Helping teens fight their public speaking fear monster

Last Sunday, October 23rd, there was an excellent post by ‘Secondary Sara’ at the Secondary English Coffee Shop blog titled Making Public Speaking Less Scary For Teens. Her six main points are to:

1] Play with audience size

2] Practice in class
 
3] Develop a growth mindset
 
4] Pre-assess shy students
 
5] Keep the audience busy
 
6] Bring in other experts

Instead of having students speak to the entire class, she suggests splitting it in half, or dividing students into small groups. A survey of U.S. adults found that speaking to small groups was feared by just 15.2%, versus 30.2% for public speaking. See my July 22, 2011 blog post titled Putting the fear puzzle pieces together - social and specific fears in the National Comorbidity Survey.

Pre-assessing shy students is important. In another survey of U.S. adolescents, speaking in class was feared by 24.9% of them, which was the second most common social fear out of 14 situations. (Performing for an audience was first at 35.8%). See my June 11, 2012 blog post titled What social situations scare American adolescents, and what are their top 20 fears?

The image is from William Blake’s watercolor of The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun at Wikimedia Commons.

Stagweb survey on fears of British men finds the top five are spiders, heights, public speaking, snakes, and failure

Halloween is approaching, so there are lots of articles about what people fear. On October 26th there was a post at The Antler blog from Stagweb titled Man Phobias - Weird Fears of Modern Life. (Stagweb in Bath, England organizes stag weekends - also known as bachelor parties). They surveyed 1000 British men and found the percentages shown above in a bar chart. (Click on it to see a larger, clearer view).

The top ten fears were:

  1]  Spiders 24.0%
  2]  Heights 19.9%
  3] Public speaking 15.1%
  4] Snakes 11.4%
  5] Failure 11.1%
  6] Flying 3.7%
  7] Clowns 2.8%
  8] Cotton Wool 2.0%
  9] Birds 1.9%
10] Balloons 1.2%

They also asked Are you happy speaking in public? and found 40.5% said yes while the other 59.5% said no.

Are Americans really more afraid of clowns than climate change, terrorism, and death?

That question really should be are more Americans afraid of, and then the answer really is no on those first two. Vox and Morning Consult did a poll of 1999 U.S. adults on October 15 to 17, 2016. They asked How Afraid of clowns are you? Their four possible answers were Very Afraid (8%), Somewhat Afraid (14%), A Little Afraid (20%), or Not Afraid At All (53%). (5% had No Opinion). Results were reported in an article by Zachary Crockett at Vox on October 21, 2016 titled Americans are more afraid of clowns than climate change, terrorism, and ... death.
 
He originally had said:

“We compared the results of our poll with a poll recently conducted by Chapman University, which asked 1,511 Americans to identify their greatest fears from a list of topics. Clowns outranked every single fear, save for ‘government corruption.’ (Note that the Chapman poll only included ‘very afraid’ and ‘afraid’ as voting options, while our poll had ‘very afraid,’ ‘somewhat afraid,’ and ‘a little afraid.’)”

After I emailed him and pointed him to my October 14th blog post titled In the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears public speaking was ranked 33rd out of 79 fears, he changed the sentence in parentheses to instead read:

“(Note that our poll and the Chapman poll had slightly different answer options: Chapman’s had ‘very afraid,’ “afraid,” and ‘a little afraid,’ while our poll had ‘very afraid,’ ‘somewhat afraid,’ and ‘a little afraid.’)”

Results for clowns in those two surveys were as follows:

Zachary originally showed a stacked bar chart with those detailed results (including five age groups) but later deleted it.

But that chart still exists as an image at Twitter, as is shown above.

There also was a bogus bar chart that compared the results for the sum of the first three answers (42%) from the Vox survey with results from the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears which had listed the sum for just the top two answers - Very Afraid and Afraid. It also was deleted, but a version still exists at Twitter, as shown below.

I’ve also shown a corrected version of that now deleted second bar chart, with his answer changed to the correct 22%. But the text still makes misleading comparisons using 42%:

“Americans — at least, those surveyed in our poll — are more afraid of clowns than a possible terrorist attack, a family member dying, climate change, biological warfare, and the always-terrifying Obamacare.”
 
