Speaking/presenting to a crowd?

[Kyriakos]

Hm... Yesterday i had a first experience of presenting a seminar (introductory) to a small crowd of people (around 25). I can say that while it was good to actually have this first contact of this sort, the first seminar pretty much did not include many positive parts, and i was at fault for that (mostly due to lack of knowing how things would play out in such a situation).

I think it will benefit me (and the next presentations...), cause now i am set to not attempt to prejudge what the other people there would be more likely to view as a positive seminar or meeting (since that is impossible to do, by and large, and pointless overall), but to have very set divisions of a half-hour presentation (or more) of specific subjects in philosophy (what the seminars are about), followed by 15-30 min of consequent questions and some discussion.

I wanted to ask if others here (i guess some will) have experience with this sort of public presentation. Although i managed to avoid an actual 'stage death' of sorts, it was hard to have at the same time to estimate how much the people there would be interested on particular facets of philosophy (eg theoretical, or more practical etc), and keep on presenting something. It was a first meeting of getting to form a first view of what would be good to have in the following 2 months of this work..

*

I decided to now present a clear subject each time. The sophists and idealism was somewhat agreed upon, after my suggestion, based on the term "sophist" and Socrates being obviously something all would be to degrees familiar with, and then some expansion on idealism, which was a main part of the first meeting.

Well... I have to say that speaking to 25 people you don't know, in this setting, was quite a difficult thing to get used to. I feared that i failed utterly (i think i did fail, but at least 30 min was reasonably good, mostly an overall presenation of Nietzsche and his progression through mental struggle, to the ultimate disaster which ruined him), but some remarks by the people there afterwards, and my own reflections later on, lead me now to be of the view that there is a good prospect to organise the next meetings in a vastly better way..

 

[dusters]

firstly, congratulations to you! You had the courage to speak up to 25 individuals you don't know alone.

As with most things, imho, things come with practise. You will get used to this. One of the most important things is timing. You have to know how much information you can get across in a set amount of time to make the preparation for lectures/seminars easier.

You have to try to keep an eye on the audience to see if you can adjust the presentation while performing it. 1-2 persons sleeping (non litereally) during a 30 min presentation is really fine, but if one third or more seem to start losing attention, imho, things aren't going well.


I'm a teacher myself and i have given classes/ lectures for past 7 or so years. But before that i used to solo sing/dance to huge audiences. The biggest thing - you need to feel self-confident and believe in what you say and do

Good luck.

 

[Kyriakos]

firstly, congratulations to you! You had the courage to speak up to 25 individuals you don't know alone.

As with most things, imho, things come with practise. You will get used to this. One of the most important things is timing. You have to know how much information you can get across in a set amount of time to make the preparation for lectures/seminars easier.

You have to try to keep an eye on the audience to see if you can adjust the presentation while performing it. 1-2 persons sleeping (non litereally) during a 30 min presentation is really fine, but if one third or more seem to start losing attention, imho, things aren't going well.


I'm a teacher myself and i have given classes/ lectures for past 7 or so years. But before that i used to solo sing/dance to huge audiences. The biggest thing - you need to feel self-confident and believe in what you say and do

Good luck.

Thank you for your very nice post, Dusters

Indeed, confidence is a key thing. While that can also improve, a main hindrance in this first meeting was that i kept trying to invite the people there to pretty much present a communal view of what they'd rather see in the following meetings, and (now making great sense, of course...) it backfired, cause they were not there to be asked, let alone to be asked to influence how the program would be. A basic error, but at least by the end of the (long) 90 minutes (which now will be 60 min after my suggestion) the climate was quite better (i think).

That around 1/3 of the people were quite older than myself, while most of the rest were around my age, also was a bit intimidating. I'll just have a ready text to be based on, in the next week, and present it for the first half, which will surely be immensely easier for me to do (as well as easier to follow, and more seminar-like). So i gained some needed info about seminar-organisation, and i guess it did not come at such a high cost.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Practice is really important. It establishes timing, creates better flow, and familiarizes you further with your material. Sadly, this doesn't help that much with questions or creating a discussion. I don't know what I could do to ensure spontaneity in presentation.

 

[Kyriakos]

What i formed as a view is that surely in this sort of semi-formal municipality/library setting, one should still present a very specific object in each of the meetings. I cared way too much about trying to notice what the people in the first meeting had in mind to be presented, but this ultimately led to an ocean of wide material being spoken of, and of course no one can really just do this without having to prepare for a long time & be ready to answer an endless range and degree of questions.

