On Public Speaking

If you ask me to offer some advice to all the WSNs, I would tell them: to me, the biggest problem with you lot is not your sloppy clothes, or untidy hair, or your awkward English. Not even the stinky smell. (Ugh!) The first thing you need to learn is stand straight. Don’t droop your shoulders or tilt your head or bend a leg. If you don’t believe me, go watch a video of any political leader in the world. They may be tall or short, lean or brawny, dressed in different styles, but they always keep their bodies upright.

The same goes for public speaking. The moment you step onto a stage, before you have a chance to open your mouth, people will begin judging you. Unless you wear inappropriate clothes, their first impression will be determined by your spirit, and not standing straight is never associated with passion or self-respect. Some of you may worry about being too stiff or serious on an informal occasion, but relaxation should come as a result of your friendly speech or warm smiles. A slack posture doesn’t win you favors.  

1. It’s all about the atmosphere.

We sometimes hear people say, “I’ll just give the same speech again.” You can never give the same speech again when the audience changes. Below is how William Safire, author of Lend Me Your Ears --- Great Speeches in History, defines a speech (my review of the book can be found here: http://fionarawsontile.blogspot.com/2014/05/book-review-lend-me-your-ears-great.html).

“When did a speech become a speech---when it was drafted or when it was given? … What makes a draft speech a real speech is the speaking of it; but without that articulation, without the strong presence of the deliver, without the audience to be aroused or moved, all you have is a polemic on a page. A speech is an event.”

Recently I gave two research talks within a couple of months. The first was to a group of forty faculty and students, the second to a lab of six members. During the latter presentation, I was shocked by how differently I organized the phrases and explained the science, with the same Powerpoint presentation. Speech is a type of communication. It should be interactive. Even though the audience remains silent during most part of your talk, you need to have an expectation about how your speech is likely to be received, constantly monitor their reactions (mostly reflected by their body languages), and adjust your loudness, tone, speed, but most importantly, the content. You may have to give more basic background or skip certain things if the audience look confused. Kill the question you’ve planned to ask if they don’t appear enthusiastic, or add one if you believe you will succeed.

Sometimes it’s impossible to see actual faces of your audience. The worst scenario is to give a speech to a camera, while knowing that thousands of people might be watching it now or later. Still, your speech is affected by the occasion. The size of the auditorium, the echoes of the microphone, the gravity added by the camera, everything will make your talk different from the rehearsals at home. Some suggest creating a few imaginary listeners in those situations. When you can’t have eye contacts with individuals, you don’t want to stare at a fixed point in the air or sway your gaze too frequently. Novice speakers tend to make the second mistake, thinking that they’ve got everybody “covered”. Have a steady gaze, and occasionally looked in different directions.

I never read. I’ve been giving public speeches since I entered elementary school. Some of them required memorizations of long stories. I know many politicians have a few cards to remind themselves of possible topics they may want to cover, depending on the time and atmosphere. (Queen Elizabeth II has been criticized for reading prepared drafts, but considering how many speeches she has to give in her entire life, we can’t be too hard on her.) Imagine that one of your colleagues comes to your office and before you say anything, pulls out a piece of paper and starts reading to you. That’s not communication! Besides, how could you speak one sentence in the perfect manner without knowing what will come next. You may argue, “I do know. I wrote the whole thing.” Well, you don’t; otherwise why would you need to see the draft? Have everything written in your mind. Let it grow itself like a fruit so that you have to deliver it when it’s time. Or it’ll fall.

I know it’s hard to remember every word of a long speech, but this should be treated as an advantage. Many politicians intentionally add pauses and uncertainties to their well-rehearsed speeches, to give the audience an illusion that they are thinking on the go. In that sense, it’s better not to recite. Yet I bet you’ll remember the exact phrasing of your crucial points. If not, maybe they aren’t as crucial as you’ve thought.

