Dear speaker: If I see you mention that you “write a talk”, my assumption is you will read it instead of presenting, which means you’ll bore your audience to death.

I’ve recently seen more and more conference speakers read from a prepared script. If you ask for my advice as to when this is appropriate, my answer is “never”, with a possible exception for your gramdmother’s 80th birthday

Even more annoyingly, I’ve seen speakers read prepared talks from a script where I’m 100% certain they would have been able to just “wing it” to much better results

One of the best talks I ever saw was Don Norman reading from a text with no slides.

The best “talk” I ever saw was given by Barack Obama reading from a teleprompter

So, it’s ok for people to read from a script if that’s what suits them? They can loosen up with experience if appropriate.

My point is: People believe reading from a script is easier. I think that’s not true, at least not if your goal is to deliver a good talk

Maybe so, but if that’s what it takes to get people to speak at all, they can improve later.