The course provides basic tips on improving public speaking abilities. I think the best part of the course design was that it had the right amount of concepts and weekly syllable build up to actually make sure you remember and can apply the material practically (assuming you participate in the lessons and assignments). Instructor is great. Would recommend to anyone looking to improve their public speaking abilities.

I believe that is great knowing how to speak and how to perform a speech in front of an audience. Unfortunately here we haven’t a real audience, the real one that we really have in front of us when we really have to speak.

This course, helped me anyway a lot, because i couldn’t take the time to follow a real class, and of course thanks to THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON is possible all of this. It is so a great course.

Overall the Public Speaking Course was Great! The teacher Matt McGarrity is Awesome! He know the material. He breaks the different subjects down in such a clear way. I can now take what I learn from this and build on it from here and go Up! I can be a lot confident when I am standing in front of my New Audience when I'm going giving speeches. Thank you!!

Professor Matt is excellent, best online course teacher I've ever come across! I've learnt so much from him, gained more confidence and organizational abilities with regards to speaking and maybe even developed a liking for public speaking! Thanks so much Prof, you're really engaging, your course is excellent and I'm very much inspired!

I think this is a great introductory course on public speaking and touches on the basic aspects. Plus Prof. McGarrity is a good teacher not only as a speaker obviously but also keeps the lectures fun by introducing jokes and humour. I had a great time learning about public speaking and intend to continue with the specialisation.

Professor was excellent; engaging, clever and clear to understand and follow. His presentations were visual and interesting as he incorporated a range of elements from images to video examples of other public speaking scenarios. I signed up for the Public Speaking specialization and am looking forward to taking my next class.

I highly recommend this class if you are planning or thinking to move up/want to do something by yourself in the future because no matter what public speaking is a key to success. You can study this class to learn how to talk, how to build/write your story and gain confidence even in speaking English as a second language.

Great course for those that need some confidence with their speech skills. The most amazing thing about this class is that you learn to deliver concisely, addressing key issues and leaving out the jargon. This class has given me the tools to continue practicing how to stand and deliver without fear.

I highly recommend it.

Excellent course. I am an unemployed adult and have lots of passion for speaking and teaching but in this materialistic world only having passions are not enough...you have to be certified of what you a real pursuing.

Coursera helped me a lot and this course was indeed the best I can go for .

thanks a million.

Excellent introduction to public speaking - to get the most value from it you need to put time into the optional speaking and assessment exercises and do some active learning - notes, practice etc. The investment in time is well worth it, but will end up taking longer than the quoted number of hours.

Definitely learned a lot. Facts like do not repeat yourself is good advice for writing or when you are coding! But it is needed for being understood while speaking.

Tools of rhetoric have already help me manage my speaking tasks.

Getting advice from other students have also helped see my bad habits.

best course to learn or to get some skills if anybody want to learn public speaking apply for this course its very productive and easy to understand i assure you that after you finish this course you would get some brilliant ideas that would be useful for you only,while you are speaking in public

Great course, excellent instructor. The topics are easy to follow up. And easy and practical to apply since day 1 of the course. I have improve in my speeches, I am an instructor so the topic was really important for me and also to my students.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with the world.

Through the introduction to public speaking course, I could develop skills that helped me to prepare speeches in a better and more engaging way. I feel that I can now structure future speeches more adequately, hence being more confident to present them to any kind of audience.

This MOOC is the best upgrade I ever took to improve the knowledge in skill.

I find Coursera an amazing site and the Public Speaking course a revelation.

The professor Dr. McGarrity is the greatest teacher I have ever listened to and my brain ecstatically enjoyed the lectures.

It is one of the best online course I have attended. It has a lot of highly valuable ideas. It helped me in thinking clearly about who to structure any speech, how to deliver it in an effective way. Also, the instructor made this course very interesting and engaging.

This is third time, I was taking this course. Last two times, I left it in-between but this was something on my wish list a feat I wanted to achieve...finally it's done! I am sincerely thankful to Dr. Matt McGarrity and his team for such a crisp and engaging course.

one of the best courses on coursera. This will teach you the basics of public speaking and remove your stage fear. I was a good public speaker then but now after this course i have become better. thank you coursera. looking forward for doing more courses .

some students "cheat" their way in the assignments, just reviewing "yes, yes good, yes, yes good good". and I even found 2 peers who are not even submitting their speech, one just wrote random letters, and the other just give a document of his manuscript

Very necessary coursework. Dr. Matt McGarrity was simply awesome. The assessments and assignments are quite interesting and intense. Though already a public speaker, this in addition has given good technical information about different rhetoric cannons.

My first ever coursera class, and because of the quality of this class (in particular Matt McGarrity himself as a teacher) I'll definitely be coming back for more. In fact, already signed up for his next speech class in the specialization. Well done.

Taken many courses on presentation skills before. Nothing comes close to this. This course covers the fundamentals thoroughly. I love the course materials. Specifically, the section on speech apprehension and the recommendations .

Does a great job laying the groundwork on the principles of preparing for a speech. I really enjoyed the background material on argument, rhetoric, and found the breakdown of a key point speech to be extremely helpful. Well done.

I loved the course. The information was very practical, with lots of useful examples. The classes were dynamic and the assignments very well chosen. I really feel that I made a progress. I look forward for the other 3 modules.

Matt McGarrity presents great information in short, dynamic chunks. The content of this course is tightly crafted and useful on its own, but you also learn by watching Matt deliver material using the principles he's teaching.