How to Give a Talk

All through school as I was growing up, I was always instructed never to write out a speech or presentation in complete sentences, only to plan an outline, write down the main points on notecards, and then practice, practice, practice. The idea was that this strategy would result in a more natural talk.

The result, for me, was basically a recitation of the main points written on the notecards interspersed with some mumbling and fumbling. Every time I would practice, I'd find myself very consciously thinking "ok, now what do I say to get to the next main point?" It would be different every time, and the result was always a stuttery mess. My problem was that, with practice, the main points were the easiest part to memorize. It's the stuff in between that I would forget and stumble over.

Now, I write a presentation as I would write an essay: plan, outline, draft and iterate, and read out lout repeatedly. Writing out the entire talk forces me to think about every supporting detail and every transition. It helps me to analyze the entire talk: I can easily pick out portions that don't flow well or don't make sense - or avoid writing them altogether, since every word of the speech is undergoing a drafting and editing process. I can identify phrases that are confusing and rewrite them, or even better, find phrases that particularly stand out and highlight them for emphasis. I can time the speech to within a very narrow window and find opportunities to expand or reduce the content, both on the paper and on the fly.

Finally, I practice - not until I've memorized it (unless it's relatively short), but until it sounds natural. I take notes on the bits I stumble over repeatedly, and those become my notecards.

This strategy probably isn't effective if you have to give a different talk every day or if you have minimal time to plan. But in my experience, it results in the most well-planned, natural talks with the highest content quality.

The best talks, IMO, are those written out in detail and completely memorized through many practice sessions. If you only do 2-5 practice runs, you're probably better off with an outline-based or extemporaneous approach. If you do more, say 10-25 practice runs, the script-based approach becomes very effective because you can deliver it naturally from memory without pauses or confusion.

It sounds like your guy probably only practiced his talks once or twice, if he practiced at all. It's tempting to view a script as a way to minimize practice, but really it's just the opposite. It takes more practice to refine the script and to present it naturally.

I was under a time crunch to memorize my talk (I think I started about 4-6 hours before) so the sentences were a way to speed that along.

The process went like this:

1. Read talk end to end out loud from sentences

2. Start trying to time sentences with slides (with sentences still there)

3. Remove sentences but see all the slides still

4. Only see the current slide

Took me about 2-3 hours to nail down. By step 3 and 4 I was already improvising most of the sentences each time though and only the core point stayed constant.

What happens when I write down a planned talk is that I marshal all the ideas I have about what I want to say into a format that forces me to check what thoughts flow naturally into others, what doesn't fit anywhere naturally, and so on.

As nlawalker points out, the trick is to not worry about staying on script. The point of a talk is the talking; otherwise you could just hand out copies of your transcript and there wouldn't be any point in putting everyone in the same room for 15 minutes. And talking, rather than reciting, is about the little "mistakes" and variations and spontaneous reactions you have to what's going in the room. Someone looks a little confused and you can choose to drill down on a point even if it's not in there. People look bored and you can cut something dry and unimportant.

As a CTM, TM will do the following:

0. Depending on the club, give you recorded video of your speeches along with your assigned evaluator evaluating.

1. Eliminate your verbal (umm, yeah, know) tics and minimize your non-verbal tics (swaying, pacing w/o intent, arms crossed)

2. Assuming it is hosted outside your normal workplace, provide a safe supportive environment for failing and learning

3. Learn how to mentor. Once you get going, you will pass on what you have learned by teaching it one on one

4. Not a benefit directly - but provide an outlet to channel energy towards non-coding goals (getting the CTM designation - which requires 10 speeches is a function of initial speech velocity and consistent effort)

5. Teach you impromptu speaking by forcing you to talk 1-2 min on random topics

You get to call it cultish when they hide that stuff. :P

Learning how to give a better talk is just a proxy for: how can I better communicate my ideas to the audience so they remember them?

In 2 months no-one is going to remember any of the details about your talk but they'll remember the experience and if you have resources online, they'll seek those out.