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Reference librarians are the heroes of research

July 5, 2014, 7:45 am
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An Unshelved comic on July 2nd had the conclusion of a story that started back on June 24th with Desmond (a software developer from another comic, Not Invented Here) asking Dewey an obscure question. Dewey went to his co-workers.

But, neither Dewey (the teen services librarian), nor Tamara (the children’s librarian) could find him an answer. Mel (their manager) couldn’t either.

Then Colleen (their retired reference librarian) took over the hunt. She activated her phone network, waited on hold, and another gray-haired librarian appeared and handed her the answer. Desmond’s friend Jeff (who actually had the relevant document) also showed up and he complained that:  

“A librarian broke into my house and stole one of my undergraduate papers.

It was in a box in the back of my garage.

How did she know it was there?

I didn’t even know it was there!

Then she headbutted me with her bun.”

That’s not much of an exaggeration. Reference librarians at your public library are very familiar with a whole box of tools that you may know nothing about, like the PMC and PDQ databases. They are used to looking in lots of places you haven’t ever seen. And they know how to reach people, like the officers in organizations such as the ACM and your local chapter. So, ask them for help when you’re looking for a speech topic or background information. 

For example, two decades ago we were writing a review article for the Society of Automotive Engineers about Spot Weld Failure Analysis for Accident Reconstruction. I found the title of a fracture mechanics handbook that might have something useful, but it was so expensive (~$400) and obscure that even the engineering library at Ohio State University didn’t own a copy.

So, I asked a reference librarian at the Columbus Public Library about getting it via interlibrary loan, and was immediately told (based on a WorldCat search) that Case Western Reserve University up in Cleveland had a copy in their reference collection, but wasn’t willing to send it out. Then the librarian said they would look further.

About a week later they called and told me to come down and pick up the handbook. They found it near Dayton in the library at the Air Force Institute of Technology, which is the Air Force’s graduate school for engineering and management. Back then WorldCat didn’t have the user-friendly web interface it now has.

The NCI image of a librarian working with a doctor using PDQ is from Wikimedia Commons.
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Will the National Speakers Association fall off its new Platform?

July 7, 2014, 8:32 am
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Last week the National Speakers Association (NSA) announced that they were going to start switching to a single-word name of PLATFORM (with an image of a stylized letter O shaped like a balloon) and using the motto:

 “Inform. Influence. Inspire.”

It already looks like a hilariously poor choice, and I expect that it will NOT happen. Why?

There already is a best-selling 2012 book by Michael Hyatt titled Platform: get noticed in a noisy world. Hyatt has been a speaker for over 25 years, and is in a business called Dynamic Communicators International which  already runs a conference called PLATFORM. So, he is rather well positioned to oppose NSA trying to trademark the name PLATFORM.   

Hyatt has a large tribe of followers, some of whom have been quite vocal:

Connie Bennett
Did NSA leaders forget to Google ”Platform” before stomping on Michael Hyatt’s Brand?

Daniel Decker
Do your research first- lessons from the National Speakers Association PLATFORM rebrand and Michael Hyatt

James Hahn
Why the NSA highjacked Michael Hyatt’s Brand part 1

Mike Kim
Michael Hyatt “Owns” Platform ... And 4 More Reasons the NSA Blew It on Rebranding

I understand that NSA felt they needed a change because they were no longer just national. But, I belong to two organizations that renamed just by adding the word International to their former national acronyms. American Society for Metals became ASM International, and National Association of Corrosion Engineers became NACE International.

Maybe NSA also felt that their acronym was tainted by the recent revelations about the other NSA, the U.S. National Security Agency. Perhaps they just should have run an ad explaining the difference:












The falling image was inspired by this warning sign.
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If laughter is the best medicine, are there harmful side effects?

July 8, 2014, 9:16 am
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An article by R. E. Fermer and J. K. Aronson titled Laughter and MIRTH (Methodical Investigation of Risibility, Therapeutic and Harmful): Narrative Synthesis appeared in the Christmas 2013 issue of the British Medical Journal. You can read it in full here at PubMed Central. Their objective was to review both the beneficial and harmful effects of laughter.

