Communicating More Effectively
231UÊBe yourself during the talk. Audiences prefer a speaker who is down to earth 
and genuine rather than someone who looks as if he or she is trying too hard 
to be entertaining or to impress the audience.
After the Presentation
Following your presentation, it is helpful to evaluate the quality of your performance, 
basing your evaluation on whether you followed the suggestions provided in this chapter. 
Don’t base your self-evaluation on whether you were anxious during the presentation or 
whether your anxiety symptoms showed. The presenter’s anxiety or lack thereof is only 
one small aspect of what makes an effective presentation.
Social anxiety is associated with the tendency to be an overly harsh critic of one’s 
own performance. Therefore, we suggest that you obtain objective feedback from your 
audience members as well. This can be done informally by asking people what they 
thought of the talk. Or, if appropriate, it can be done more formally by handing out an 
anonymous evaluation form that requires audience members to rate their impressions of 
certain aspects of the presentation, such as the format of the presentation, the content 
(for example, interest level, relevance, difﬁculty, and so on), the speaker (for example, 
presentation skills, organization, expertise, clarity), use of audiovisual resources, and the 
location (for instance, lighting, temperature, seating comfort). In addition, make sure to 
include space on the form for audience members to write their impressions (strengths of 
the presentation, areas for improvement) in their own words.