So the next seminar (and all the following 6 after it) will be centered on a text i will have prepared, on the impact in the 5th century BC in Athens of the sophists, and primarily Protagoras and Anaxagoras. Thus the scope will be more easy to handle, i can bother with two platonic works (Protagoras and Theaitetos), and give some background of the era (early astronomy by Anaxagoras and his claim that the Sun is a massive fiery core, fall of a meteorite 30 years before that in around 466 BC, possibly as a part of the 'Halley's comet', and 60 years after the comet the fall of the empire of Athens, which saw the ousting of Anaxagoras as one in the circle of Pericles.
Conscious-centric approach by those two sophists, and allusions to the anthropomorphism of thinking systems.
This will be a lot easier for me to carry through. I think it can be quite workable.

Still, the first meeting was a quite intimidating experience! ..

 

[azzaman333]

The difficulty of public speaking is overstated. If you've learned and understand the subject matter that you're presenting, it's easy.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

You probably didn't fail as badly as you think you did. Everyone understands how hard public speaking can be and when they see a speaker struggling with their first big presentation, they'll adjust their expectations accordingly which means they won't judge you very harshly.

Kudos for seeing it through though and for not giving up on it entirely.


As for advice - well as someone else said, there is no real go-to way to practice a question/answer session other than to do them. If you have a largish group of friends who'd be willing to sit through it with you, you might ask them to stand in for your audience. But for general public speaking, practicing by yourself or with one or two listeners really helps. For mastery of public speaking of any type, however, there is no true substitute for doing it.

If you keep at it and continue doing it, it will become second nature and will become easy. I actually began to enjoy it after having done it enough.

You asked for our stories and I'll share two, the best and worst:
The worst was when I was running for election amongst a group of officials from across Illinois. I prepared my speech and recited to myself and friends over and over again. It was an ambitious speech, way more elaborate than it needed to be. And when I gave the speech, I stumbled, forgot lines and made a hash of itself. It was terrifying.

My best experience was later that year as the head of that elected body. I was at a conference of a few hundred students in Springfield and was asked to give a speech to them in 5 minutes time. I was completely caught off guard, I had no idea I was expected to speak. But by this time, I had given many speeches and led many meetings so it wasn't so daunting. I stood and delivered a pretty awesome speech, got a long standing ovation and was complimented by a great many people. The key difference between the first and second story was lots of practice.

The difficulty of public speaking is overstated. If you've learned and understand the subject matter that you're presenting, it's easy.

I call BS. This is absolutely not true for most people. Understanding your subject absolutely helps, but it's not actually the key for doing it well. Practice is. But the difficulty is real and not overstated.

 

[azzaman333]

I call BS. This is absolutely not true for most people. Understanding your subject absolutely helps, but it's not actually the key for doing it well. Practice is. But the difficulty is real and not overstated.

Maybe I just stopped caring, but as soon as I stopped believing that it was a difficult thing, suddenly I felt a lot more comfortable doing it (provided I was prepared).

 

[Camikaze]

Understanding your subject absolutely helps, but it's not actually the key for doing it well. Practice is.

I think this is probably true, and I'm kinda curious as to how much public speaking kids do in different education systems. My education involved lots of speeches/presentations, particularly in primary school actually, and by the time I was about 11 I was routinely speaking in front of hundreds of people (albeit largely my own age and younger, but still a whole bunch of faces looking at you). High school involved a couple of public speaking assessments each year in front of a couple dozen people at a time, and pretty much every uni course involves a presentation of some sort. So speaking in front of people, and doing so in a context where I'm judged, is fairly normal.

Delivering a seminar is of course going to be different to a speech or less interactive presentation, but the public speaking aspect is pretty much the same; it's just that you'd be expected to have a deeper level of knowledge. In Germany I've given five presentations for classes in English, and the audience have been predominantly non-native-speakers. Very good non-native-speakers, but people with less of a natural English ability nonetheless. This actually seems to make me more confident, because it's an advantage I hold over the audience. I imagine the same principle applies to having a degree of expertise in a subject, or to teaching. The better placed you are in relation to the audience, the easier speaking becomes, because you don't feel being judged negatively is nearly as likely.

I still hate spontaneously participating in class discussion, though. As a general thing, Americans, it seems, love such participation. Perhaps that's just the particular type of American I'm likely to encounter in a uni outside of the US.