The Vox survey had more details and other questions too. One was Should the following groups do more, less, or about the same to stop clowns from scaring people in public places? Another asked how creepy Americans found nine different images of clowns.

The image of five clowns came from the Library of Congress.

UPDATE

At some point Zachary put those bar charts back into his article. Once again you can see how bogus the comparison is.

Unfortunately the Vox survey has repeatedly been quoted on the Web. On November 7th at Newsmax Larry Bell had an article that asked Do People Fear Clowns Over Climate Change? The answer still is no. Larry is a professor at the University of Houston, so I'd have expected him to catch a bogus statistic.

Donald Trump just is the Boy Who Cried ‘Rigged’

On October 19th, when I watched the 3rd debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I was appalled to hear Mr. Trump say he would not commit to accepting the election results  if he loses. The next day he said he would, if he wins. (See the Washington Post articles titled At third debate, Trump won’t commit to accepting election results if he loses and Donald Trump says he will accept results of election -’if I win’).

He behaved like a spoiled brat. My grandparent’s generation would have scornfully referred to him as a “little pisher.”

The image of a crying boy was adapted from an 1877 chromolithograph by A. M. Willard titled The Bone of Contention found at the Library of Congress.

According to the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears, adults are less than Afraid of Corrupt (federal) Government Officials and only Slightly Afraid of the Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare)

In the 2016 Chapman Survey on American Fears 1,511 adults were asked 79 questions that began with:

“How afraid are you of the following?”

They were asked to choose from one of four answers (fear levels):

1] Not Afraid

2] Slightly Afraid

3] Afraid

4] Very Afraid

In the Chapman blog post about the survey on October 11th titled America’s Top Fears 2016 there was a Complete List of Fears ranked by the sum of the percentages for Afraid and Very Afraid (and also shown alphabetically). The most common fear was Corrupt (federal) government officials (60.6%). But the press release on that same day was incorrectly titled What Do Americans Fear Most? Chapman University’s Third Annual Survey of American Fears Released. It instead should have said What Do the Most Americans Fear? Many others like USA Today repeated that incorrect claim - their article was titled Survey reveals what Americans fear the most.



HOW AFRAID ARE AMERICANS OF CORRUPTION AND OTHER THINGS?

Where was that fear score for Corrupt government officials? Was it way up at 3.75, enough to make us Scream like that man in the famous painting by Edward Munch (shown above). Or was it 3.5, or 3.25, or just 3.0 (Afraid). A fear score can be calculated from the answers for each question in the Detailed Results. The formula simply is a weighted average of the proportions:

Fear Score = [ 1x(% for Not Afraid) +  2x(% for Slightly Afraid)
 + 3x(% for Afraid) + 4x(% for Very Afraid)]/100  

I discussed Fear Scores in an October 30, 2015 blog post titled According to the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears, adults are less than Afraid of federal Government Corruption and only Slightly Afraid of Public Speaking.

The Fear Score for Corrupt government officials was just 2.678, or not even Afraid (3.0).


TOP 40 AND BOTTOM 40 LISTS OF FEAR SCORES

I calculated all the the Fear Scores. Two bar charts show results for the TOP 40 and the BOTTOM 40. Click on them to see a larger, clearer view. The highest score, for Corrupt government officials, is just 2.678, which isn’t even at Afraid. Often the rankings based on Fear Score and  the Sum of [Very Afraid + Afraid] percentages are similar.

For The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which was ranked tenth based on the Sum of [Very Afraid + Afraid] percentages, the Fear Score is 2.001 - or just Slightly Afraid. The rank based on a Fear Score is just 25th.

For Public speaking the Fear Score is 1.933, or not even Slightly Afraid and was ranked the 33rd highest. The very lowest Fear Score for Clowns is only 1.26.





WHAT WAS THE RANGE FOR THOSE FEAR SCORES?

As is shown above in a line graph, those fear scores cover a range from a low of 1.26 to a high of 2.68. Data cover just under half the total range of 3.00 you might expect to find (and only cover the lower part of that range). The highest score is not very frightening at all. It reminded me of a 1965 song by The Radiants - (It) Ain’t No Big Thing.


PEOPLE I LOVE DYING OR BECOMING SERIOUSLY ILL WERE NOT ON LAST YEAR’S LIST OF QUESTIONS. IS THIS SOMETHING NEW FROM CHAPMAN U? 