Benefits of laughter included:

A] Reduced anger, anxiety, depression, and stress
B] reduced tension (psychological and cardiovascular)
C] increased pain threshold
D] reduced risk of myocardial infarction (presumably requiring hearty laughter)
E] improved lung function
F} increased energy expenditure
G] reduced blood glucose concentration

Harmful effects were:
A] Syncope (fainting)
B] cardiac and esophageal rupture
C] protrusion of abdominal hernias (from side splitting laughter or laughing fit to burst)
D] asthma attacks
E] interlobular emphysema
F] cataplexy
G] headaches
H] jaw dislocation
I] stress incontinence (from laughing like a drain)

Their conclusion was that:

Laughter is not purely beneficial. The harms it can cause are immediate and dose related, the risks being highest for Homeric (uncontrollable) laughter. The benefit-harm balance is probably favourable. It remains to be seen whether sick jokes make you ill or jokes in bad taste cause dysgeusia, and whether our views on comedians stand up to further scrutiny.

Increased energy expenditure sounded promising, but an article from 2007 on the Energy Expenditure of Genuine Laughter said that the effect is relatively small. It will not replace exercising or going on a diet.

The same image that appeared in Fermer and Aronson’s article is at Wikimedia Commons.  

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Is the advice you’re getting about public speaking almost as ancient as a fossilized trilobite?

July 10, 2014, 7:08 am
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And, how about the advice you’re giving out? Things change. Trilobites are extinct marine arthropods that showed up about half a billion years ago and flourished through the lower Paleozoic era. But, they have  been gone for a quarter billion years.  

On his Great Public Speaking blog for March 30, 2014 Tom Antion had a post titled 11 Public Speaking Quotes (that was reposted from August 11, 2013) which began by claiming:

“Public speaking is the number one fear in America.”

Every time I see that, I want to ask if the claimant has ever seen the results from 1998 and 2001 Gallup Pollsreported on March 19, 2001 with the title Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears.

Evidently Tom has not. I looked in the 2010 edition of his book Wake ‘Em Up! Business Presentations. Chapter 8, on Delivery begins with a section on Stage Fright Strategies that still refers to a  (1977) Book of Lists fears Top Ten with speaking to dogs humorously added as #11. 

The Book of Lists got their fears from a 1973 Bruskin survey. There was another 1993 Bruskin-Goldring survey that had public speaking at number one, but most surveys don’t. For Halloween 2012 I blogged about how Either way you look at it, public speaking really is not our greatest fear.  

What’s the latest? On March 27, 2014 YouGovreported results from a survey of about 1000 U. S. adults. I blogged about the details on April 2nd in a post titled YouGov survey of U.S. adults found they  most commonly were very afraid of snakes, heights, public speaking, spiders, and being closed in a small space. Public speaking only came in first when people were asked what they were A Little Afraid of. Both for Very Afraid and a total combining it with A Little Afraid, public speaking came third.    

Remember that sometimes the phrase “thought leader” means:

“I just thought I’m a leader, but now I’m really not.”

The image shows a trilobite fossil replica in an exhibit at The Herrett Center in Twin Falls, Idaho.
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The ultimate presentation nightmare cartoon

July 15, 2014, 8:03 am
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Wow! Today’s Savage Chickens cartoon by Doug Savage has it all - a presentation nightmare where you didn’t know what you are talking about, are naked, and are surrounded by critical angry bears (that shoot lava out of their paws). 

The only thing I’ve heard of that approaches it is a somewhat obscene comedy routine by Patton Oswalt about how taking Ambien creates crazy dream mashups that include several nightmares. 
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National Speakers Association fell off their new PLATFORM, and will try another brand name

July 16, 2014, 10:20 am
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On July 7th I blogged about Will the National Speakers Association fall off its new platform? At their annual meeting they had announced that they were going to switch to a single-word name of PLATFORM.

But, Michael Hyatt already had a best-selling book published in 2012 with the title Platform: get noticed in a noisy world. I said that name change by NSA looked like a hilariously poor choice, and expected that it would not happen.

