<p>I am very tied to my notes when public speaking and I absolutely despise it!!!&nbsp; I so envy others who have the gift of gab and can speak to a large audience as if they were speaking to each individual in a private one on one&nbsp;conversation.&nbsp; I have been told that I am a good public speaker and that I appear to be conversational but without my notes I fear I would lose my train of thought and not deliver the intended message.&nbsp; I do speak without reading my notes verbatim and when I glance down they serve as a reminder as to remind me where I am at in the speech and to also encourage me to have one on one eye contact with my audience.&nbsp; I also try to memorize my speech as well so that I do not look like I am so tied to them.&nbsp; After posting this comment I now feel I should take a course on notes during the my presentation so that I can perfect my deliveries.&nbsp; As an instructor the PowerPoint slides serve as my notes and I am able to feed off of them to directly reach my students through personal contact but again this is something I would like to perfect so that I have more of an effect for the good on my audience.</p>