Speaker's Briefing

Four easy steps to overcome pre-presentation jitters
You’re about to give an important presentation, and—even though you’ve prepared and practiced—you’re overcome with nervousness. Use these four techniques to keep the butterflies in check:

Worried about the acoustics? Bring your own portable PA system
Speaking at a medium to large event that isn’t wired for sound but may require some amplification? Now you can bring your own lightweight sound system with you—and it costs less than $200. In Johnson Smith Co.’s “Things You Never Knew Existed ... and other items you can’t POSSIBLY live without!” catalog, you’ll find just what you need.

12 new words for the new millennium
The new 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary—22,000 pages and 500,000 words long—includes 3,000 new entries. Some are logical additions from the worlds of medicine and science.

Capture speech material while ‘on the go’
Sometimes you come across valuable data or copy far from the workplace. It could be a useful article in an in-flight magazine, something in the morning paper delivered to your hotel room, useful but bulky handout material or a single-copy item someone is willing to share with you when there’s no copy machine around.

Edit your speech for brevity and clarity
You’ve drafted your speech, and you’re fairly satisfied with the results. Don’t stop now. The most important part of perfecting a speech draft is editing your own copy—taking a basically sound manuscript and honing it to perfection. Use these three easy tips to tighten and polish your prose: