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Advice about Public Speaking

Janet Ruth Heller’s advice to college students about public speaking is now published on the website of Accredited Schools Online. The link to the article is 

https://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/student-public-speaking-guide/

Someone else wrote the introductory material, but Heller’s section comes later, starting with the subtitle “From the Expert: What Makes a Great Presentation.” 

Here is some of her advice.

Question: In your opinion, what’s the best way to learn how to speak publicly with grace, clarity, and panache?

Heller: Students need to practice public speaking as often as possible. They should participate in class discussions, do oral reports, and take courses on public speaking. Students should join clubs or nonprofit organizations that require public speaking events. Students should also try to speak up and give presentations during meetings at their place of work. The more people practice speaking to audiences, the easier this process becomes.

Janet Ruth Heller speaking at the Kalamazoo Public Library; photo by Hedy Habra
Janet Ruth Heller speaking at the Kalamazoo Public Library; photo by Hedy Habra
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Janet Ruth Heller

I am the past president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. I have published four poetry books: Nature's Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Communications, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012) and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). My scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My fiction picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has won four national awards. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed twice at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan. Triton College produced another play, Pledging, as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).