No, it instead is borrowed from something very old. Back in 1965 James H. Geer had a magazine article published on The Development of a Scale to Measure Fear. He found that for both male and female university students the greatest fear was Death of a Loved One. For  females, Illness or Injury to Loved Ones was second, and for males it was third. Speaking Before a Group was sixth for males and seventh for females. See my October 10, 2012 blog post titled In a 1965 study of university students, fear of public speaking ranked sixth for men and seventh for women.

Stephen Colbert explains Donald Trump’s behavior using just a blackboard

You don’t really need videos or an animated PowerPoint to effectively make a point. On The Late Show Stephen Colbert used a Venn diagram drawn on a blackboard.

Watch the following eight-minute YouTube video, titled One Diagram Explains Every Conspiracy Theory Against Donald Trump. (Some may find it offensive. It definitely is Not Suitable For Work). Watch starting at 5:10 to see him draw that diagram.  

Apocalypse how (and when) - The end-of-the-world in the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears

Today might be National Face Your Fears Day, and one that could be faced is the apocalypse. Or, perhaps that day might have been last week.

The 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears included five questions about Fear of the End-of-the-world, which are shown on pages 83 and 84 of their detailed results.

The general question was: “Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements” and those five statements were:

The world will end within my lifetime.
The world will end as outlined in the Bible.
The world will end due to a world war.
The world will end due to a man-made environmental disaster.
The world will end due to a natural disaster (such as a comet strike, massive volcano explosion, etc.).

For each question people were to answer with one of the following four levels:

A] Strongly Disagree
B] Disagree 
C] Agree
D] Strongly Agree

There also was a category of Refused for those who did not reply to a question.

First let’s look at results for when, that is The world will end within my lifetime. The sum of Agree and Strongly Agree was only 9.7% (just 1 out of 10), while the other 87% said they Disagree or Strongly Disagree. The vast majority of people still expect to die before the world ends.  

Next let’s look at results for how - the sum of Agree and Strongly Agree for four statements, which were:

The world will end as outlined in the Bible. 46.1% [47.8%]
The world will end due to a natural disaster. 32.1% [33.5%]
The world will end due to a man-made environmental disaster. 29.1% [30.1%]
The world will end due to a world war. 21.3% [22.0%]

I also listed the Rescaled Percents [shown in square brackets], which were calculated via multiplying by a factor of 100/[100 - Percent Refused]. As outlined in the Bible was the most popular answer, but still fell slightly below a majority. 

In a October 23, 2015 blog post titled A Somewhat Haunted World - Paranormal Beliefs in the 2015 Chapman Survey on American Fears, I discussed how just reporting the sum for Agree and Strongly Agree was insufficient and misleading - the sum for Disagree and Strongly Disagree also was highly relevant. 

A bar chart shows the sums for how, with Agree (blue) and Disagree (pink). Click on it to see a larger, clearer view. For all four the sum for disagree is larger than that for agree. Percentages range from 50.45 (1 in 2) for as outlined in the Bible to 75.2% (3 out of 4) for due to a world war.

In the October 11th Chapman blog post What Aren’t They Telling Us? in a section titled The Consequences of Conspiracy they discussed how:

“Belief in conspiracies is significantly related to agreement with the statement ‘The world will end in my lifetime.’ Belief in the impending end of the world increases steadily with belief in conspiracy theories.”

They didn’t mention that only 1 in 10 Americans agreed with that statement.

The image of a nuclear blast was adapted from one found at Openclipart.

Guardian Angels and Satan are paranormal beliefs the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole

The 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears included nine questions about Paranormal Beliefs, which are shown on pages 56 to 59 of the detailed results.

The general question was: “Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements” and those nine statements were:

Aliens visited Earth in our ancient past.
Aliens have come to Earth in modern times.
Fortune tellers, and psychics can foresee the future.
Places can be haunted by spirits.
Bigfoot is a real creature.
I have been protected by a guardian angel.
Ancient advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, once existed.
Some people can move objects with their minds.
Satan causes most evil in the world. 

For each question people were to answer with one of the following five levels:

1] Strongly Disagree

2] Disagree

3] Don’t Know

4] Agree

5] Strongly Agree

There also was a category of Refused for those who did not reply to a question.