2. Aim low to achieve high.

Believe it or not, it’s hard to speak slowly. Most people naturally speed up when they are nervous.  A few of them do this to achieve the effect of fluency. If you can, record your performance and examine it later, because you always speak faster than you’ve thought. Remember this: whether it’s in China or western countries, talking too fast with no pauses is usually a sign of low social status. It reflects the lack of confidence, i.e., the fear that the listeners may lose their interests at any moment. We’ve seen TV programs in which everybody talks fast, either due to a time limit, or as a result of “diluted content” with which you have to talk a lot before a meaningful point is reached. The speeches we normally give should never be rushed. Ideally, every word you say should be clear to most of the audience. What’s the point of saying something that’s not intended to be heard? You may skim through certain words like articles or conjunctions, but the audience should be able to fill the gaps easily. You don’t want them to wonder, “Ur, did I just miss something important?” After each critical message, pause for a few seconds to let the words sink in.

I’ve always heard people complaining about the difficulty of providing sufficient background information without sacrificing the “fancy” stuff. My philosophy is, whenever you try to explain something, explain it well. Make it thoroughly understandable. You may not be able to cover all the great stuff you’ve done, but that shouldn’t be the aim of any speech. Pick the important ones, and however abstruse the science is, there should be a way to make it conceivable. “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” (Albert Einstein)

3. Draw them right in.

I began this article with a message to WSNs. Alternatively, I could’ve presented you with the definition of speech by William Safire. The fact that you’ve read it this far indicates that I’ve succeeded in hooking you up. I know, especially for scientific talk, sometimes we have to go with the traditional way, but giving an example related to our daily life, creating suspense, or throwing in a quick joke in the early stage of the talk can usually bring up spirit and attention, which sometimes would last for the duration of your talk.

Now I’ll say a little more about jokes. When people experience a catastrophic event, they often remember the details both before and after it. The same with jokes. If you make your audience laugh hard, they are more likely to remember the science, and they’ll do better not to fall asleep. Many believe jokes that work best in a talk are self-deprecating. They can instantly abridge the distance between the speaker and the audience. This works particularly well when the speaker is an authority (“So he isn’t that formidable!”) or is from a different culture (“I didn’t know Chinese got humor.”). I still remember the joke given by a professor in our department when he introduced a more senior woman professor at a seminar, “Although her judgments were usually right, she did make one notable mistake during the three decades she worked here, which is the decision to hire XXX (his own name).”

I heard in the “gold old days”, you didn’t have to start a grant proposal with the Significance. It’s hard to convince people that you are doing something fascinating without first telling them what it is. But we live in a practical world nowadays, and there is a good reason why we should start with the significance. I’ve been through talks that went like---we did this, we found this, and we’ll do this in the future. Who cares? Whenever you introduce a new concept, say something about why it matters. Better still, bring up the problem you aim to solve before introducing the concept.

4. Kill the fourth tone.

I don’t have a scientific explanation for this, but based on experience I think we Chinese use too many “downward” tones than we should’ve. Below is an example. Try to read every word in the fourth tone that has a preceding asterisk.

“I *think this *is the best we could *find, but I could be *wrong.”

To me, a speech has to be rousing. Yes, that includes research talks. Otherwise, why don’t we just sit there and read papers together? A speech is like a novel. When well delivered, it can be quite convincing, persuasive, and intriguing. A monotone or a series of downward tones are just not that rousing. If I am to speak the above sentence, I’ll only have the fourth tone with the very last word, “wrong”. For the word “find”, I’ll use the second or the third tone.

And there are other habits you have to work hard to get rid of. I once had a colleague who didn’t know he frequently touched his chin with a hand until he saw it in the videotape. I say too many interjections in between meaningful sentences. Can’t help it. The worst I’ve seen was a student in a public-speaking summer class. We all knew he was a Christian because he would make several Signs of the Cross during a speech that lasted a minute.

