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THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR CELL BIOLOGY

CHAPTER 3 • COMMUNICATION 31

physical and emotional state will have on the

quality of your presentation? The answer to

that question is ‘yes’.

First of all, it is important to establish if

your fear of public speaking is a “trait” or a

“state”. As defined by Rudolf Verderber in

The Challenge of Effective Speaking, a “trait” is a

relatively ongoing characteristic of an indi-

vidual, while a state is the “state” of mind a

person experiences from time-to-time. If you

suffer from trait nervousness, all communica-

tion tasks you perform — laboratory meet-

ings, teaching, even friendly conversations —

are impaired by this fear. It is estimated that

up to 20% of the population may experience

trait communication nervousness, which

may require formal attention from public

speaking professionals in order to be con-

trolled. If, on the other hand, you handle rou-

tine communication tasks with ease, then it is

likely that you suffer from a state of nervous-

ness, the possible negative consequences of

which may be avoided with the following

preparation strategies:

Select the Content of Your

Presentation Carefully

Make an outline of your talk. The first out-

line you prepare is likely to contain more

information than can be accommodated com-

fortably in the time allowed. Prune your data

to include the best evidence to support your

conclusions. Unless absolutely necessary, do

not present experiments or procedures with

which you are not thoroughly familiar or

data from new experiments that may be pre-

liminary. Likewise, do not use slides that con-

tain extraneous information. Take advantage

of the technology available to make slides

customized for your talk. Presenting clear,

informative slides will benefit your audience,

and it will make preparing and giving your

talk much easier. On your slides, label data

with short, descriptive words. Numbering

lanes on a gel may be suitable for a manu-

script, but, when flashed on a screen, these

numerals will convey nothing to your audi-

ence. More importantly, they will not func-

tion as a prompt for you during your talk. If

your work involves a new or a modified tech-

nology, project a flow diagram of the tech-

nique as you are describing it verbally. Lastly,

think about including a brief heading for

each slide which will highlight the point you

would like to make.

Prepare a Scripted Beginning

and Ending to Your Presentation

Once the content of your presentation has

been finalized, the next step is to write one or

two opening sentences that summarize con-

cisely the research question your data will

address. These sentences should be scripted,

memorized and typed legibly on a note card

which will accompany you to the podium.

Stage fright peaks at the moment immediate-

ly before you are introduced and it is not at

all uncommon for you to “blank out” on the

way to the stage. You can rebound quickly by

having your introduction readily available.

Once you begin to speak, you will calm

...controlled nervousness and

tension enhances public

speaking performance.

...do not present experiments or

procedures with which you are

not thoroughly familiar or data

from new experiments that may

be preliminary.