Smart Tips: Public Speaking (Udemy.com)
Quick, practical strategies to speak with more confidence, clarity, and impact.
Created by: Deborah Grayson Riegel
Last updated May 2025
What you will learn
- Manage speaking anxiety
- Strengthen delivery and pacing
- Use your voice effectively
- Prepare quickly and confidently
- Avoid common public‑speaking mistakes
- Communicate ideas clearly and naturally
Course Description
Public speaking does not have to mean standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people.
You are using public-speaking skills whenever you present in a meeting, introduce yourself to a group, pitch an idea, lead a webinar, answer a question in front of colleagues, or speak to an audience.
And for many people, those moments can feel stressful.
This Smart Tips course gives you short, practical strategies for becoming a clearer, more confident speaker. You’ll learn how to prepare more effectively, organize your message, manage presentation anxiety, connect with your audience, and deliver your ideas with greater confidence.
The goal is not to eliminate every nervous feeling or turn you into a completely different kind of speaker. It is to give you tools you can rely on when you need to communicate in front of other people.
You’ll learn how to:
• Organize a presentation around a clear message
• Prepare efficiently without over-rehearsing
• Open and close more effectively
• Reduce common sources of public-speaking anxiety
• Use your voice, pace, pauses, and emphasis intentionally
• Strengthen body language and physical presence
• Connect with your audience instead of focusing only on yourself
• Make presentations easier to follow and remember
• Recover when you lose your place or something goes wrong
• Handle questions with greater confidence
• Adapt your approach for virtual and hybrid presentations
• Build presentation confidence through practice
Because this is a Smart Tips course, the lessons are designed to be concise and immediately useful. You can try individual techniques in your next meeting or presentation rather than waiting until you have completed an extensive public-speaking program.
Whether you are preparing for a formal presentation, speaking in meetings, presenting virtually, or simply trying to feel more comfortable when attention turns toward you, these tools can help.
By the end of the course, you’ll have practical strategies for communicating your ideas more clearly, managing nerves more effectively, and showing up with greater confidence when it is your turn to speak.
Instructor Details
- 4.7 Rating
1,464 Reviews
Deborah Grayson Riegel
Deborah Grayson Riegel is a keynote speaker, executive coach, author, and leadership communication expert who helps professionals communicate more effectively, lead with confidence, and navigate the everyday challenges of working with people. She teaches at Wharton, Duke, Columbia, and Peking University and has worked with leaders and teams at organizations including Google, Amazon, BlackRock, and NASA.
Deb is also a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, Fast Company, and Forbes, where she writes about leadership, communication, workplace relationships, and professional development.
Throughout her career, Deb has helped professionals at every level build the practical people skills that make work better—from communicating clearly and confidently to giving feedback, managing teams, navigating difficult conversations, facilitating effective meetings, presenting ideas, and adapting to an evolving workplace.
Her teaching combines research-backed insights with practical tools, relatable examples, and strategies learners can put to use immediately. Whether you're a new manager, an experienced leader, or simply looking to become a stronger communicator and colleague, Deb's courses are designed to help you build skills you can use in real conversations, real meetings, and real workplace situations.
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Reviews
By Emily Walton on 4/20/2026
The course was informative and interesting, and gave some very good tips, ideas and points of view. The first part of the course I found more interesting than the second part being the tips for different presentations, but overall, it was really intriguing.
By Robert Gordon Malone on 9/30/2025
This was a great class on public speaking and well worth my time. The instructor covered all areas and more. I especially valued the emphasis on what the audience should take away from a presentation, rather than just the speaker demonstrating their knowledge. This key insight really drove home the true purpose of a presentation. I also appreciated the micro-session for non-native English speakers and look forward to sharing this resource with that population in our organization.
By Nelisiwe Nzama on 7/7/2025
It was good. I learnt a lot. It taught me things I thought I knew until I realised that I can do much more and expand my presentations skills to a level that my peers will be impressed by.
By Anonymized User on 1/29/2025
This smart tips on public speaking were extremely helpful. I highly recommend this training to anyone looking to improve their public speaking skills.
By Brittany Webkamigad on 10/24/2024
My first Public Speaking Course, and it has exceeded my expectations! I have learned a lot of tips, and will use these on my journey to public speaking.
By Anonymized User on 10/14/2024
Topics discussed were significant inputs to better improve my self as a leader when conducting presentation or discussion with my my staff and clients. Discussion on "Manage your Mindsets" is for me, the learning I would practice regularly.
By Maria Camila Monroy Muñoz on 10/10/2024
I really liked everything about this course! It has a lot of really useful tips, information and it goes deep on what you need to learn about public speaking. I liked that Deborah gives a lot of examples when she discuss something, she really engages with what she's saying, and that she goes into everything: logistics, feelings, knowledge, etc. This is a lot of valuable information and it has been one of the most enjoyable courses I've seen on Udemy.
By Yves Willi Poci Banks Leite Belli on 5/23/2024
It was a really good and efficient course, but since I had done another course by the same instructor lots of the teachings were not very useful for me. But it's still a great use of time to remind all the techniques and the lessons are quite well paced.
By Sharona Panday on 4/10/2023
A very interesting and insightful course. I most certainly picked up some valuable tips. Anyone wanting to improve their presentation skills will definitely benefit from this course.
By Anonymized User on 4/7/2023
It is very interesting, and touches sensible behaviors or feelings like the anxiety, or dealing with audience disagreement. Still it looks too long, having a lot of things which are presented too fast for me. I cannot follow it without writing the ideas from the presentations, fragmenting the presentation frequently. I'm sad it doesn't have an associated structured document to be available for reading and reminding later, experimenting gradually the hints.
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 94 / 100