On July 14th NSA released a YouTube video titled Update on NSA’s Proposed Brand/Name Change - National Speakers Association in which they said they were going to drop PLATFORM and do something else.   

NSA has a code of ethics for members which includes:

“Article 4 - Intellectual Property

The NSA Member shall avoid using - either orally or in writing - materials, titles or thematic creations originated by others unless approved in writing by the originator.”

The text accompanying the YouTube video contained this reply (separation into paragraphs added by me for clarity):

“2. Why did NSA not adhere its own ethics and values related to intellectual property when others were using the Platform name?

An extensive search was conducted through the US Patent and Trademark Office during the development process. While there were 40 separate trademarks held by various companies throughout the US, only one of those was trademarked in the speaker marketplace and it had not been actively used in the last 15 years.

As soon as NSA became aware that someone else was actively using this brand in a similar marketplace to what we proposed, we reached out to that individual immediately to discuss the issue. While it took some time, we have communicated with all parties (including Michael Hyatt and his organization) and have worked out all issues to the satisfaction of everyone involved.

NSA takes very seriously any infractions of intellectual property and holds its ethics process and the values of the organization in high esteem and would never intentionally violate either of them.”
 
Michael Hyatt’s gracious reply to the announcement included this statement:

“The real test of leadership is not in whether you make mistakes. They are inevitable. I’ve certainly made my share. The real test is in what you do about them once they happen.

This is a good example of an organization that stumbled but then had the integrity to reverse their decision once they processed all the relevant input. This is extremely rare among individuals, let alone organizations. I salute them for their leadership.”

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Spam comments from folks who don’t know which end is up

July 17, 2014, 2:10 pm
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When I checked the spam folder on my blog yesterday, I found a comment on a post from September 29, 2009 about Teleprompters and public speaking that said:

“Wow, supoerb blog layout! How ldnghty have you been blogging for? You make blogging glance easy. The overall look of your site is magnificent, let alone the content! My site...”

Now, the gray Blog Archive list on the right side of my posts shows that this blog has been around since 2008, so asking me how long I’ve been blogging is rather silly. 

Even sillier was the totally unrelated topic of his web site - a review for a nonprescription remedy meant to treat hemorrhoids. That remedy combines a dietary supplement (capsules) and a homeopathic spray (containing about 25% alcohol, and purified water), When I looked at two web sites about the product, I found rather confusing instructions.

The manufacturer’s web site says that the spray is applied under the tongue, but one paragraph says twice a day, while another says three times a day.   

Another web site selling the product says that that spray is applied twice a day - either directly to external hemorrhoids, or under the tongue. I’m not sure they know which end is up. 

A third web site says that the remedy originally just was the capsules, and then the spray was added later by new management.

The cartoon of a handstand was derived from this old WPA poster.

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Chris Hadfield’s amazing TED talk on What I learned from going blind in space

July 20, 2014, 7:11 am
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Today is the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon. So, it’s a good time to look at one effect. Up in Ontario it inspired a nine year old boy to dream of becoming an astronaut, which seemed impossible. Chris told that story in his book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. (Back in January I blogged about his advice to Visualize failure and then plan for success).

In this TED talk he describes getting over fear, what going up, being in space, and coming back down feels like, and his sense of wonder. (In the book he mentions an ironic detail - that before launch of a Soyuz rocket Russians toast to Miakoi posadki [soft landings]).
  

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Should you wear a megaphone helmet for public speaking?

July 24, 2014, 3:02 pm
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Probably not, although wearing your very own personal public address system might be tempting. Back on November 18, 2005 Phillip Torrone posted on the Make web site about How to Make a (Pimped Out) Megaphone Helmet:

“Here I show you how you can very simply modify a megaphone to accept 1/8” line input from an iPod, and mount the megaphone on top of a motorcycle helmet. The resulting ‘Mega Helmet’ delivers the maximum aural stupidity allowed by law...Go play softball wearing the helmet. It is very good for antagonizing the pitcher, and trash-talking in general. The helmet allows both for amplification of your voice, and playback of mp3s from the iPod.”

