, don't avoid it.

If anything, even if you haven't absorbed much up to this point, you should want to get the speech over with. That being said, if you are prepared, you don't have anything to worry about, just talk to the class. There is a therapeutic, quick band-aid rip quality to going sooner rather than later.

What else is important? Would you rather go on a Friday, where your reward might be closer? Would you rather go on Monday so you have the weekend to work on your speech. Does seeing other presentations first make doing yours easier? How many do you need to see to make a decision? Is there someone you definitely want to go ahead of (because they tend to be really good) or someone you want to follow because you know they won't be as good? (a bad way to feel about your fellow classmates, but some things can't be helped). Or maybe your position is determined by similar projects. You don't want to go right after someone who's doing a similar speech, right?

So what to do? Scheduling is personal. You need to figure out what criteria are important to you, and schedule based on that.

Let me tell you my method. I like to go first on the second day. I always pick that spot if at all possible. Why? I get the best of both worlds. I get to relax on the first day, while watching what my classmates are doing to see what the standard for speeches is. Is everyone doing poorly? Average? Are they doing really well? Is there a trend that shows I'm missing something from my speech? Day one gives me a chance to size up the standards, and see if what I've done so far is good enough to present yet. That gives me a night to fine tune. If nothing else, I have one extra day to finish details, etc. I don't like to procrastinate, but sometimes you need an extra day, and if I've scheduled it ahead of time, then you know you have it to lean on.

Why FIRST on the second day? Now that I've gotten
my presentation perfected, I get to go first. Going first gives you some serious benefits. I like to get to the classroom as quickly as I can, so I can set up. Now I'm already in front of the class. I have plenty of time to set up visual aids, move furniture, greet people, and watch the classroom fill up.

As a result, I feel like I'm in a position of power. I'm not another student, I'm like the teacher, ready to teach, rather than a nervous student trying to grind out a project.

As people come in the classroom, I greet them. This tells people, as they can see from my setup, that I'm going to give the next speech. It generates interest over the several minutes it takes for the classroom to fill up, everyone to settle down, etc.

Instead of going right from my desk to the front, I've been up front for several minutes. I'm already warmed-up, my setup is ready, and I'm ready to speak.

If the teacher wants to do something up front at the start of the class, just move to the side, stay up front and wait until the teacher is done. When he/she takes the spot at the back of the room, you can start.

I usually ask ahead of time if its ok to setup before class starts, and I've never had a problem.

There are two kinds of people when it comes to presentations: Those that are ready to Git-Er-Done, and those that just want to Get It Over and Be Done With It (There, better grammar).

You may still feel nervous, but you must cultivate the attitude of being prepared, confident, and ready to go, because you are now as solid as you can be.

You did good research, keeping track of all the information your teacher desires including sources, you've developed your turn-in materials, probably a bibliography and/or information outline, you've written and exhaustively practiced your speech. You've created visual aids that augment your presentation and they are all ready to go. The only thing that is left to do is give your excellent presentation for the grade you deserve (calm down, I mean a GOOD grade).

The night before the big day, go over your speech a couple more times, make sure you have it down cold, can deliver it smoothly, and iron out any wrinkles. Pack your bags tonight. Make sure you have all of your notecards, turn-in documents, visual aids including posters, props, A/V hardware and extras like samples, hand-out sheets for class, batteries - anything and everything you need. Make a list and double/triple check it. Mom and Dad are usually nagging you if you remember to take everything everywhere, so now's a good time for them to put this practice into use.

A note about posterboards. Pack this last, and don't even really pack it. The RIGHT WAY (not just my way, but THE way) to transport posterboard is to curl it lengthwise so that the edges touch, but WITHOUT ROLLING OR CREASING THE BOARD. Carry it from the top. So many of your classmates make the mistake of rolling it into a tube, and cramming it into a backpack so that when they get there, the posterboard is constantly slipping off the easel or chalkboard. You can't unroll or uncrease posterboard.

Just bring the short edges together, tie two pieces of string loosely around the bundle so that when you hold the strings the posterboard looks like a water drop (slender at the top, big and round at the bottom). This way, when you cut the strings, your poster will spring to its original straightness, ready to stand up by itself. Ta-Da!

This does make the poster a little harder to carry, so you may need a ride (which is why you have friends and parents). Plot out enough time to get all of your materials to school.

As I said before, you should be confident in what you've done so far. For that reason, other than a heightened level of preparedness, don't do anything differently than you normally would on any other day. Don't act like you're going to your execution, because you're not. Don't agonize the night before about being prepared, so get a good night's sleep. Have a normal breakfast, you'll need the energy. If you loosen up before school with some computer/console gaming, reading, music, whatever, do that. It's just another day of school.

