Friday, October 2, 2015

Creating a Captivating Speech II: Learn



Eleven weeks stand between today and your presentation. What better time than now to learn a little more about how to give a great speech?

We will not attempt to reformulate the tried-and-true process for crafting a speech. There are many speaking guides out there, including one from the folks at TED. As you are well aware, we're fond of the TED format. Its founders have converged on a simple model: it works! According to the foundation's website, TED talks have garnered more than one billion views. 

Instead, we're sharing some of our favorite articles deconstructing a good presentation:
  • In Does Body Language Help a TED Talk Go Viral? Alison Prato urges us to nail the opening seven seconds and cites research to back it up . A good opening gets listeners in the mindset and serves as an indirect "on ramp" for the the rest of the presentation. Click on the Science of People link in this article for more scientific references.
  • Social psychologist, Amy Cuddy also talks about how the power posing can be energizing in her TED talk.
  • Do you consider yourself an introvert or do you want to engage introverts in your speech?  Susan Cain talks about celebrating introverts in her TED talk.
  • What Makes a Speech Great?  Megan Keaney Anderson gives a reminder that "fascination cannot be faked." Our exciting claims, however, should also be supported by cold, hard, peer-reviewed facts.
  • Click here for a list of more articles and videos to help you share your exciting idea with the rest of the AGU community. Feel free to add to this list or include some more links in the comments.
Many of these great speeches (in addition to great TV dramas, movies, you name it), focus on telling a story.  Think of your speech as you telling a story about your work.  Try to work in various aspects of the dramatic arc: background info, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.  You can read more about storytelling 101 on an older post of ours.  We'll talk more about designing your designing and preparing for your speech in a few weeks so stay tuned!

Missed the first part of the Creating a Captive Speech series?  Click here for our first installment.

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