I would really appreciate feedback.

Warmly,
Sarah

Again, excellent post!

I discourage my clients from trying to memorize a script because if they make the slightest ‘mistake’, missing a piece or getting out of order, they tend to panic and get flustered. I recommend that they spend time writing their talk and then distill it to key bulleted points and print those out to use only as a reference if they get stuck or start to veer offtrack.

A few comments on your suggestions:
#1) Author James Humes technique of only speaking “to the audience when your eyes are up off the text.”
This is a technique that I learned as an actor doing “cold-readings” and I recommend to all my clients. I’ve concocted a TLA (Three Letter Acronym) as a mnemonic to help speakers remember this principle:
R-C-S (Read-Connect-Speak). Read off your notes or script in silence, Connect with your audience through eye contact, then Speak.
#3) “compensate for your lack of eye contact with excellent vocal variety”
This is good coaching regardless of whether they are reading or not.
Fully 80 – 90% of the presenters that I observe do not expend enough vocal energy and do not speak with vocal dynamism. Hence, they come across as uninvolved, uninteresting, and unenthusiastic.
#4) “compensate with broad gestures and other movement”
The human eye is deeply sensitive to movement. That part of our ‘operating system’ is based in our brain stem, which developed very early in the history of our species. Simply, if we were not attuned to movement, as a slow-footed and weaker animal, we would have been lunch a long time ago.
There have been documented cases of patients in hospitals with little to no brainwave activity whose open eyes will still follow movement in a room.

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