A good magazine article on public speaking with a surprising blind spot

Back on January 22, 2014 I blogged about Don’t just get on the bandwagon! Find your own speech topic and approach. In that post I mentioned the huge free PMC full-text magazine article database. Recently I looked there and found a good article by Patrick C. Friman titled Behavior Analysts to the Front! A 15-Step Tutorial on Public Speaking which appeared in the October 2014 issue of Behavior Analysis magazine on pages 109 to 118.

What is that blind spot? A lack of proofreading. Both the author and editor missed that the article really lists 16 steps, two under the number 4. Those steps are:

1]    Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

2]    Study People Who Are Good In Front of the Room

3]    Prepare the Room (and Yourself in the Process)

4]    Capture Their Attention

4]    Make the Journey to the Front of the Room Count

5]   Take Control of the Introduction

6]   Dress for the Occasion

7]   Stand Up Straight and Smile

8]   Your Voice is a Sophisticated Instrument. Play It Well

9]   Show Up

10] Have a Backup Plan

11] Use Slides - Do Not Let Them Use You

12] Tell Stories

13] Say Something Important

14] Do Not Go Over Your Time Limit

15] Concluding Remarks

An image of two blindfolded food aroma testers came from the Library of Congress.