Recap: Public Speaking Workshop

To kick off our first meeting of the semester, post our general interest meeting, GMU SPJ decided to host a public speaking workshop. The goal of this workshop was to give members helpful tips that they could use throughout their courses as well as their career. We created a PowerPoint slide with public speaking tips that was presented by President, Lauryn Cantrell and Vice President, Sydney Cano.

Some of Our Tips
  • Use personal stories and try to be humorous/relatable
  • Use appropriate body language
  • DO NOT read off slides
  • It's okay to be nervous and practice makes perfect!
  • Avoid "likes" and "ums"


The PowerPoint also included an interactive, mock press conference simulation. Some people acted as journalists and others as communication directors. This way students would have the ability to practice asking questions from a journalistic perspective as well as responding from a PR standpoint. Both involve a particular level of public speaking and the purpose of this was compare the similarities between PR and Journalism.We had a very fun time as members responded back and forth with each other during the simulation! It was a good way for the members to get to know each other better and it was quite a success.

To conclude the meeting, we announced our upcoming field trip to The Washington Post and next week's guest speaker Brittany Johnson, NBC4 Social Media Producer! 


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