5. Walk around the question.

What’s the strategy to deal with tough questions for which you don’t have an immediate answer? If it’s completely out of your knowledge, just admit it. If you need time to think about it without creating awkward silence, some people suggest repeating or rephrasing the question. I don’t think it’s a bad idea, except that when you repeat a question, people know what you are doing. Another way to handle the situation is to walk around the question and bring up relevant things that, even if in the end you fail to come up with an answer, may still provide the audience with some insights on the topic.

（插入作者高妹/Fiona的话：向大家推荐我正在连载的玄幻---武打---佛道---言情故事《魅羽活佛》，晋江链接：http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=4880087  故事简介：鬼道中的魇荒门，七个师姐妹都以绝世美颜著称。然而这次的任务中，二弟子魅羽却要化作一个中年油腻肥秃僧，卷入佛国、道门，和修罗界的斗争. 还要让咱们古往今来文采武功都称霸天下的帅哥活佛，对她一见倾心，矢志不渝。）

I once talked to the professor I mentioned above before going to a campus interview. He said our ability to carry out a conversation during job interviews is often overlooked. We are advised to be prepared, but we shouldn’t be too prepared. That is, few people want to hire a colleague who considers going through a list of prewritten questions as the sole purpose of a one-on-one meeting. You may have some vague ideas about what you want to discuss with the person, but the execution really depends on how your conversation goes, and you may end up not mentioning your ideas at all. He suggested that I watch some of the popular TV shows and study how the host and the guest managed an engaging conversation for half an hour with a topic that was far from being meaningful?

So I studied a few Late Night with Seth Meyers on Youtube (since my son was born six years ago, cartoons are the only programs we see on the TV), and that’s how I came up with this walk-around-the-question idea. Let me make up an example here. If you ask me, “How do you like Mitbbs?” I’ll say, “It’s a fun website and I visit it often.” So that’s it! The conversation is done in a few seconds. What would be Meyers’s way of expanding the question?

“We’re really glad to have you here, Fiona. You look fabulous.” “Thanks. I was on maternity leave when you last saw me.” “That’s right. Congratulations by the way. So my question is related to Mitbbs, an online forum based in the US for users who can at least read in Chinese. We know there are a few major websites like this, each having its own established culture and readership. To me, this website is notable for being constructive and informative and it seems to have developed a self-censoring mechanism that can effectively subdue the occasionally-observed profanity, personal attack, etc. My question for you is, I know as a writer and scientist you’ve been participating in a few learning communities and constantly thinking about issues related to public education. So, in your view, what would be the influences on this website as Mainland China keeps adjusting its educational philosophies and sending fresh blood to the US? During the clash of two major cultures, what should we do to thrive as a whole without scarifying individuality?”

Well, that’s the walk-around way of making up a question, but I think the same principle apples when you’re trying to answer a question. You start with something remotely relevant (not the maternity leave, though). You walk around it, trying to tackle the problem through different perspectives. As you close up the distance, you yourself may have gained a better understanding of the topic. Remember, to address a question you don’t have to solve a problem. Can you come up with an experiment that has the potential to provide us with an answer? Can you make a prediction of the possible outcomes? A logical elaboration is usually enough to satisfy your audience.   

6. There are no informal speeches.

In my department we have a Friday-morning seminar series. I used to treat it as an informal gathering of students and faculty for exchanging preliminary ideas, until one day I saw a senior faculty canceling her student’s talk, because she wasn’t sure about the conclusions the student was going to make. In academia, there is no such thing as an informal speech. People judge you based on what they see. Their memory of your presentation at an international conference may not be stronger than what they get from a casual conversation with you, or one of your students. To me, informality always has the risk of being mistaken as carelessness in research. Given that our colleagues are the ones who have the biggest impact on our careers---they decide on our tenures and write support letters for our awards, I would always show them my best side.

John W. Gardner said, "Life is the art of drawing without an eraser." Anything that has been said cannot be taken back. So, practice before you give your speech. You may say something wrong, but you don’t want to say anything you are uncertain of. After months or years of hard work, this is the time to “live out loud”.