Write what you want to say



I am always dreading whenever I have to do public speaking. Time moves faster when I try to speak below the time limit, and it moves slower if I don’t have time limit at all. 

This journal club is my second time presenting scientific data. The first time I did it was for my UROP meeting where the presentation lasted around 40 mins including Q&A sessions here and there in the middle. Having said that, I thought that this one’s going to be less challenging. But I was wrong. Time is not the issue here. 

In public speaking, my biggest fear is to lose my trains of thoughts. Therefore, what I try to do is to write a script and memorize what I want to say. Sometimes I feel bad doing this because I don’t want the presentation to sound unnatural. But I just learned that even the top CEOs and the TED speakers do that, including Winston Churchill who was known for being a great orator. He wrote his speech and crafted it so perfectly, knowing where to pause and where to emphasize, and knowing when to anticipate his people to say ‘hear, hear!” 

So I don't feel bad anymore whenever I have to write my script. And that's been very helpful in overcoming my fear of public speaking. 

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