How much did you plagiarize your talks?

puffthedragon

When I actually really cared, I was an awesome speaker. I'm not bragging, I actually was terrified of giving talks for so long and all, but apparantly it came off pretty well. When I was 20 years old, they were giving me parts that were supposed to be only for elders per the km.

Anyway once I began my downward spiral, fade, whatever you want to call it, I stopped giving a care and would find a WT article from 5 years ago and all but read it. I was no longer serving, so it was just parts on the school by then, but I would have so many people come up to me and genuinely (i think) tell me how great it was and ask me how I got that spin on the theme. No one ever called me out on it, and it took me less than 20 mins to research and write.

Anybody else guilty of the same?

charlie brown jr.

I took them pretty serious so like you......

I tried to make Awsome talks!

And really it sounded like I was just telling one of my many stories!

LostGeneration

puff,

Hilarious memories! When I was a teen, I was petrified of giving talks. Constantly counseled on not having "audience contact", probably because I didn't fully believe the bullshit. I was baptized late, at least to born in standards, at 19. About five years later, I was a virtual superstar when it comes to giving talks.

When I was appointed as an elder in my early 30s, I stopped prepping other than printing out the material. Highlight the main points, get up their and BULLSHIT away. I was constantly praised as a top notch speaker. The ego stroke was certainly nice, in retrospect. But that same laziness eventually led to my discovery of the scam.

When I woke up, I gave about 3 more public talks, I really felt like shit spouting off like that. Couldn't keep my mouth shut about what I had learned, and was quickly kicked out on my ass, DFd for apostacy.

Best damn day of my life!

Phizzy

I really put a little effort in to my talks so that they had some content that I felt the Bros. could chew on. I always went for non WT sources, not as easy then in pre-Internet days, but Bible Commentaries and books by Christians gave me some wonderful insights on what scriptures were actually saying, and I always made the "application" practical.

I got loads of praise, and some quizzical looks from Elders, you could see the old Apostalert was prodding them, "Where did this guy get this stuff ?", mind you, they never asked directly, they didn't want to admit that I did a better job of explaining the scriptures than they did I guess, but I was only able to by plagiarising the thoughts and study of non-JW's.

It did make me seem a "spiritual" guy to many, and after I left some told me they felt they had lost the only guy with a real understanding of the Bible !

If I was a truly honest person I would have told them how I did it, and told them also that doing that kind of research made me realise the WT was a spiritual desert.

make yourself

Once I was giving a demonstration with another sister and I pretty much copied scriptures and everything out of one of the watchtowers. Turned it into conversation format and everyone praised me on it

Glander

My talks were, of course, based on the talk outlines. I made them my own and could easily present them in the 55 minutes I had. I started to be given the less desirable outlines, and I was well received. I began to be invited to other congs. A couple of my talks I gave at least ten times to different congs.

I must say I enjoyed delivering those talks. The usual nervousness was replaced by confidence and a relaxed manner that the listeners seemed to appreciate. i suppose I could say that this experience helped me in later years to be a relaxed and effective business speaker.

Too bad it was all FDS bulls---.

NOLAW

It matters a lot who you present the material. Most dubs are uncapable. Oh my God, when sisters give to my wife her part to prepare, what a mess. I cannot even understand what they mean. And mind it. Even from sisters that have higher education. It is hell.