Then on October 24, 2012 The Onion took that idea to an absurd limit (implanted microphone and speakers), demonstrated with an Onion Talk parody of  a TED Talk titled Loudness Equals Power.

Finally, over in London, designer Tomomi Sayuda came up with her two versions of what she called the Mask of Soul. The newer one is described on Designboom in a July 2nd post, Tomomi Sayuda’s mask of soul helps overcome fears of public speaking. It’s slick looking, but the concept is a bit silly. (The Vimeo video shows a swearing contest, and thus is not suitable for playing in a work environment). Her earlier soft version is shown in another Vimeo video from December 14, 2013. 

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Leave the “clean and jerk” to the weightlifters!

July 25, 2014, 11:18 am
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The "jerk" is the last part of a sequence, but if you are a public speaker rather than a competitive weightlifter holding a barbell that gesture will look silly (and perhaps show off sweat patches on your armpits).  

I found this 1939 filibuster image of Senator Warren R. Austin on the Library of Congress web site , with a long title that began:

“If we have to make speeches until morning!”

Back in June 2008 I blogged about What to do with your arms and hands, and mentioned the T-Rex posture, where you let your hands dangle uselessly in front of your body.

Competitive weightlifting is a performance watched by an audience, which is Why Strippers Would Be Good Weightlifters.

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An Overstuffed Series of Donut Charts

July 27, 2014, 9:50 am
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In his All About Presentations blog on July 24th Vivek Singh blogged about how to Create professional looking charts in 6 steps. He showed how to use PowerPoint to make a very pretty donut chart series like the one shown above, which is taken from an Ericsson publication called Performance Shapes Smartphone Behavior. (I added the light green background).

When I looked at that series, something didn’t seem to add up, and doesn’t. Those four percentages are shown as separate categories, which implies they are exclusive. But, 40% + 25% + 23% + 20% = 108%. That’s bull dung.

Something is wrong with the raw data. Before you plot percentages you need to check that they total to a hundred percent. (You could have the named percentages total to less than a hundred, if you left out a miscellaneous or other category though).

PowerPoint is set up to automatically scale the total from them to fill a circle on a single pie chart or donut chart, so it won’t object to showing something silly like this. If you tried to plot them on a single chart, you might be more likely to check them. When you saw that 25% did not fill 90 degrees, you would ask what is wrong.         

Perhaps there really are people who use a train or bus and they shop while commuting. Or, maybe there are people who grab a sandwich and have dinner while they are either shopping or commuting. The charts should show what is really happening.

This is a much more subtle error than the pie chart with a total of 271% I blogged about last December as ‘tis the season for pies and artistic charts about them.

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Just Say It! - a worthwhile Canadian documentary feature film on public speaking and fear

July 29, 2014, 7:00 am
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Earlier this year Luke King posted a video of his 73-minute film Just Say It! on YouTube. It’s worth watching, enjoyable, and free. The trailer is shown above. (WARNING: It contains animated Gumby vomiting).

Luke’s film follows some contestants in the Ontario public speaking contest for school children sponsored by the Canadian Legion. It also contains discussions about fear with some Canadian celebrities like Peter Mansbridge (anchorman for the CBC TV evening news, The National), former boxer George Chuvalo, Roger Abbott and Don Ferguson of CBC’s comedy program Royal Canadian Air Farce, and various other experts.  

Those contestants include 1st to 3rd graders and 10th to 12th graders. The cutest part is six year old Alex Maisonneuve’s speech about a Giant Potato. The 10th to 12th graders are quite polished and mostly serious. 

In Luke’s 2007 film the stakes are lower than in SPEAK!, the more recent American documentary about the Toastmasters World Championship, which I reviewed back in 2012. But, the 10th to 12th graders gave speeches with the same 5 to 7 minute time limits as for the Toastmasters championship.

One of my favorite parts is about Caroline Marcil, a nurse and singer from Quebec. Back in 2004 she  stumbled while trying to sing the Star Spangled Banner at an exhibition hockey game between Team Canada and the U.S. ABS News described what followed in Anthem Singer Redeems Herself. 

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Things that almost design themselves

August 1, 2014, 8:23 am
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Sometimes a product, a speech, or a blog post almost designs itself. That can happen when you already have the parts (ideas) at your fingertips.

