I Stood Before The Audience and My Mind Went Blank...

About the Book

We speak in public almost every day. We make presentations. We talk, chat, lecture, ask questions, and make requests of others. Speaking happens everywhere. It takes place in schools. Teachers and principals speak. Students do the same, presenting to their classes, debating, and while in meetings. Working people talk with colleagues, and at meetings. At weddings, funerals, birthdays, anniversaries, and dinners, friends and family are called to make speeches. When people go to the bank, offices, stores, work functions and parent-teacher meetings, they are engaged in public speaking. Personalities on television and radio communicate ideas and information to their audiences. Professionals deliver lectures. University students make oral presentations, sometimes for marks. Politicians try to persuade voters to support them. Unless we become recluses, we must speak in public until we die. Now, when you have to speak in public, are you scared to death? Do you cold sweat or panic? Do you feel faint? Are you unsure about how to begin? Are you at least, a little nervous? This book will help you. It contains 101 rules to improve your public speaking. If you use even some of these rules, you will refine your public speaking: you will outdo most of the people who speak to you. You will feel more confident about public speaking. I have written this book in a simple style: as clear, easy rules. Anyone can use it and enhance their public speaking. You can read from the beginning, or you can browse this book, in any order. Either way, it will be helpful. This book is for anyone who has to speak and needs ideas on how to do it. Many of the thoughts expressed, you already know. When you read them you may think: ‘that is so simple, I knew that!’ We often ignore the plain solution or make it more complex. Here, I have endeavoured to get to the point directly. In this book I have tried to pull together, in one place, simple propositions to polish your public speaking. These are the rules of the subject. These rules have been marshalled from my own public speaking and research, but also from listening to people speak and analysing their effectiveness, reflecting on how to be creative in public speaking, and training law students to speak in the courtroom and in public. I invite you to read the rules, master them and follow them. Have confidence that you can become an expert public speaker if you follow these rules.

About the Author

The author is a judge of the High Court of Trinidad and Tobago. He has presided in both criminal and civil courts. He teaches Trial Advocacy, part-time, at the Hugh Wooding Law School, Trinidad. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the West Indies, the Legal Education Certificate from the Hugh Wooding Law School and a Master of Laws degree in International Dispute Resolution from the University of London. He was trained in advocacy teaching at Gray’s Inn and was certified as a trainer by the Institute of Business, University of the West Indies.