Results were reported on October 11, 2016 in a blog post titled Paranormal Beliefs. It included a graphic showing the sum of Agree and Strongly Agree for seven statements, which were:

Places can be haunted by spirits. 46.6%
Ancient advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, once existed. 39.6%
Aliens visited Earth in our ancient past. 27.0%
Aliens have come to Earth in modern times. 24.7%
Some people can move objects with their minds. 19.1%
Fortune tellers, and psychics can foresee the future. 14.1%
Bigfoot is a real creature. 13.5%

They omitted the other two, I have been protected by a guardian angel, and Satan causes most evil in the world. Why might that be? Chapman University is a church-related school - it is connected with both The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and The United Church of Christ. I suspect they decided those religion-related questions were on topics they didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole - because of paranoia that they might upset university or church leaders. 

Comparison with the detailed survey results listed below shows that the numbers are slightly different than the Rescaled Percents [shown in square brackets], which were calculated via multiplying by a factor of 100/[100 - Percent Refused]. I also showed the original Percents (in parentheses). The 19.1% for Some people can move objects with their minds is the same as the original percent, too small, and wrong.

I have been protected by a guardian angel. NOT SHOWN [52.9%] (51.7%)
Places can be haunted by spirits. 46.6% [45.9%] (44.8% )
Satan causes most evil in the world. NOT SHOWN [41.2%] (40.3%)
Ancient advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, once existed. 39.6% [40.1%] (39.1%)
Aliens visited Earth in our ancient past. 27.0% [25.8% ] (25.2%)
Aliens have come to Earth in modern times. 24.7% [23.8%] (23.2%)
Some people can move objects with their minds. 19.1% [19.5%] (19.1%)
Fortune tellers, and psychics can foresee the future. 14.1% [13.5%] (13.2%)
Bigfoot is a real creature. 13.5% [13.1% ] (12.8%)

In a October 23, 2015 blog post titled A Somewhat Haunted World - Paranormal Beliefs in the 2015 Chapman Survey on American Fears, I discussed how just reporting the sum for Agree and Strongly Agree was insufficient and misleading - the sum for Disagree and Strongly Disagree also was highly relevant. 

A bar chart shows the sums for Agree (blue) and Disagree (pink). Click on it to see a larger, clearer view. For just three paranormal beliefs the sum for agree actually is larger: I have been protected by a guardian angel (which is first), Places can be haunted by spirits, and Ancient advanced civilizations, such as Atlantis, once existed. For the other six paranormal beliefs the sum for disagree is greater than that for agree. An even more detailed chart also would include the percentages for Don’t Know.

The Chapman blog did include an October 11, 2016 post about Fear of Muslims in American Society, so talking about some other religious beliefs was OK.

The image of a logger holding a long pole was adapted from one found at the Library of Congress.

What is the government concealing from us? Paranoia in the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears

In the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears the most common fear was Corruption of government officials. (It also was this year, as I discussed yesterday). Based on that, this year’s survey also included ten questions in the scary category of Fears About Government’s Concealment of Information.

The general question was: “The government is concealing what they know about...” and the ten specific conspiracy questions were about:

Alien encounters
The 9/11 attacks
The North Dakota Crash
Obama’s Birth Certificate
Global warming
The JFK assassination
The moon landing
The death of supreme court justice Antonin Scalia
The origins of the AIDS virus
Plans for a one world government

For each question people were asked how they felt about that event, that is whether they:

A] Strongly Disagree

B] Disagree

C] Agree

D] Strongly Agree

There also was a category of Refused for those who did not reply to a question. Results were reported on October 11, 2016 in a blog post titled What Aren’t They Telling Us? It included a vertical bar chart showing results for the sum of Agree and Strongly Agree, which were:

The 9/11 attacks 54.3% [54.0] (52.2%)
The JFK Assassination 49.6% [50.1] (48.4%)
Alien encounters 42.6% [42.0 ] (40.4%)
Global warming 42.1% [42.3 ] (40.7%)
Plans for a one world government 32.9% [32.6] (31.4%)
The North Dakota crash 32.5% [32.0 ] (30.1%) (I added this one)
Obama’s birth certificate 30.2% [31.3] (30.2%)
The origin of the AIDS virus 30.1% [29.0] (27.9%)
The death of supreme court justice Antonin Scalia 27.8% [27.3] (26.3%)
The moon landing 24.2% [23.2] (22.3%)

Comparison with the detailed survey results shows that the numbers listed above are slightly different than the Rescaled Percents [shown in square brackets], which were calculated via multiplying by a factor of 100/[100 - Percent Refused]. I also showed the original Percents (in parentheses). The charted number for Obama’s birth certificate just is the original Percent, which clearly is wrong.  

