Overview

On Monday and Wednesday, my mother was nervous and agitated from the time she got up. At five o'clock on these days she lectured. After lunch she shut herself into her study in the Quai de B thune, prepared the lesson, and wrote the heads of chapters of her lecture on a piece of white paper. Towards half-past four she would go to the laboratory and isolate herself in a little rest room. She was tense, anxious, unapproachable. Marie had been teaching for twenty-five years; yet every time she had to appear in the little amphitheater before twenty or thirty pupils who rose in unison at her entrance she unquestionably had "stage fright." ^[1]

Eve Curie

To watch a presenter lose composure is a painful experience. In some cases, the presenter has so much stage fright that he or she loses composure before the presentation even begins. For instance, a graduate student of one my colleagues lost composure at a conference recently. This graduate student, who had to present two papers back to back, was so nervous that he simply read the papers rather than look the audience members in the eyes and speak to them about what he knew. Moreover, he read so quickly that he finished both papers in less than the time that was allotted for just one. Needless to say, no one in the audience learned anything from the presentations.

In other cases, the loss of composure arises during the presentation because something unexpected occurs. More...