If you see Everything or Complete in a title, then prepare for nonsense

At Career Coach ie on June 12, 2020 there was an article by Joy Woods titled Everything you need to know about public speaking that opened by claiming without a supporting reference that:

“Public speaking can be considered one of the five scariest things people have today. It even (is) scarier than death to some. Given how scary speaking in public can be for some, it’s a good idea to be ready in advance. Use the following tips to help you with your public speaking.”

Then in the fifth paragraph she advised:

“Make sure you have a good understanding about your topic before preparing your speech. Research it from various angles so you have a full understanding of the topic. This will pay off handsomely as your audience asks questions.”

But she did not take her own advice. That claim about five things is from a blog post by Sheri Ledbetter at Chapman University on October 20, 2014 titled What Americans Fear Most – New Poll from Chapman University. On September 29, 2019 I blogged about how you should Stop playing – do serious digging before you come up with an opening statement. In that post I pointed out that the 2014 Chapman survey didn’t ask questions in a consistent way. Thus those five scariest things were not a useful comparison. In all the later surveys from 2015 through 2019 fear of public speaking was no where near the top five. Another blog post of mine on July 10, 2016 discussed how you should Beware of anything labeled as a Complete Guide.