They tried to add a nonexistent event as a control to this survey, but unfortunately failed:

“Perhaps most indicative of the conspiratorial nature of Americans is the tenth conspiracy theory we asked about…one which, to our knowledge, we created.

Respondents to the Chapman University Survey of American Fears were asked if ‘The government is concealing what they know about…the North Dakota crash.’ A third of Americans (33%) think the government is concealing information about this invented event.”

Referring merely to a North Dakota crash without specifying a date, city, or vehicle (plane, train, truck, etc.), was far too vague. Back on December 30, 2013 near Casselton, ND a grain train derailed and fouled the adjacent main track. Then 20 tank cars of another unit train carrying crude oil derailed, and 18 caught fire, and exploded. More than 400,000 gallons of oil were released, with damage estimated at 6.1 million dollars. The next day the TIME magazine web site had an article titled North Dakota Derailment Shows Dark Side of America’s Oil Boom. The federal National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash and released a preliminary report.

In a October 23, 2015 blog post titled A Somewhat Haunted World - Paranormal Beliefs in the 2015 Chapman Survey on American Fears, I discussed how just reporting the sum for Agree and Strongly Agree was insufficient and misleading - the sum for Disagree and Strongly Disagree also was highly relevant. 

A bar chart shows the sums for Agree (blue) and Disagree (pink). Click on it for a larger, clearer view. For the 9/11 attack the sum for agree actually is larger, for The JFK assassination the sums are equal. For the other eight events the sum for disagree is greater that fifty percent, so only a minority are believers. For The moon landing almost three-quarters (74%) disagreed. 

The image was adapted from a well-known World War I recruiting poster.


UPDATE - November 1, 2016

An October 31st article in The New York Post by Michael Kaplan titled What America Fears More Than Evil Clowns did what you expect from tabloid journalism - it made up details about The North Dakota Crash question:

"To truly measure the level of paranoia — and the degree to which that response is completely knee-jerk — Bader asked respondents to opine on the North Dakota crash. He provided details of the crash, and nearly one-third of respondents believed it to be covered up by the government. That was before they realized that the North Dakota crash was completely fabricated."

In the 2016 Chapman Survey of American Fears public speaking was ranked 33rd out of 79 fears

On October 11, 2016 Chapman University released results from their third annual Survey of American Fears. There was a press release titled What do Americans Fear Most? Chapman University’s Third Annual Survey of American Fears Released, and another blog post titled America’s Top Fears 2016. The main part of the survey asked 1,511 U. S. adults “How afraid are you of the following...” for 79 different fears. Possible answers were:

A]  Not Afraid

B]  Slightly Afraid

C]  Afraid

D} Very Afraid

or E] Refused (did not answer)

According to their Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) web page, the margin of error was plus or minus three percent. For the sum of percentages for Afraid and Very Afraid there was a list of America’s Top Fears. The ten most common fears were:

1.   Corrupt (federal) government officials  60.6% (58.9%)

2.   Terrorist attack  41.0 (40.1%)

3.   Not having enough money for the future  39.9% (39.4%)

4.   Terrorism  38.5% (37.8%)
 
5.   Government restrictions on firearms and ammunition  38.5% (37.2%)

6.   People I love dying  38.1% (37.5%)

7.   Economic/financial collapse  37.5% (36.6%)

8.   Identity theft  37.1% (36.4%)

9.   People I love becoming seriously ill  35.9% (35.4%)

10. The Affordable Health Care Act/Obamacare  35.5%

Comparison with the detailed survey results shows that the numbers listed above are slightly larger than the Valid Percents (shown in parentheses), because they actually have been rescaled via multiplying by a factor of 100/(100 - Percent Refused). Where is public speaking on the list? It is 25.9% (25.5%) and way down at 33rd out of 79 fears. That is even lower than the 26th out of 89 fears found in the previous 2015 survey. 

