Practising public speaking
Public-speaking skills develop through opportunities to speak, learn from experience and try again. Medical writers can practise with colleagues, volunteer at professional events or try activities such as improvisation, building communication skills alongside confidence.
Practice opportunities
Writers with limited presentation experience can lead a breakfast roundtable or moderate or speak in an open session at a national conference or chapter event. A brief oral conference summary for an employer or colleagues who could not attend provides another, less threatening opportunity to practise.
In 2010, Amgen writers gave five- to ten-minute summaries at the monthly staff meeting following a conference, addressing two questions.
- What was learned?
- How will it be used?
The summaries shared emerging trends, standard operating procedures, take-home messages and medical-writing practices with colleagues who had not attended.
In the 2010 AMWA programme, a credit workshop required more time and involvement than a roundtable or open session because its curriculum had to be developed and approved and attendee homework incorporated. Speaking experience can lead towards that teaching role: an editor’s presentations on author–editor relationships and table preparation at two successive Council of Science Editors meetings helped build a training record and demonstrate expertise to prospective clients, followed by co-leading an AMWA proofreading workshop with an experienced leader.
University audiences provide opportunities too: a freelancer spoke about medical-writing careers at a graduate-student symposium in 2008 and later to a postdoctoral society, including discussion of acknowledgement of medical communicators’ manuscript contributions.
Benefits beyond confidence
Giving presentations can bring the following benefits.
- Organisational and visual-aid development skills.
- Professional networks.
- Communication skills.
- Knowledge of new subject matter.
- Opportunities to mentor students.
Preparation itself can deepen knowledge: a writer leading roundtables and an open session on reference-management software learned useful features and persuaded the department to upgrade. Another writer, who had led conference workshops since 2003, found that this experience improved the organisation and pacing of work presentations and internal team calls.
Speaking may also generate income. A suggested route is to approach a local Rotary club or chamber of commerce with a presentation in an area of expertise, refine it after each engagement, then approach national organisations and tell clients about speaking availability.
Improvisation as practice
Improvisation offers practice in accepting and developing another person’s contribution: “yes” accepts what a partner says, while “and” builds on it. An editor who found even teleconferences nerve-racking joined a beginner course to set aside the habit of finding faults for two and a half hours each week. The course involved interactive games, initially halting scenes and a public showcase after six weeks; continued attendance provided practice despite discomfort.
The experience produced six lessons.
- Say yes to adventurous ideas. Accepting an improbable holiday on an oil rig, for example, enabled a scene that made the partners laugh.
- Further the conversation by contributing ideas that build on what has been said, strengthening relationships on and off stage.
- Pay attention: the material comes from the participants, so listening to others is essential.
- Initiate action even without complete logic; an imagined feeding of a python gave one scene something to build on.
- Take a risk. Speaking without a script produced moments of surprise at the editor’s own ideas and increased self-esteem.
- Play. Improvisation restored enjoyment and a sense of possibility amid adult chores and obligations.
The editor remained anxious before the showcase but experienced moments of purposeful speaking on stage, then continued to a second course because improvisation provided an enjoyable contrast to correcting manuscripts.