tips for giving a speech?

Write down your first sentence verbatim. If you're going to freeze, you'll do it right at the beginning. Once you break the ice, you'll be fine.

And remember that 90% of your audience isn't paying attention anyway.

erm, my speech is for my communications class in school...

I have to do an informative speech, so I will inform my classmates how much of a bitch she is.

burgundy's right - most of your class won't even be listening to you - just the first couple rows - most ppl will be either too tired/sleepy/apathetic/worried over their own speech to really listen to what your ass has to say.

From Maxim to me to you:

Face your audience and make eye contact.: Pick one or two people and "speak" to them.

Don't memorize: Audiences can smell when they are getting something canned.

Use notes sparingly: Spending too much time reading makes you look unprepared.

Dress for sucess: If you dress like a clown people will expect you to pull balloon animals out of your shorts.

Although I usually don't talk about my profession here, this thread seems an appropriate place. Short story: I am a trial attorney, so when cases go to trial (a rare happening), I am essentially engaging in "public speaking" for a week or three straight. So, I can appreciate your concern, because even after 11 or 12 years of doing this, I get nervous as hell.

Tips:

1. "Nervous" is fine, "panic" is doom. Accept being nervous, and channel the energy it provides into your preparation. You'll be nervous when you start, but once you get past the opening, you should settle down. Speaking with some passion/emotion/enthusiasm --i.e., caring about what you're saying is the key element to defeating nerves. But, there is still...

2. Preparation. Can't be emphasized enough. Some folks (about 1 in each State) can speak well off the cuff. Most cannot. Practice your piece over and over. Prepare until you know your material inside and out, because...

3. You WILL stumble, and knowing your material makes it VERY easy to recover. This is a central problem with writing things out verbatim (which I tried long ago). First, you wind up reading verbatim, and it will show. It's public speaking, not public reading. Second, when you inevitably trip up, having the exact words in front of you makes it harder than you might think to recover because you "search" for the exact words to begin your recovery and it usually comes across horribly. However,...

4. An outline is a very good idea. Just remember not to make it cluttered or you're back to the pitfalls of #3. Keep lots of space between headings/points on the page, and don't scribble little notes all over the paper. Preparation and a CLEAN outline are a great combination. One more basic...

5. SLOW DOWN!! This is the pitfall of many, many would be advocates, public speakers, and others who generally open their mouths. Most everyone has a tendancy to gradually pick up the pace, and ultimately it gets away from them -- especially when they know the subject matter (but their audience does not). If you're like most people, you need to consciously force yourself to speak "slowly" -- not "retarded" like Of Mice and Men; rather, speak clearly and with some emotion, like a good actor in a play who loves hearing himself talk.

Good luck. And if that's too many points to consider, go with Preparation.

I've screwed up a speach or two in my time, and I've never gotten over how humiliating they were. The worst one was about video games (I tried to make all my speaches about videogames at the time). The thing was, I barely wrote the speach and had done it in a manner in which I couldn't read. Not only that, the teacher made us pick who went first out of a hat at random, and I was first. Not only that, a couple jocks from the football team (which I just quit a few months back) came in to check out the class. Not only that, as I was going up to the podium, the teacher was bragging on me how I was going to do an awesome job since all my other speaches were good. I then went on to do the worst speach possible, sputtering out a few lines of nonsense and starring at the page trying desperately to decifer what the hell I'd just wrote. Heck, I was so scared I forgot what the point of my speach was in the first place. I rambled on something or other about videogames, and soon enough some girl I liked (and who I thought was a very nice Christian gal) said, "nobody cares". I took my seat in shame.

Good luck :)

Take my advice. Don't picture the crowd naked. You'll get a boner.

I did policy debate in High School, so maybe I can offer a few ideas. Not much more than the attorney though.

1.The day before, speak to the wall. Go over your speech, and give it to the nearest wall or corner. Practice your articulation, and pronounciation. No speech goes over well, when the speaker does not anounciate well.

2. An outline will save your life. Nothing will turn a lister away faster than hearing you speak about something, move on to something else, and then have you return and stumble about the first topic. Commit a few mojor talking points to paper, and get all the details you can commited to memory. Work with the topics, but ad lib all the between stuff. Wrote memorization and speech will only reult in "..uh, I uh..."

3. Wierdest part. Make sure your body is ready. Piss before class, and if you have an inhaler, and you think you will need it, use it right before you speak. Stopping your informative to use an inhaler and cough might as well end it.

4. Go slow, and make eye contact. Don't look at a clock or watch. Use a timer. Go slow. Did I mention slow?

I had this problem in high school five years ago. What I can tell you:

1. Make sure you know your material. When I did my speech in front of the class, I, heh, happened to write it an hour before class and memorize it. While I had it down to memory, I stumbled two times, which is awkward. If you know your material, you can improvise with another point rather than searching for the exact words you wrote down in your mind.

2. This is a tough one: I walked back and forth when I made my presentation. This helps to engage everyone in what you are talking about, rather than nodding off. It was purely a suggestion my teacher had made days before, but it helped. I think the advice of using the bathroom and such really helps here, since you won't hae to worry about being weak in the knees.

3. Eye Contact. This is just another add on to the above. Making eye contact will help to make people believe you know what you are talking about. Just make sure not to look at people who will try to make you laugh or distract you.

Thanks for the help everyone. I did a little research as well. I found out that if someone is too scared to look into people's eyes then look at their foreheads. From their point-of-view they see you making eye contact, but in fact you are not.

Thanks again. *off to research some more*