I have a public speaking assignment and i get nervous easily...any tips?

The only way to beat your nervousness is practice. The day before your public speaking assignment, practice your speech until you got the words imprinted in your brain. On the day of the speech, you will still feel a bit nervous, but not enough to freeze you.

Another way(works for me,) is to go in front of a mirror and practice speaking in front of it. That way you will know how you look in front of anyone else and the camera.

Again, practice is the only way to overcome nervousness. There are a lot of books that advises how to overcome it, but it is ineffective if you the individual do not take the steps.

First, practice. Using a mirror and/or a recorder helps.

Second, remember this: your audience starts off expecting you to be good, so why should you be nervous? (and if you are talking to camera, it's only a machine--why do you care what it thinks?)

Third, a tip from Army instructor school a long time ago: When you look out over the audience, imagine they are all cabbageheads. It worked for me

All of your answers have been good ones.

Given your education, you can and should be expected to be better than the average guy on the street. But nobody is expecting Walter Cronkite. The main thing is to have confidence that what you have to say is worth hearing. That way, you will be listened to rather than looked at.

You can test this yourself by comparing your reaction to a newscast with your reaction to a commercial.

go to emofree.com and read up on how to overcome any fears...