A couple weeks ago my sister Sally, who has several cats, asked me if I could build her something wooden and sturdier than what she had recently bought. She had a Planet Petco Cardboard Ramp Cat Scratcher, but her cats had gang tackled and destroyed it. She wanted it to hold a 9”x18”x1-3/4” Planet Petco Double Wide Cardboard Cat Scratcher Refill. Are those dimensions compatible with standard lumber? Yes!

The 9” width of that refill is very slightly narrower than the 9-1/4” actual width of a piece of nominally 1x10” lumber (which actually is 3/4” thick). Surrounding a piece of 1x10 with four pieces of 1x3 lumber (which is actually 2-3/8” wide) would produce a box with a 1-5/8” deep pocket for holding the corrugated cardboard refill. Another 12" piece of 1x10 could be attached to the back of the box to make it a ramp.

So, I went to Home Depot and bought a 6' long 1x10, and had them cut it to two 18-1/4” lengths, and two 12” lengths. Also, I bought a couple of 8' pieces of 1x3. I cut the 1x3 lumber with my little mitre box, and used 2” long drywall screws to assemble two scratchers as shown above, one for Sally and one for our cats. (I included a pair of pine shims at the left to lock the refill in place).     

The new scratcher was a big hit with Sally's cats. One had a unique approach. Most of them like to scratch uphill, but he likes to also scratch downhill. 

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A free e-textbook from The Public Speaking Project

August 3, 2014, 11:33 am
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Back in 2009 I blogged about a free e-book with 13 chapters being prepared by the American Communication Association and then called The ACA Open Knowledge Guide to Public Speaking. Now it is called The Public Speaking Project.  It has 18 free chapters with the following titles:

1. Introduction to Public Speaking

2. The Origins of Public Speaking

3. Ethics in Public Speaking

4. Listening Effectively

5. Audience Analysis

6. Critical Thinking and Reasoning

7. Supporting Your Ideas

8. Organizing and Outlining

9. Introductions and Conclusions

10. Using Language Well

11. Speaking with Confidence

12. Delivering Your Speech

13. Visual Aids

14. Speaking to a Global Audience

15. Informative Speaking

16. Persuasive Speaking

17. Special Occasion Speaking

18. Group Presentations

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How not to give a self-erasing speech

August 5, 2014, 6:31 am
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Last weekend on A Prairie Home Companion rerun Garrison Keillor’s comic monologue of the News From Lake Wobegon included a hilarious description of the commencement speech given at their high school:

“He spoke for about 20 minutes about the importance of communication, as he was demonstrating how not to do it. It was one of those self-erasing speeches, you know.

You come to the end of it and you clap and  you can’t remember what this was about. About communication, or communism, or the state of Connecticut, or what it was.”

You can download a free podcast here. That speech is discussed at the 9-minute mark.

How can you avoid giving a forgettable speech? Pay attention to structure, particularly the ending. In an article on page 26 of Poster, the National Cancer Institute Frederick newsletter, for March 2012 Ken Michaels referred to Keillor’s monologue and discussed how to Finish a Presentation without Erasing Yourself. When you are going from a scientific magazine article to writing a speech, it is tempting to keep the same structure and wind up with acknowledgements at the end. That’s a weak way to finish, but you need a strong one. 

I’ve blogged about Don’t End by Driving Your Audience Off a Cliff. Fred E. Miller also has discussed Closing Your Speech, and  Peter Jeff described 10 Ways to End Your Speech with a Bang.

The eraser image came from Wikimedia Commons, and the image of a man at the microphone came from Openclipart.

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Is stage fright just “The American Disease”?

August 6, 2014, 7:42 am
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On the third Thursday of each month Thomas Dillon writes a column in The Japan Times  titled When East Marries West. On July 16th  it was Ten tips for shaking stage fright, aka ‘the American disease’. His humorous tips were:

1. Keep in mind - no matter what happens - 1 billion Chinese won’t give a hoot.

2. Imagine the entire audience is sitting there naked - a vision guaranteed to make you grin and relax.

3. Imagine the entire room filled with clones of someone you love and trust.

4. Wear your lucky shirt.

5. Encourage yourself by focusing on good memories.

6. Whisper your own words of encouragement.

7. Create a distraction. You know, to take the pressure off. For example, you might release some small animal in the back of the room.

