To some, Facebook is the ultimate distracter during a presentation or lecture. For me, it’s the use of speech disfluencies, especially “pretty much,” “you know,” and “ummm.” Their overuse detracts from a presentation and can give an impression of being unprepared. At the beginning of my dissertation research, I, too, struggled with these filler words. I hope to share some strategies I used to eliminate these words all together.
