In an age when so much communication is tethered to technology, delivering messages face-to-face has paradoxically become even more vital to professional success. We all have ready access to more information than any of our ancestors did. At the click of a few keys, we can locate reams of facts on any topic under the sun. But although the amount of data available to us has grown, the number of hours in a day has not. Amidst this flood of information, technology can make getting to the pertinent bits of data much more challenging. And that is where a good public speaker becomes a priceless commodity. Listening to a clear and concise speaker is still the most time-efficient way to comprehend new information.

Yet even with its known benefits, most of us view addressing a group of people as a dreaded burden. That may be even more the case for scientists. In addition to the concerns that all speakers have, they must present specialized and complex data.

Some of the dread is also due to the fact that the craft of public speaking is not taught properly. For most of us, it was never taught at all. We all have had to learn by painful trial and error.