 

[Azale]

Pretend they're all naked and make sure to try and memorize your presentation word for word.

 

[JollyRoger]

Pretend they're all naked

This is why I only give presentations to sororities.

 

[Kyriakos]

Thanks for the useful comments posted

Pretend they're all naked and make sure to try and memorize your presentation word for word.

Actually the (very clear, maybe around 7/10) majority of them were women, and i think that of those up to maybe 10 looked very good, but no, it would not help me to imagine such a thing at that time

*

I think the main difficulty was that it was a first time of giving a seminar/speech and discussion. Also the original 90 min is way too long for this setting (changed it now to 60 min, which is far more practical and closer to a uni hour).

I already started preparing for the next (and in reality actual first, due to the quite chaotic nature of the typically first one) presentation, and i think it is a very good idea to provide some general background info on the philosophical schools by the time of Socrates, the so-called pre-socratic philosophers, melesian, pythagorian, ephesian, eleatic, Anaxagoric (start of philosophy in Athens, through his journey there), Abderian (prime figure being Democritus and his notion of an atom), and then the sophists, concurrent with Socrates (such as Protagoras).

I think a good balance between overarching information (like the above list-type presentation) and more extended specific presentation of philosophers and a set timeframe, will lead more easily to an organised result..

So, a bit echoeing also the (few) better parts of the first meeting, i will be focusing more carefully on the various degrees of focus on external phenomena (matter, mostly) and internal sources of order (logic, 'nous' etc). While the archaic philosophers (Thales of Miletus, for example, or Heraklitos of Ephesos) claimed that there was a fundamental birth element for all diversity of the external environment (water, and fire respectively; others regarded air and earth), in the 6th century BC already the tendancy of the main figures of Greek philosophy was to present an internal (either argued to be innate or godgiven, or of no known source) source of stability, our ability to reason, and control the flow of thought.

So building on the above, it will be easy to present something introductory, at least for 40 min, which i think is all that is needed, and the questions/discussion will focus on mostly this, as an outcome

 

[warpus]

I used to have huge fears about speaking to a group of people. I was as scared about it as I would be to jump off a cliff.

Practice makes perfect, keep at it!

 

[BenitoChavez]

Maybe I just stopped caring, but as soon as I stopped believing that it was a difficult thing, suddenly I felt a lot more comfortable doing it (provided I was prepared).

Not caring is how I do it. I'm not an awesome public speaker but at least I stopped falling flat on my face, so to speak.

 

[Hygro]

I've given a lot of speeches, most of them between 2004 and 2006. One of the easiest ways to do well is to speak in a strong voice and think about how badass you sound while you do it. The rest follows.

 

[warmonger]

The difficulty of public speaking is overstated. If you've learned and understand the subject matter that you're presenting, it's easy.

I have to agree with this comment. I've given business and technical presentations to groups large and small for over 30 years and it really is easy once you get into it.

I have a speech impediment - it was considerably worse thirty years ago but it's still noticeable now. I stutter, elongate initial sounds, and occasionally block so that no sound comes no matter how hard I try.

My first bout of public speaking was to an international technical conference with around 1500 people in a huge auditorium. My colleague who was supposed to give the presentation resigned from our company about a week before the conference; I was asked to take his place. So here's me with a speech impediment, in front of 1500 people, giving somebody else's presentation, on a topic I knew nothing about a week before I gave it. And I nailed it! If you can survive a baptisim of fire like that - all other speaking engagements are easy.

Here's some things I've learnt over the years:

speak - don't read. Use prompt cards not a script.

Don't try and say too much. Trying to cram too much in will muddy your message.

If you must use powerpoint - learn to use it properly. It's there to augment your presentation - not to be your presentation.

Learn to moderate your voice - tempo, cadence, pitch, rythum are all things you can use to keep the audience engaged.

Make eye contact with different people in the audience; speak to the person in the back row even if you are using a microphone- that way your voice will carry to everyone

Know your audience - who are they; what do they already know; why are they there;

Practise, practise and practise some more. Do rehearsals just like you would for a musical performance - it's exactly the same principle.

And finally, enjoy it. I get a real buzz from doing this properly - it's the same buzz I get when my band gets off stage from a lively gig.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, just gave the second seminar. It went quite good.. Not perfect, but hugely better than the first one (although there was huge room for improvement from the first one anyway).