I looked more carefully at the detailed results and prepared a set of bar charts of the Top Forty most common fears.

The first bar chart shows results for Very Afraid. (Click on it for a larger, clearer view). The most common fear was Corrupt government officials (28.9%), followed by Government restrictions on firearms and ammunition (19.0%). There was a tie for third between Not having enough money for the future and Terrorist attack (17.9%). Fourth was The affordable health care act (aka Obamacare) (17.5%), and fifth was Terrorism (16.9%). Public speaking was ranked 37th  (9.1%).

A second bar chart shows results for Afraid. The most common fear was Corrupt government officials (30.0%), followed by Identity theft (23.4%), Economic/financial collapse (23.3%), People I love becoming seriously ill (23.2%), and Credit card fraud (22.6%). Public speaking was ranked 31st (16.4%).

The third bar chart shows results for Slightly Afraid. The most common fear was Losing my data, photos, or important documents in a disaster (40.5%), followed by Becoming the victim of a property crime (40.2%), and Being hit by a drunk driver (39.4%). There was a tie for fourth place between People I love becoming seriously ill and Break-ins (39.2%). Economic/financial collapse was fifth (39.1%). Public speaking was 24th (34.7%).

A fourth bar chart shows results for the sum of Very Afraid and Afraid. The most common fear was Corrupt government officials (58.9%), followed by Terrorist attack (40.1%) and Not having enough money for the future (39.4%). Terrorism (37.8%) was fourth, and People I love dying (37.5%) was fifth. Public speaking (25.5%) was 33rd.

A fifth bar chart shows the Bottom Forty for the sum of Very Afraid and Afraid. The least common fear was Others taking behind your back (6.7%). Clowns (7.7%) were second, Ghosts (8.8%) were third, and Strangers (9.7%) were fourth. For fifth (10.0%) there was a tie between Zombies and Your significant other cheating on you. 

The sixth bar chart shows results for the grand sum of Very Afraid, Afraid, and Slightly Afraid. The most common fear was Corrupt government officials (80.8%), followed by Economic/financial collapse (75.7%). For third there was a tie (74.9%) between Not having enough money for the future and Terrorist attack. Fourth was People I love becoming seriously ill (74.6%), and fifth was Identity theft (74.5%). Public speaking was 31st (60.2%).

The Chapman survey also included questions about other topics like the paranormal, conspiracies, and Islamaphobia. I plan to cover some of these in other blog posts.

Missing the boat when chasing a joke

On May 20,1993 a broadcast of the TV comedy Seinfeld opened with a routine including the following oft-repeated joke:

“....According to most studies, people’s number-one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two! Now, this means to the average person, if you have to go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”

Chapter 4 of Joseph M. Reagle, Jr.’s 2015 book, Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web opens with the following paragraph (on page 73) that apparently was meant to reference my May 19, 2011 blog post titled America’s Number One Fear: Public Speaking - that 1993 Bruskin-Goldring Survey:

“The fear of public speaking is supposedly so great that comedian Jerry Seinfeld once quipped that people at a funeral would ‘be better off in the casket than giving the eulogy.’ Is the basis for this quote true? Richard Garber, the blogger behind Joyfully Public Speaking, investigated and found that on a 1993 survey that asked people about their fears, 30 percent of those surveyed said they feared death, and 45 percent reported a fear of public speaking. However, although more people did report a fear of public speaking, they were never asked to compare it to death (Ref.1). Yet this quibble is easily forgotten in light of the keen anxiety many feel when they speak in public. They are afraid of disparaging comments that might arise in others’ thoughts or, worse yet, comments that might be furtively exchanged between their peers. In fact, professionals make a living studying ‘communication apprehension’ and treating ‘glossophobia’ from the Greek glossa (tongue) and phobos (fear).”

He incorrectly referred to this blog as being titled Joyfully Public Speaking. But his Reference 1 for chapter 4 actually referred to another blog post:

“1. Richard I. Garber, ‘The Fourteen Worst Human Fears in the 1977 Book of Lists: Where Did This Data Really Come From?,’ Joyful Public Speaking, October 27, 2009...” 

