How to Battle Fear of Public Speaking

Tips to Help You Get Through the Public Speaking JittersSource: “Speaking Intelligently” by Joann Brown and Brian SchrinerThe book describes communication as “the process of people sharing thoughts, ideas, and feelings with each other in commonly understandable ways.” (Ch. 1, pg 3) It is essential that we wholly understand how to get our point across effectively through communication.
 Many people fear public speaking because they have communication apprehension, but there are many ways to alleviate the communication jitters. Some ways of preventing speech anxiety are: being prepared, knowing your intro. and conclusion, knowing your audience, and selecting an appropriate topic that fits your audience. (Ch. 2, pg 54). The speech delivery methods are: Impromptu, Memorized, Manuscript, and Extemporaneous.(Ch. 2, pg 55) Both Impromptu and Extemporaneous are ineffective methods of giving a speech in this class, and will result in an automatic F. The speaker should use a maximum of 5 cue cards, or highlight main points from their outline, but avoid reading directly from it to the class. While giving the speech “you gestures should be natural, you should avoid repetitive gestures, and your nonverbals should be consistent with the spoken message.” (Ch. 2, pg 58) It is important that the speaker analyze his/her audience and that he/she understand their topic in relation to the audience’s demographics.