8. Come out smiling and don’t stop. Smile, smile, smile.

9. Even if you goof up the world’s not gonna end.

10. Don’t forget your audience. They’re Japanese. They will be polite, graceful and responsive even if they don’t understand.

Mr. Dillon’s description of stage fright as being “The American Disease” surprised me. Perhaps over  in Japan it’s no big deal compared with our obsession. I found a magazine article from 2001 in Japanese Psychological Research written by C. B. Pribyl, J. Keaten, and M. Sakamoto that mentioned why. It is titled The effectiveness of a skills-based program in reducing public speaking anxiety. Their opening paragraph noted:

“American students have numerous opportunities to learn and practice presentation skills in both high school and college. In contrast, public speaking has played a minor role in Japanese education. However, the Ministry of Education is calling for renewed emphasis on oral skills, and this has prompted Japanese educators to reconsider their position.”

The cropped and flipped 1856 election poster for John C. Fremont came from Wikimedia Commons.    

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Was yesterday really National Public Speaker Day?

August 8, 2014, 11:21 am
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Not quite. (As shown above, it was just another hot summer day). It  popped up yesterday at the start of a post on THE ONE THING blog:

“Today, we recognize National Public Speaker Day, a day that celebrates an activity that has most of this blog audience collectively grimacing. In honor of this day, we dove into the backstory of one of our favorite speakers. Our very own, Jay Papasan.

Does the thought of speaking to a crowd of people put your stomach in knots? You’re not alone. 75 percent of people fear public speaking – making it one of the most common phobias around. Best-selling author and speaker,  Jay Papasan, experienced it too.  While we know he captivates us when he heads on stage to deliver The ONE Thing’s message, those who’ve seen him talk might be surprised to find out that Jay is a borderline introvert. Speaking to a room full of people isn’t exactly one of his natural behaviors.”

That post was titled How Jay Papasan Lined Up His Dominoes to Speak Publically with Confidence. It’s worth reading, but that first paragraph really is superfluous.

If you Google the phrase "National Public Speaker Day" you will get just four hits. That is a clue that something is amiss, and further research is required before posting. Actually yesterday instead was Professional Speakers Day. It is listed in a thick reference book for holidays called Chase’s Calendar of Events. The description says:

PROFESSIONAL SPEAKERS DAY. Aug 7. A day celebrating the consummate professionals who through their oratorical skills help people. For info: Jim Barber, 1101 Marcano Blvd, Plantation, FL 33322. Phone: (954) 476-9252. Fax: (954) 424-0309.

It lists both an email address and a web home page giving a 404 (page not found) error.

We already have both Freedom From Fear of Public Speaking Day in July and National Speak Up and Succeed Day in January. Both days also are listed Chase’s Calendar of Events. You probably can find it by calling the reference librarian at your friendly local public library. That book is a useful source for trivia when you are an emcee, like the Toastmaster for a Toastmasters club meeting. 

The image of a summer day was adapted from the 1903 Puck’s Midsummer Medley.

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12 most commonly feared social or performance situations for university students in Pisa

August 10, 2014, 8:22 am
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Recently at PMC I found a magazine article from Italy by Liliana Dell’Osso et al. titled Dimensional Assessment of DSM-5 Social Anxiety Symptoms Among University Students and Its Relationship with Functional Impairment. It appeared in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 2014, volume 10, on pages 1325 to 1332. They surveyed a sample of  717 students at the University of Pisa (440 women and 277 men, ages 18 to 28). Students filled out the SHY-SR, which is an exhaustive list of 168 yes-no questions that you can read here.


























Table 3 of the article lists 12 most commonly feared social or performance situations, feared by more than 60% of students, which are shown above in a bar chart. (Click on it to see a larger, clearer version).

The most common fear (71.4%) was question [#36], Have you often felt more comfortable in small groups?