In a different library this time (2 are in this program, course runs in both). 20 people or thereabouts as an audience/group. 4 sort of congratulated me, and another 7 seemed pretty interested/happy, so i will call it a major success, although it had problems again (but also had a nice run of 1 hour, with around 40 min being acceptably good in my view).

I suppose the next 3+4 presentations in this month and early autumn, will be even easier, cause i now know the groups or their core anyway. Overall i am quite happy with how i did The prepared lecture part on 7th century and the Milesian philosophers (and juxtapositions - mostly allusions in many places- to later presentations of the eleatic school and the sophists) lasted for 45 min, so that is just fine for a 1 hour presentation cause the rest can be questions in between and in the end.

 

[JollyRoger]

Given your criticism of Michelle Obama speaking to a crowd, I am a bit shocked and and you are doing so yourself.

 

[Kyriakos]

Given your criticism of Michelle Obama speaking to a crowd, I am a bit shocked and and you are doing so yourself.

Well, you have a point, but i do it for job prospects I would not go out of my way to speak as a lecturer (i don't like it, and have thought of how i can keep my own self as much out of what is presented as possible, ie i focus on notes by early philosophers and some celebrated commentators from the following aeons). I don't like lecturing at all, and i already mentioned to both groups that i am not to be viewed as a 'teacher' (as one called me for need of a specific term) but a presenter of a synopsis, basied on my own uni studies on this field (philosophy).

Really the scope of the seminars is to present the overall (and general) historic points of early philosophy up to Plato (and bordering Aristotle). Allusions can carry to other stuff (eg Hellenistic era math, or even the platonic solids in Kepler's theories of orbit) but i am keeping my own interests out of the presentations

In essense the point is to present how linked early 'science' or science was to philosophy, starting with Thales and his math theorem, and taking it from there. Also to present how the more abstact themes were elaborated, like the original notion of "limitless" (άπειρο&#957 by the second in line Milesian philosopher, Anaximander.

(else we would be endlessly talking about Kafka).

 

[Azash]

A couple of things I've been taught or picked up presenting (having done a lot of it in high school and at university, as well as taking rhetorics courses at the former):

• It's good to show people you're talking to them, but don't do direct eye contact. Look above their heads or at their foreheads. Make sure to at least look in the general direction of everyone fairly frequently.
• Try to keep your hands relaxed. If you have the confidence for it, letting them hang along your sides works. Other options are calm gesturing as you speak (if you're the type of person who does this naturally), or holding one hand by the wrist at your waist. Try to keep your hands low and expose the palms now and then.
• On the other side of that coin, don't fidget or curl up. Don't cross your arms or hide them behind your back. Don't drum on desks or fidget with pens, and don't pace around unless you need to move for the presentation.
• Have breaks now and then, preferably between key points. Not only does it reduce the chance of you coming off as waffling, but a moment of silence gives attendees the chance to digest what you just said.
• Have a glass of water or similar. Not only will you need to drink now and then as you speak, but it allows you to take more natural pauses.
• Speak slowly and clearly. Speaking at a relaxed pace gives an impression of confidence, makes you more intelligible and makes it easier for people to follow your presentation while taking the material in.
• Divide your presentation into discrete parts separated by short breaks. A good way to approach it is to start by briefly mentioning what you're going to talk about (think book blurb), then talking about it (preferably one point and its pros/cons at a time), and finally wrapping the presentation up with a summary and maybe some kind of conclusions drawn from the arguments you presented along the way.
• Some kind of informal joke is great for getting the audience on your side at the start. Still, keep the jokes out of the presentation unless they are obvious (addressing the elephant in the room will make people relax). The same principle goes for the jokes at the start - only joke if you can make it as a reaction to some kind of event or observation as you're preparing. Jokes should fit the context of the situation.
• Don't do a presentation without preparation, and don't overprepare. Basically, what you want is a very simple list of what you'll cover. If one of your points is, for example, about unemployment among CFC posters, don't start writing down statistics and points. Your list should just say "CFC unemployment". This list will be very simple, allowing you to remember the general structure of your talk while letting you give it in natural speech rather than recital.
• On that note, you should prepare for your presentation. Make sure you know everything you'll talk about, both before and by having 1-3 practice talks. If you can get someone to critique you, or if you have a way to record yourself, all the better. The idea here is to only scaffold enough that you can host a calm, confident and human-like talk without leaving you completely unprepared or -supported.