My first real public speaking gig was in Grade 6. Despite being a shy kid who preferred looking at his shoes to making eye contact, my speech somehow cracked the top 3 in class. This happened again in grades 8 and 10, so maybe my nascent extroversion just needed a little encouragement.
Good thing, because as a professor, I make my living giving talks. Yet anyone who's set foot in a university auditorium knows that many of us are dreadful at it. So are students. It's baffling: every university has writing centers and pedagogy workshops, but I've never seen a public speaking center. We just throw people on stage and hope for the best.
That's a shame, because this skill matters. Consider this a correction for that omission.
Fear of public speaking ranks higher than fear of death for most people, which explains why so many academics would rather hide in their labs than present their work. I know tenured professors who still break into sweats before giving talks. If you’re afraid of public speaking, you are in good company.
Here are ten things I think are important when creating and giving a talk, in (almost) no particular order. Consider this list subjective: These are things that work for me but might not work for everyone. I also realize that giving talks comes easier to some—those who are extroverted have the leg up here—but hopefully one or two of these points will resonate with you, even if you're bashful and hate public speaking.
1. Have empathy for your audience
This first one is the most important, and it also undergirds many of my other points. Consider your audience's perspective and who they are—undergraduate students, general public, whatever. Ask yourself how much they know about your topic and how motivated they are to be there and adjust your talk and explanations to reach most of your audience. I'll give a different talk to undergraduates taking my course for credit than to the public, who are attending voluntarily because they're actually interested. These groups differ in both motivation and background knowledge, so I’ll adjust accordingly.
2. Beware the curse of knowledge
If you're giving a talk, you've probably developed some expertise about a topic. You know it well. This deep understanding means you forget what it's like to be a novice first learning about it. You might forget how difficult or dense the subject matter can be for beginners. This is especially brutal in academia, where we're often rewarded for making simple things sound complicated. Again, this comes back to empathy: consider your audience's perspective and imagine learning about your topic for the first time. You don't need to dumb things down, but don't assume your audience knows all the jargon and every acronym. I'll assume more knowledge at a professional conference than with the general public, but I still try not to assume too much or I'll lose my audience. Better to over-explain than under-explain so that beginners can follow along.
3. Pay attention to how your audience is responding
A talk is interactive, even if the audience never speaks or raises their hands. A good speaker relies on cues from the audience and adjusts on the fly when things are or aren't going well. This is why giving talks over Zoom, especially when attendees turn their cameras off, as undergraduates are wont to do, is terrible and soul-sucking: it transforms something that should be interactive and dynamic into something staid and unidirectional. Look at the audience and ask yourself if they're engaged or bored. Are they on their phones? Do they look perplexed? If they're bored, you need to change your tempo. If they look confused, slow down, and elicit questions to clarify misunderstandings.
4. Slides should complement, not compete with you
Have you attended a talk where the presenter's slides contain paragraphs of text? This mistake is incredibly common. Slides are there to illustrate and emphasize. Psychologists are marginally better at this than scholars in other disciplines, but that's like being the hardest working nihilist. Slides aren't a replacement for you, the speaker. They're also not a replacement for your notes. Slides are for your audience, so—again—take into account their perspective. When you pack your slides with too many words, you create cognitive load for them; they must decide between paying attention to you or your slides. You want to make yourself clear. (“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening). I have a rule of thumb in my lab: no more than 12 words per slide. An exception is undergraduate classes or teaching in general, where your slides should contain more information so students can study from them.
5. Project your voice
Speak so the back of the room can hear you. If people can't physically hear you, they won't be able to attend to you, no matter how motivated they are. I once gave a talk in a noisy bar with a poor PA system. Despite the audience being motivated—I mean, they paid money to hear me—many weren't engaged because they simply couldn't decipher what I was saying. If there's a microphone, use it, no matter how annoying you find it. If you're soft-spoken, practice projecting your voice. I mean it. Breathe through your diaphragm and make your voice resonate from your chest, not your throat. If this doesn’t come naturally, check out resources online, like this, for help. Projection is about using your breath and body efficiently so your voice carries naturally and confidently. This is more important than you might imagine.