Six other fear questions began with Have you often felt embarrassed or uncomfortable:

2nd (70.0%) [#150] when you had to express romantic feelings to someone you liked?

5th (63.9%) [#108] that you might black out while performing or taking an oral examination?

7th (63.0%) [#105] when taking an oral examination?

9th (62.1%) [#103] when speaking, singing, or dancing in front of others?

10th (61.5%) [#146] when you had to ask someone you liked to go out on a date, a movie, to dinner, or a dance?

11th (61.2%) [104] when performing in front of an audience?

Three other fear questions began with When you were a child or adolescent, do you remember or have you been told that:

3rd (66.7%) [#9] you felt embarrassed and uncomfortable speaking with people you didn’t know very well?

4th (64.0%) [#1] you were very shy?

8th (63.0%) [#11] you didn’t want to go to school because you were afraid that the other children would not stay with you and you would feel embarrassed and uncomfortable?

The other two questions that rounded out the top twelve were:

6th (63.6%) [#26] Have you often felt that you were physically unattractive?

12th (60.4%) [#109] Do you worry a lot about having to perform in public or taking an oral examination, for any of these reasons?

These are very curious results which illustrate that the answers you get depends crucially on the questions you ask. I was surprised that blacking out while performing or taking an oral examination ranked 5th and worrying was 12th. Dell’Osso et al. explained that:

“In addition, we found a high frequency of endorsement of ‘Do you worry a lot about having to perform in public or taking an oral examination?’. This finding is probably because, in Italian universities, unlike in other countries, most examinations are orally performed in front of other students.”

In January 2013 I posted about Did you ever worry about blacking out while performing or during an oral exam? and was surprised that their previous study of high school students had ranked it first.

Perhaps there is an inside joke by clinical psychologists in having chosen the acronym SHY-SR. It can be pronounced as scheisser (a German obscenity for one who defecates).

Since this survey does not cover specific fears there is no locally relevant question:

“Have you often felt afraid of falling from the top of a leaning tower?”

Yair Haklai’s image of the leaning tower came from Wikimedia Commons. 

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Robin Williams, improv, and answering questions

August 14, 2014, 7:53 am
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This week I was deeply saddened to hear that comedian and actor Robin Williams had committed suicide. Back in 2001 he appeared on Inside the Actor’s Studio. In the four-minute video clip shown above he improvises starting with a shawl, and creates (among others) the Indian director of a musical film “Whose Sari Now?”,  an Iron Chef, a bullfighter, and finally a car driving out of a car wash.

Answering questions during a speech requires developing impromptu speaking skills, and studying improv can help. Pages 20 and 21 in the June issue of Toastmaster magazine have a brief article by Thomas Piccin about Speaking Off the Cuff.
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Measure twice, and then cut once

August 16, 2014, 11:35 am
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Measure twice, cut once is an old proverb that cautions us to check our work. There are several ways to put the pieces together when designing and building any project. That includes writing a speech. Making the transitions between them smooth (gap free) is an important detail.

In October 2012 Diane Windingland blogged about how Transitions in Your Speech Bridge the Gap. In August 2013 Andrew Dlugan blogged about Speech Transitions: Magical Words and Phrases such as:

Likewise

Conversely

Furthermore

Therefore

Norrm Abram used Measure Twice, Cut Once: lessons from a master carpenter as the title for his 1996 book of essays. (One essay is even titled Measure Twice, Cut Once, but Don’t Measure at All if You Can Avoid It. Fitting the last piece of siding in a row on a house is a situation where you are better to just hold it in place and mark it).  



























For the cat scratcher box I discussed on August 1st, I used butt joints on the sides.  I chose to make both visible on the long sides. As shown above, I also could have put them both on the short sides, or one on each side. Or, I could have gotten fancy and cut 45-degree miters on all four corners to almost hide them, like for a picture frame. 

By the way, the oldest version of the proverb I could find comes from the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1500 - 1571), who said to the Pope that:

“It must, most blessed Father, be allowed that in those cases where men are risking all upon one throw, it is not wrong to do as certain poor and simple men are wont to say, who tell us we must mark seven times and cut once.”

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