Simon Willison’s Weblog

What are some tips for improving public speaking skills quickly?

7th March 2014

My answer to What are some tips for improving public speaking skills quickly? on Quora

Practice your talk, out loud, in private, as many times as possible before you deliver it. There’s no better way of ensuring you know your material and that you can deliver it at a sensible pace without freezing up.

Make sure you have a full written copy of your talk available to you when you deliver it. You should aim to give your talk from memory (prompted by your slides), but I find that having the notes nearby ready to fall back gives me much more confidence. The audience will not mind in the slightest if you pause for a moment to check your notes—they probably won’t even notice.