• Civic Groups. Call a local civic group, religious organization or retirement community and offer to be a guest speaker at a meeting. Take your audience behind the headlines. Speak about your research and its importance. Get the audience involved in a discussion. Don't just lecture.
  
• Patients. If you are involved in clinical practice, tell your patients about research that allowed you to diagnose and treat them. Tell them about the importance of stable funding for such research.
  
• Neighbors/Friends. Be ready to explain what you do and why it's important to your friends and neighbors. Have two or three easy-to-understand points ready to explain your work.

Tips for Effective Public Speaking
Unless you’re an accomplished speaker, you should depend upon a basic text that can be altered for each situation. However, look upon that text only as a guide to structure your speech and organize the examples you will use. Once you know it thoroughly, discard it. Speak from notes if you must, but never read your speech.

The following list is intended as a guide to help you structure your speech and present it effectively.

Preparing to Make a Presentation

• Tailor your speech to the interests of your audience. A campus student group might be most interested in university policy on care and use of animals, while the local Rotary Club might want to hear how animal research has affected diseases that commonly strike the adult population.
  
• Rehearse your material aloud. Test it on friends, family or colleagues who can give you constructive criticism from a non-scientific point of view.
  
• Learn your concepts and structure so that you can "tell" your information. Don’t memorize your speech.
  
• To relax, breathe deeply and exhale slowly for about one minute before you are introduced.
  

Making Your Presentation

• Speak slowly. Give the audience time to digest what you are saying. Remind yourself to slow down by putting slash marks between sentences in practice sessions.
  
• Before beginning to speak, smile at the audience to establish rapport.
  
• Stand with your weight on both feet.
  
• Speak loudly enough to be heard easily, but don’t shout. Speaking from the diaphragm, not the throat, will help you project with less vocal strain.
  
• Make a preliminary remark before going into your planned beginning. You might comment on some aspect of the occasion, or on a remark made by the program’s host/ Or just say, "I’m delighted to be here." Establish empathy with your audience; let them know you are human through an anecdote. A bit of self-deprecating humor is one way a scientist can quickly break the ice with an audience.
  
• Use vocal variety. Let your voice and your delivery reflect the full spectrum of emotions and points of emphasis contained in your presentation.
  
• Use gestures that complement the expression of your ideas. Avoid distracting, meaningless movements.
  
• Consider your speech an "enlarged conversation," and speak as naturally as you would to one other person.
  
• Maintain eye contact with listeners throughout the presentation. If the group is very large, look at listeners in a section-by-section manner.
  
• Let your enthusiasm for your work come through. People can appreciate and respond to professional dedication even when they cannot really understand the subject of a scientist’s research.
  

What to Say and How to Say It

• Your speech should have an introduction, body (key points) and conclusion. Remember the clarity principle: every generalization should be followed by a specific example or statement.
  
• Know your purpose. The introduction will orient listeners to that purpose and motivate them to listen.
  
• An audience member should be able to answer these questions after hearing your introduction: "How is this information relevant to me?" and "Why should I bother listening?" Be sure to help your audience understand why your topic is relevant to them — especially if you are talking about a highly technical area of research. Tell them what the ultimate impact of the research is.
  
• The body of your talk should be organized into meaningful groupings, with all key subordinate points related to your purpose.
  
• Support your points with facts or anecdotes from your experience.
  
• The more mental imagery you can evoke, the more memorable — and persuasive — your presentation will be. The imagery needs to be something that non-scientists can understand.
  
• Don’t use too many facts and numbers; they numb people. Better to use anecdotes and human examples to illustrate a few numbers.
  
• The conclusion should redirect audience attention to your purpose.
  
• Make your appeal. If you want audience members to do something, tell them what to do.
  
• Remember, the average American has an eighth grade science education. While this may not be true of all groups you address, speak simply and concisely for best communication. It is an opportunity to improve your audience’s science literacy.
  

Responding to Audience Participation

• If you are challenged on a statement (such as the necessity for using research animals, or the manner in which the earth was created), you can do much to diffuse the situation by acknowledging respect for another’s beliefs and values, and also by framing your statements with "I messages."
  
• Never say "you are wrong," or any variation thereof. If it is clear that someone in your audience is making a statement based on misinformation, a good way to respond is to ask, "May I tell you something more (or give you additional information) about that?" Asking permission to convey the facts is more likely to induce the person to listen.
  

