Factor Affecting Public Speaking Anxiety

Communication apprehension has played a huge role on my life. Growing up I thought I was a social butterfly, not worrying about what people thought about me or how they viewed me. I had some great friends growing up that were always supportive of me. We would hang out all the time and meet new people and just have fun. It wasn’t until I was a little bit older that I learned of the fear of public speaking.

Public speaking is a must needed skill in today’s business environment that, much like any skill, requires discipline to master. Public speaking classes have many benefits, including gaining confidence through practice to advance professional goals (O'Hair, Stewart, & Rubenstein, 2015). Additionally, oral and written communication skills are the most highly sought after skills from organizations seeking to hire college graduates (O’Hair et al., 2015). The Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) is a self-assessment consisting of 34 questions regarding communicating with others (CSU-Global, 2016). This paper will explore the results of my PRPSA self-assessment, analyze the results, and opine on how the results of the assessment may

Nervousness is something that is very common when it comes to public speaking. Many great public speakers had that very same problem. Such as Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Sanger and Winston Churchill. Some ways to manage your nervousness can be thinking positive, preparing extensively for your speech and not letting yourself get worried about looking nervous.

Public speaking is the number one fear in the world, which shows that the number one fear is really a deep fear of rejection from the connection of others. The narrator in “Typical First Year Professor”, who had a fantastic education and experience, has public speaking issues. She explains how her fear physically affects her in, “Ten minutes before my first class, I run to the bathroom and vomit. I’m afraid of public speaking, which

There is no question that after giving about four speeches, I have become a much better overall public speaker. In the beginning of the semester, I would tend to get nervous during some of my speeches and consequently the delivery of my speech would be greatly affected. If I had made a mistake, my level of nervousness would drastically increase and I wouldn’t know how to correct it. Although today I have improved on these aspects. Normally in order to control my nerves I try to think as positively as possible. This is critical because when I start to think even a little bit negatively then I severely hurt my chances of giving a good speech. Instead today, my main priority is to stay very confident and tell myself that I’m going to perform fine.

Public speaking used to be a daunting task that I would try to avoid as often as possible, often I would be the last to present a project and would refrain myself from having to read outloud. When I would speak my head would fill with thoughts of how other were perceiving me and how easy it would be to mess up. With this nervous mentality my speaking was stuttered and confusing.

This paper will go over the three main goals I would like to achieve in my public speaking career. My first goal is to improve upon the structure of my speeches to ensure that the topics that I discuss are in an order that will make sense to the audience. My second main goal I have for improving my public speaking skills is to improve on my confidence before, during, and after my speech. Finally, my last goal is to raise my delivery skills when I am giving my speech to assure the audience that I am confident and that I am a credible person. Together, these goals will help improve my public speaking skills.

Claudia Stepanovich gave me a message through power point that I completely agree with and that is that public speaking is not a skill you are born with; it is something that you have to learn and get better at. This message spoke to me, because I am extremely nervous about public speaking and I always avoid it when I can; when I can’t avoid it I always get nervous and start to stutter and forget information.

The third chapter of a Pocket Guide to Public Speaking is about anxiety in relations to

Public speaking is a fear faced by over 75% of the Earth’s population. In fact, 5.3 million of Americans today face social phobia and speech anxiety. Commonly referred to as “glossophobia”, speech anxiety is fear people face when delivering speeches and/or lectures to large audiences. The article, “Conquer Fear of Public Speaking through Emotional Intelligence”, written by Gleb Tsipursky, provides people with expert advice on how to conquer their speech anxiety. As someone who presents ideas and projects on a daily basis, I have started to conquer my speech anxiety. When I first moved to Hillsborough in 2013, I was petrified when delivering my student council speech. No one knew me, and I only had a scant amount of friends. I patently remember being extremely

List 3 reasons that voice deviations tend to be of less concern within the general population than other communication problems such as stuttering and articulation disorders? (1.5 points)

A study was done that showed men have more trouble and anxiety than women do speaking to another culture. When you get nervous about public speaking, your brain tries to help you by making your hands shake, knees quiver, and stomach flutter. Which really makes you more nervous than before. Whatever the reason of your nervousness, your brain gets conflicted. You want to do great, but you're not sure if you can actually pull it off. Your breathing increases, your adrenaline starts to pump, and your blood starts rushing through your veins. Then your anxiety starts up, with rapid heartbeats and perspiration

Communication apprehension is categorized as fear or anxiety associated with real or anticipated communication with a person or persons. It is a form of social anxiety that takes into account various contexts. The PRCA-24 assessment I completed scored my levels of communication apprehension in four different areas: group discussion, interpersonal conversation, meetings, and public speaking. From my results I found that I most likely experience communication apprehension during group discussions and interpersonal conversations but not during meetings and public speaking. I agree that the results do apply to my life on certain occasions.

For as long as I can remember, public speaking has always been one of my greatest weaknesses. Whether it’s a simple in-class presentation or a speech in front of an auditorium filled with people, I can barely get my words out from the anxiety and

“Sweaty palms, shaking hands, dry mouth and muscle tension mean for many of us, that we are about to speak in public. Couple this fear of speaking in public with performing or speaking in another language and the success of the speaker may be dramatically compromised” (Leigh, 2009). By having to speak in a foreign language, the amount of fear in us grows and transforms into the feeling of anxiety, which is scientifically named as a Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA). The fear of dealing in a foreign language environment is most felt when a student must perform orally in some way but it can also occur when