Practice your talk

I practice my talks and try to nail the timing. I use the presenter display in Keynote with a clock, and I use the notes to jot down how much time should have elapsed when I get to certain slides. I also use the notes to write exact scripts that I read if there’s a tricky thing to explain that I need to nail eloquently to keep things smooth. I spend hours in the hotel room the night before– practicing and refining my talk, editing slides, tailoring for the audience. If I have to give a short talk– e.g., a 15 minute talk– then I write out an entire script and it’s there in the notes in the presenter display, but I try to memorize most of it so that I can make eye contact with the audience. I’m a native English speaker, I’m tenured– but I still think it’s important to work to nail these basics and keep getting better. I’m not alone. A lot of our colleagues take this much care and more. Many of you give spectacular talks. However, we all know people who get lazy about this stuff and just kind of wing it and it shows more than I think they realize.