Ok, once you get to school, you probably have more materials than you want to carry around all day, so stow everything either in class or in your locker. This seems like a no-brainer, but putting things in class makes it easier to setup later. Be sure the teacher is OK with you stowing stuff there, and that there is a safe place to put materials. If any of your props, samples, etc. are valuable or potentially theft-worthy, it's better to stow them in your locker or on your person. Just don't forget them before class!!!

So you're at school, ready to go, all of your materials are onhand, and the bell rings indicating that your class is starting...

More on Presentation Day soon!

Let's start with the one you hear the most - To make yourself feel better, pretend that everyone in the crowd is in their underwear, or nude, or have something up their nose, or some other ridiculous thing that is supposed to make you feel superior to the crowd, as opposed to the usual mindset, that the crowd is going to laugh at you, make fun of you, will be bored, or will be generally unpleasant in some way.

It's this destructive mindset that makes public speaking so hard in the first place. Everyone thinks they're going to die on stage. Ok, maybe you will, but I find that the worst speeches are given by people who have not prepared their material and are not confident about their speech, have not practiced, and or don't have any public speaking skills, because they haven't been TAUGHT any.

I always thought it was merciless to make kids give speeches when they get no education in how a speech should be organized, developed, rehearsed and delivered. Sure, kids learn how to write essays, and theater students get a better education and more practice on performance, but the general curriculum doesn't give kids, who are generally shy and underdeveloped anyway, any tools in order to undertake this tricky task, one which many adults with decades more experience still have not mastered.

So, we tell kids to visualize something nonsensical, like everybody is ugly and stupid, or whatever, in an attempt to take their minds off of the task at hand. That's the problem. It's a distraction to the already underdeveloped speaker. It also doesn't really change the audience. So the net effect at best is that the speaker grinds through the required speech, giving a crummy performance but saving their fragile ego, or worst case scenario, attempting to distract themselves from the task at hand, they lose track of what they're doing, give a bad speech and feel bad about it, thus reinforcing the mindset that "speeches are hard, and I hate giving them".

Instead of trying to block out what you're doing, you need to embrace the project, like you would any other school assignment, if you expect to succeed. This is done by creating a speech preparation and presentation system that you can apply every time and that works for you every time.

You can't ace a test if you don't study, you can't get a good grade on a paper if you don't write cogently and organize your sources, and you can't finish a lab if you don't follow the steps and measure accurately (ok, some people breeze through these things, cheat, etc., but if that isn't you, then keep reading).

In other words, there's the right way to do things, and the wrong way to do things, which tends to be when nothing is attempted. I'm not saying my suggestions are the only right way to give a speech. They work for me, and have worked for many of my peers and clients. What I'm saying is, when you apply certain, tried methods and adapt a system to your preferred way of doing things, your speeches, and your accompanying state of mind, will always be better than if you used no method at all and just went through the motions. You will actually be learning a skillset, instead of trying to survive an assignment.

The imagining trick is a copout. You're saying that your speech won't be any good, so you find a way to put on blinders and grind through the speech. No good.

Here's a few suggestions you should take to build your skillset. I discuss these in greater detail in my tips in later modules.

The crowd is not against you - School is the perfect place to master your public speaking skills because its the only place in life where the audience is in the same boat as you. When you're CEO of SquidCo, the employees won't be giving speeches, you will. They won't have to get up after you and talk about some other boring corporate thing. No, in school, everyone in the audience who "thinks your speech stinks and that you're going to crash and burn" has to do the same exact thing. Oh, they may still think your speech is lousy, or be bored by the whole process, but they have to do what you have to do, so you can use that to your advantage.

Nothing builds confidence like being prepared - If you think your speech stinks, there's probably a good reason. It's because your speech stinks. You didn't do your research, you didn't organize it well, you can't read, understand or organize your cue cards, your visual aids are ugly or unreadable, etc. That's a prep problem. If you turn in a badly written essay, or one that has no material, then you know you're getting a bad grade. If you don't prepare a good speech, you know you'll feel bad, perform worse and get looked at by your class like you're brain damaged. Fix the front end, and the back end will help itself.

Deliver your speech and engage the audience, don't just "give a speech" - But how?!? I cover this later on, but its like what my old teachers wrote on my essays when I was phoning em in - Show, don't tell. It's easy to just regurgitate an idea on paper or read from your cue cards in a monotone. To get good grades, and more importantly, develop your speaking skills, you have to actually deliver, not just read.

All of these concepts don't simply happen, unless you're a natural. Very few people are, so read on fellow speech-haters, because I'm here to help.

I'm also open to new ideas. If I can learn a new trick, and teach it to others, I'm all for it. There's no one right way. Again, my tips and tricks work for me; some will work for you and some just will not work for you. You and I are probably just wired differently, and admittedly, its been a long while since I've been in school.

Nonetheless, some things never change, and the criteria for a good presentation NEVER change.

Forget about concentrating on what Cindy Jenkins or Phil Dorfman is wearing, (or not wearing) and concentrate on what you're DOING. And what SHOULD you do? Read on.