Using Visual Aids

• Visual Aids should be used only if they significantly enhance your presentation. Don’t feel that you have to use slides or overheads, especially if your material lacks pizzazz. With a non-scientific audience, good eye contact and body language that conveys your enthusiasm for your work can be more instructive and memorable than most slides.
  
• If you do use slides or other audio-visual aids, don’t let their content dictate the course of your presentation. Decide what you want to say, and then use the slides to illustrate certain points. Nothing is deadlier for a non-scientific audience than a speaker droning repeatedly, "And this slide shows…"
  
• Consider other types of illustrative material that might enhance your presentation: a piece of equipment, an artifact, a working model of the system about which you are speaking.
  
• Information on the visual aid should be to the point, easy to interpret, and interesting. Slides and overhead transparencies need to be kept simple: no more than four words per line and four lines per page or slide. The type needs to be large enough to be read from the back of the room. It is better to exclude items with smaller type than to use them and lose your audience because they cannot see the material you are referring to.
  
• Most slides for scientific audiences are far too complex for the lay public. Don’t use a visual of a chart or graph unless it can be quickly understood by a non-scientist.
  
• During the time you are using slides or overhead transparencies, try to have the room lights dimmed but not turned completely out. Then, during your presentation, refer and perhaps point to the visuals on the screen, but face your audience as much as possible and maintain some eye contact with them. Don’t talk to the screen.
  
• Verify that you are not blocking the audience’s view of the screen while you are using audio-visuals.
  
• After your last slide/overhead, turn off the projector as soon as it has cooled sufficiently. The noise of most projector fans is very distracting.
  
• In most instances, handout materials should be distributed only at the end of your presentation. This prevents listeners from reading while you are talking.
  

How to Handle a Debate
You may find yourself invited to participate in a panel discussion or debate with animal rights activists. Decline such invitations until you feel comfortable about handling them. If you do encounter vocal opposition despite the best-laid plans, the following suggestions should get you through a confrontation:

• Remember that you are representing reason. No matter how great the provocation, control your temper. When your opponents rant and rave, you will win points for your restraint.
  
• Debate on the issue of the humane use of animals in biomedical research often is not polite. You must be able to hold the floor despite attempts to interrupt you. Raise your voice slightly to override the interruptions as you continue to speak. Use body language to assert your authority. Keep your head up and look directly at your opponent in an assertive way. Lean forward and put out your hand as though motioning "stop."
  

These techniques also work when you want to interrupt a stream of misinformation. When you have difficulty getting a word in edgewise, make a general plea by saying, "I’d like to address that point." Then plunge right in, keeping these tips in mind:

• You are unlikely to covert your antagonist, so direct your energies to convincing the audience.
  
• Stick to a few basic points that you wish to communicate, such as the necessity for animal research in the past, present and future, and why it is so important.
  
• Animal rights activists will try to bury you in irrelevant details and misinformation. If you establish your own agenda, you’ll be effective.
  

Responding to Audience Questions
There are two ways to set up a question and answer session following a presentation:

• If time is limited, you may wish to have audience members write their questions on index cards to be passed to you when you’ve finished speaking. Either you or someone you designate can screen the cards selecting those you want to answer.
  
• An open session is more difficult to control, but may be more satisfying to your audience. After you acknowledge an audience member, repeat his or her question to be sure that everyone has heard it (and give yourself time to formulate an answer).
  

You should be able to anticipate many queries. Write out expected questions and your answers before your presentation. The session will be more interesting if you can introduce some new information in your responses.

Again, body language is important. Don’t cling to furniture or cross your arms tightly; you want to convey an air of openness and accessibility. Even if a question is irrelevant, appear to be concerned about what the person has to say. Look at the entire audience to maintain contact when responding. If the same question is asked more than once, patiently answer it again.

When someone asks several questions at once, you are free to choose the one you would like to answer and ignore the others.

If the question is one you would rather not answer directly, use it to lead into a point you do want to make.

If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so. But cite a possible source of the information or offer to get the information for the questioner.

Always finish on a high note. Don’t keep answering questions when audience interest seems to have waned. You can invite those who have unanswered questions to speak to you privately at the conclusion of the program.

* Source: "Communications Manual," Washington Association for Biomedical Research, 1996.

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