Is Harris speaking from memory?

[gristy]

I can't imagine she is. But there is no evidence of her reading a teleprompter or looking down at notes. I am in awe either way.

[we can do it]

1. I think she is.

[PCIntern]

2. She may be.

That or she has remarkable peripheral vision

[liberal N proud]

3. If she is reading, she is good at it

[Ms. Toad]

7. The best are.

I did drama in high school (second in state in my field of competition).

I always had my script - but you wouldn't have known it. I knew it mostly by heart - and only glanced down at it if something interrupted me.

With teleprompters it is easier - but it is a skill people who care master.

[forgotmylogin]

10. She is a lawyer and knows how to present a case and pace and structure her thoughts! n/t

[hlthe2b]

4. If you are prepared, reading from a teleprompter should not be obvious or even suspected.

I have no doubt she rehearsed enough to have it almost committed to memory, though

[jaxexpat]

5. We could be witnessing the return of intelligent speech from its 4 year hiatus.

Remember how it was? Rest. It'll come back to you.

[gristy]

6. Ok, we saw the teleprompters on camera when Biden came up.

I suspect she was glancing at them. She was just very good at not giving it away.

[forgotmylogin]

14. They teach how to "lift lines" in public speaking and theater performance.

Ideally a speaker is rehearsed enough that they can periodically glance at the script or the teleprompter to remember their place, and then deliver the majority of the speech with full eye-contact to the audience instead of the page, either from memory or paraphrased.

You learn it with practice. You speak the first few words of the text while while your eyes scan to the end and then look up and continue saying the rest of the sentence or even a whole paragraph without looking back down, literally "lifting" the words off the page. It takes a bit to develop a mental buffer to be speaking and also checking ahead in the text to remind yourself where you're heading.

We did an exercise in one of my theater classes where we were given five minutes to look at a speech that had the first four words of every sentence underlined, and then we had to read it to the class, script in hand, but only looking at the page while saying the underlined parts. Then we did it again with with a script that *only* had the first four words of each sentence and had to say (or competently ad-lib our way through) the rest from memory.

[cwydro]

8. She's great.

Fantastic.

[Takket]

9. there are prompters, they just weren't in the shot

[Rosco T.]

11. Not from memory...

From the heart

[ecstatic]

12. She gives excellent impromptu speeches. That's what first attracted me to her

during the Kavanaugh trainwreck!

[Orangepeel]

13. she was FANTASTIC!

I LOVE her!