public speaking: avoiding improvisation

[eco_env]

I plan transitions between slides, figure out a good way to say something, and then the next time I do the talk (practice or real) I end up saying things differently, lose my elegant transitions, and make mistakes (not major, just misspeaking). How do I avoid this without writing and memorizing the whole speech? or is that what I have to do? it seems like that would make it come out too monotonic.

[fuzzylogician]

I wouldn't memorize the whole talk. I think talks are much better when the speaker doesn't "stick to a script". Personally what matters to me is that I have a good plan for the first couple of slides - getting myself past the introduction and into the first slide of actual content. Once I'm there, I feel more comfortable and have a flow going. At that point, it doesn't really matter if the talk doesn't proceed word-for-word exactly as I planned it, as long as I know where I'm going and am keeping track of the time. If that is the case for you, and it sounds like it is, then I wouldn't worry about it. I think it's much better to have a natural speech-style delivery of the talk than one that is too precise and planned. Practicing more would probably help reduce the amount of misspeaking and bad-transition incidents and I still find it helpful--though time consuming--to write a full script for my talk, even though I don't follow it precisely, but beyond that if your talks are getting the point across in a reasonable way and within time, I would say you're doing fine.

[nehs]

You sound as though you get a little nervous in public speaking. This is natural and happens with me too. The trick is to be really prepared for the first few slides. This will allow the audience to engage with you and also allow you to get confident. Memorizing might help some but for me I lose track and then end up only saying 50% of what I had planned. Practice a couple of times in your home/with a friend.

You could try writing for the next couple of times. Just write out key words that will help you develop your presentation.

[LawlQuals]

I think you could benefit from more practice in presenting in general. Gaining a proficiency and comfort in speaking will ensure there is no second thoughts about how you ended up saying something from one run through or the next, you will be able to phrase it in a good way either way. This is something that I think is really beneficial about having a TA position, it gives you general practice repeatedly throughout a semester (for me, 3-4 times a week). I prefer not cluttering my slides with too many words, and try to have mostly pictures (plots, etc.) with *key* points written down for the audience to see and anchor my verbal point making with. Beyond that, what I say during a presentation is worth the breath because it adds to the presentation, the total package is not something that could be obtained by just reading the slides alone. Of course, you naturally have to find a balance with including too little and too much detail. Including just enough detail so that what you say is easily tracked on your slides and does not demand the audience to pay extreme attention to your words and to keep your points in a memory bank to later recall and juxtapose.

What you do not want to do is get into the habit of reading anything (which you never said you did, I am speaking generally). In a sense, all my presentations are "entirely improvised." I do not know how I am going to say things before I do it, I just know what content I need to communicate. People may not agree with me, but I discourage over-rehearsing and script writing, it can make presenting unnatural. It is more useful to get into the habit of just talking, so that you understand the pacing required for you to think and choose agreeable phrasing without "misspeaking." This takes some time, but not too much time. Something dire I see some students do is, should they be using something like powerpoint, they crowd their "notes" for each slide with paragraphs of words, what they intended to say. This is dangerous.

I once attended a colloquium where someone who had been in my industry for 45 some years, and much of it was in the navy. He made an off-the-cuff remark to the audience a ways into his talk. He stated something to the effect of: "You might notice that I rarely look back at my slides, and that I'm not really saying a whole lot of what is actually up there. This is something you get used to in the Navy. When I used to give presentations, I had a [superior officer] that if he sensed you were reading slides, would cut you off and bark at you 'if all you're going to do is read a speech, get out of the way so we can read, what good are you?,' although he put it much more profanely and directly.' He made a point to tell us that anecdote about how he learned the rough way how to present.

I am being pretty loquacious and possibly not touching on relevant points by now. The point is, improvisation is a good thing. Learn to handle it, rather than try to evade it is my advice.