Public Speaking, Stuttering and Truth Telling – Bruce McIvor

May 9, 2025

As a lifelong stutterer, grad school was my public-speaking baptism by fire—I was severely burned.

This was because my first inclination, as with most novices, was to not trust myself. To present my findings and conclusions to a room full of faculty and fellow students, I thought I needed a safety net of well-chosen words on the printed page that perfectly captured the nuances of my arguments. How wrong I was.

No one paid attention to my analysis. Instead, all they heard was my stumbling delivery, my wide-eyed, show-stopping pauses as I tried to overcome every ‘S’ and ‘C’ that triggered my stutter and drenched me in embarrassment.

Read More: https://www.firstpeopleslaw.com/public-education/blog/public-speaking-stuttering-and-truth-telling