Did that 1993 survey inspire Seinfeld’s joke? Probably not. The report about that survey was published privately sometime in February 1993, and the joke appeared on May 20, 1993. The 1993 Bruskin/Goldring report was quite obscure, but the 1977 Book of Lists was a popular book with wide circulation. We can easily imagine a comedian looking in it for inspiration.  

Reagle’s version of part of the Seinfeld joke is a slight misquote that you would:

“...be better off in the casket than giving the eulogy.”

He didn’t bother to point out that death wasn’t number two in either survey. It was seventh in the 1977 Book of Lists, and fifth in the 1993 Bruskin-Goldring survey. 

A misleading infographic about fears from Dr. Oz The Good Life magazine

Page 32 of the October 2016 issue of Dr. Oz The Good Life magazine has an Halloween Special article by freelance writer Gina Roberts-Grey titled Fear Factor. That article ends on page 34 with an infographic titled These Are a Few of the Scariest Things. It lists ten percentages (for percent Very Afraid or Afraid) that were taken from the 2015 Chapman Survey on American Fears. For each fear the percentage also is shown via a donut chart with an icon in its center.  But she did not bother listing where those fears ranked from #1 to #89.  They actually are:

Terrorist Attacks    44.4%   # 4

Reptiles                    33.0%  #17

Tornadoes                31.4%   #20

Public Speaking      28.4%   #26

Heights                    28.0%   #28

Needles                    18.5%   #52

Germs                      16.5%   #55

Flying                       15.2%   #61

Blood                        12.2%  #70

Ghosts                        9.7%   #78

Note that only one fear is listed from the Top Ten, just three are from the Top Twenty, and only five are from the Top Thirty. The other five aren’t even in the Top Fifty, which means they are a long way from really being The Scariest Things. It’s a frighteningly silly list!

On June 25, 2016 I blogged about How could you spin the results of a fear survey where public speaking wasn’t even in the top 5, 10, or 20? Gina Roberts-Grey’s article is another example of leaving out the rankings. 

The image is an angry selfie of Rembrandt from the Library of Congress. 

How to visualize a Trumpload of loss from The Donald’s 1995 income tax returns

On October 1st the New York Times published first pages from three of Donald Trump’s 1995 state income tax returns showing that The Donald had reported an enormous loss - $915,729,293. How could we visualize this outrageously large amount of money?

Wikipedia says that a dollar bill has a thickness of 0.0043 inch. Put all that money in a stack, and it would be 3,937,636 inches tall. Divide that by 12 to convert to feet, and then by 5280 to convert to miles. That’s a 62 mile-high (or 100 kilometer) pile of dollar bills. 

62 miles has a special significance. It is the height for the Kármán line - the boundary between the earth’s atmosphere and outer space. So, a Trumpload would reach up to the very edge of space. Wow!

On October 2nd at LawNewz Robert Barnes wrote about how The New York Times likely broke law by publishing Trump’s taxes. Free speech is no excuse. He talked about Federal law, which clearly is NOT applicable to those state returns. Others foolishly referred to his article. On October 2nd Jane Genova blogged about Trump - Can He Bring Down NYT, Way Hogan Brought Down Gawker? On October 3rd at The Hill Joe Concha blogged about how New York Times forfeits ethics in publishing Trump taxes. Others thought and wrote more carefully. At the Tax Foundation on October 2nd, Joseph Henchman and Alan Cole described Five facts about the Trump tax return disclosure. At the Washington Post on October 3rd Callum Borchers wrote about how The New York Times risked legal trouble to publish Donald Trump’s Tax return.

Time lines and Gantt Charts

In a presentation we sometimes need to show the time sequence for a series of tasks involved in a project, like the blog post shown above. This can be done via a horizontal, stacked bar chart known as a Gantt Chart.  That chart is a tool commonly used in project management, and may be created using special software.

In July 2014 the Wrike blog posted What is a Gantt Chart for Project Management? (Infographic). On Sep 18, 2016 the Slideshop blog reposted that infographic.

Back in 2007 Dave Paradi blogged about PowerPoint Tip: Use Gantt chart for Timelines. More recently he showed how to Create a data driven Gantt chart (using Excel).

For a complicated project the entire Gantt chart may be confusing, so you might prefer to show the audience where you are on just a few of the tasks.