Once you've found an idea that you're excited to share with an audience, you're ready to start putting together a talk. Deciding on a clear throughline is an essential part of developing a strong talk. Another important piece, though, is picking a presentation plan.
There are many ways to prepare for and deliver a talk, and it's important to find one that's right for you. One of the first key decisions you need to make is whether you will, A) write out the talk in full as a complete script to be read, memorized, or a combination of the two. Or, B) come up with a clear plan for your talk without scripting it, so you can speak to each of your points in the moment when you present.
For most speakers, the best way to say what you really want to say, in the most powerful way, is to write a script. Then get to know the script so well that it becomes part of you. This takes a lot of work.
Imagine you get to watch a friend trying to memorize his talk over the course of a week. Let’s say that you ask him every day to give the best version of the talk he can give just from memory, without using any notes. You will notice something odd.
Early on in the week, your friend will be very exciting to listen to. His talk may seem a little disorganized, because he doesn’t actually know any of it by heart yet. He simply does his best to give you the information he knows in approximately the order he's planned.
But his passion about his idea comes through. A few days later, you will notice a change. He will have reached the point where he knows quite a bit of the talk by heart.
But you won’t feel the same excitement you felt from him at the beginning of the week. You might feel his stress instead. You hear him saying things like, “Let’s see,” “Just a minute,” or “Let me start that again.
” He might even sound a bit like a robot— as though he's not actually thinking about the things he's saying. These are clues that the talk is being recited rather than spoken with meaning. It's hard for an audience to connect to a speaker who presents in this way.
But, if your friend keeps working on memorizing his script, you will notice a thrilling change by the sixth or seventh day. Suddenly, he really knows his talk. He knows it so well that remembering the words is a snap.
He can concentrate on the meaning of what he’s saying again. He has the passion he had on day one, and now he knows his script by heart as well. Remember this if you decide to memorize your talk.
Choosing to memorize is great! You're giving yourself an excellent chance for a huge hit. But it’s important that you keep working on memorizing until you’ve passed this stage where the talk sounds recited.
You have to know the words so well, they seem like they’re part of you. You must keep practicing past the robot stage to the stage where the words flow out freely. Another thing to ask yourself if you plan to write a script for your talk is: what kind of language do you want to use?
Spoken language or written language? The language we use in everyday speech is different from the language writers use. Harvard professor Dan Gilbert tells his students to speak their talks into a recorder before writing them down.
The students then use the words from the recording as the first draft of their written script. This helps them make sure the language they choose sounds natural when said out loud. But, again, every talk is different.
For some speakers, using elegant language like that you might find in a book is the perfect way of expressing their idea. Take a look at this memorable moment from Amanda C. Gorman at a TED-Ed Student Talks event in 2018.
“Most of my life, I was particularly terrified of speaking up because I had a speech impediment which made it difficult to pronounce certain letters, sounds, and I felt like I was fine writing on the page. But once I got on stage, I was worried my words might jumble and stumble. What was the point in trying not to mumble these thoughts in my head if everything’s already been said before?
But finally, I had a moment of realization where I thought, if I choose not to speak out of fear, then there’s no one that my silence is standing for. ” This is a powerful piece of writing, and it’s meant to be heard that way. Even though the language is not like everyday speech, Amanda’s powerful poetry makes us feel we are in the hands of a masterful writer.
It's the perfect language for this talk. For some scripted talks, the speaker chooses to bring their script on stage with them to read from. This can be a perfectly wonderful way to present.
But if you choose to go this route, it's important to know your script well enough that you can still give your audience the sense that you are with them in the moment. Mean every sentence as you read it. Look up from the page as often as you can, and make eye contact with your audience members.
It might even be a powerful choice to let go of your script toward the end of your talk, and speak the conclusion directly from the heart. Some speakers choose to give unscripted talks. There are many kinds of unscripted talks.
What they all have in common is that the speaker is not trying to recall a specific, pre-written script while on stage. Instead, they are thinking about the subject matter and looking for the best words to communicate their points in the moment. Some speakers doing unscripted talks use a set of notes to guide them.
Some choose not to have any notes at all. There are many wonderful benefits to unscripted talks. They often sound fresh and alive, like the speaker is really thinking out loud.
If this is a comfortable style of speaking for you, and your talk is about something you know very well, an unscripted talk could be your best choice. But it's important to know the difference between unscripted and unprepared. There is no excuse for not preparing for an important talk, whether you choose to write a script or not.
So how do you prepare for an unscripted talk? A lot will depend on what type of journey you plan to take the audience on. A talk built around a single story will be a lot easier than one where you’re trying to explain complicated research.
But the key is to go back to the metaphor of a talk as a journey. Ask yourself what each step of the journey looks like. It can be helpful to create a label for each step— a mental note that will help you remember how to get from one piece of the talk to the next.
TED speakers have very different opinions on whether a memorized script or an unscripted talk is the better way to go. But the majority of TED speakers do, in fact, script their whole talk and memorize it. And they do their best to avoid letting it sound recited.
If you have time to do that, it will probably give you the best shot at delivering a powerful talk that says everything you want it to say without sounding robotic. If you don't have time to truly learn a script by heart, or if you already know that's just not the best thing for you, then don't go this route. The key is to pick a presentation plan that you feel confident about, and commit to that.
Whether you choose to memorize a script, or read from one, or use a few notes, or go without notes entirely, you will still end up with a talk that is well prepared and passionately delivered. So long as you put in the time.