6. Make yourself big
I'm short, clocking in at a paltry 5 foot, 5 inches (165cm). With shoes. If I spoke like so many speakers do, I'd be a bobbing head behind a lectern. There'd be very little to look at. And trust me, if you're boring and invisible, you've achieved the academic chef’s kiss of irrelevance. Because I don't want to play second fiddle to my slides, I prefer to get out on stage and walk around, gesticulate, and express myself naturally. I can't do any of this if I'm stapled behind the lectern. Also, for God's sake, stand up! I haven't seen this often, but occasionally I see people give talks sitting down. Don't ever do this. Standing gives you energy and gives your audience something to look at.
7. Be enthusiastic
This is another big one. Show passion for your topic. If you're not enthusiastic about your own research, how do you expect others to be? If you suffer from low energy, drink loads of caffeine (or maybe consume another substance). Don't be the dead-eyed researcher droning about “fascinating findings” while looking like you'd rather be anywhere else. Remind yourself why you found your research question so interesting that you thought it was worth spending years trying to answer it, and channel that enthusiasm.
8. Remember: A talk is not a paper
Papers and talks serve different functions. A paper is where you tell the world what you did in as much detail as possible, so readers understand your research and how to replicate it themselves. A talk is where you promote your paper. It’s where you spread the news about your research and maybe get feedback, too. Given the time constraints of any talk and the limits of human attention, you'll need to make choices about what to present and what not to present. Ask yourself what details are essential, what will bore most of your audience, and what can be addressed during the question period. I typically skip lots of methodological details and give a broad overview of my methods instead (interested audience members can read the paper if they want more detail). Others might choose differently. But always remember to take into account your audience's perspective when you make these choices.
9. Do not memorize your talk
I suspect some will disagree with this one, and this might be advice for more advanced speakers. While it's useful to write out your talk, I find that memorizing it hurts more than it helps. Not only is memorization challenging, it can also leave people paralyzed if they lose their place or are interrupted by a question. I've seen this happen a few times, especially with students. I prefer to simply speak my talk. Know what you're going to say and then just say it. This means it'll come out a little different each time, but that's okay. My only exception is if you have a turn of phrase or joke that you think will slay. In that case, memorize that specific joke or phrase so you don’t biff it.
10. Find the smiling face in the crowd
If you're nervous or feel that things aren't going well, find a smiling and nodding face. Hey, strong men also cry, and sometimes you need that lifeline. There's always at least one of these nodders in every audience and they're a godsend. Find that person and give your talk to them. That doesn't mean you stare at them—that would be weird for them and everyone else—but, as you scan the audience while speaking, look at them a bit more often. These people have saved me on more than one occasion, and they can save you, too. And if you want to pay it forward, be that smiling and nodding face in the audience the next time you're at a talk. Someone will need you!
Giving talks isn't rocket science, but it's no day at the bowling alley, either. The fact that we don't teach this skill in universities says something depressing about how little we value communication. We're brilliant at generating knowledge but often terrible at sharing it with the humans who fund our research and could benefit from it.
Most of these problems boil down to empathy: considering your audience's perspective instead of assuming they care as much about your research as you do. Which, spoiler alert, they don't. At least not yet.
So next time you're up there, remember: your job isn't to prove how smart you are. It's to make your audience glad they showed up.
This is great, Mickey, I agree with all of it. As someone who is rather introverted and was always terrified of public speaking, what has helped me is to think of talks and teaching as giving a "performance." Not in a bullshit inauthentic sense, but rather that I am playing a role. It is not "me" out there, per se, but "me as teacher." I am not an extravert, at all, but I know how to pretend act like one when I need to. Others with similar dispositions have described taking a similar approach. It has been highly effective. (also, just to get a dig in, extreme extraverts often give terrible talks!)
These are great suggestions Mickey! I give a yearly lecture on how to give presentations and I was struck by many of the tips I give overlap with yours. I have a few additional ones, though, particularly geared toward nonnative speakers (of English). You've inspired me to write a Substack post with my own suggestions, maybe I'll do so in a few weeks.