Monday, June 05, 2006
Use Speaker’s Notes:
- Even if you will never actually use them when you speak, have one or two sentence bulleted/outlined as insurance.
- They give you peace of mind.
- Professional speakers use notes when they speak. They don’t want to leave anything out and want to deliver the information as planned.
- Notes that are written as whole sentences or in paragraph form are worse than useless! It is impossible to find your place and guarantees that you will get lost.
- Should you memorize? You will look and sound surer of yourself when you just explain your ideas to others. Memorization carries with it much anxiety of forgetting! Often, people sound as if they are reading their information when they speak from memorization.
- The recommendation is that your notes cue you to your idea and remind you of certain numbers or phrases.
- Will you say things exactly the same way each time? No! As long as you have explained your ideas and not left anything out, you have done the job. Trying to say things exactly the same way is a source of anxiety.
- Power Point – print out visuals three-to-a-page or six-to-a-page. Write your outline on those pages. As listeners are reading a new screen, look at your notes and smoothly take a full breath.
