Cue cards are not for reading from. They are a failsafe, in case of emergency, there to make you feel comfortable. They are the equivalent of the prompter in a theatre – if you forget something, glance at the card and move on, swiftly and confidently.

Cue cards should never be so big that they block your corridor to the audience. Nor should they be so small that you can’t read them. Postcard size (A6) on cardboard works well. Write or print your cards with a font size you can read at about 40 centimetres. One card per message.

Start by putting the sentence you are leading up to at the bottom of the card. This is essence of the message, preferably formulated as a one-liner. If you go off on a tangent, this tells you where you have to get back to.

At the top, put the phrase with which you want to start the message – preferably verbatim. This is a form of mnemonic, a technique we know from things like Christmas carols – somebody else belts out the first line, and everybody else suddenly remembers the rest.

In between your opening and closing phrases, write three keywords that will help you out if you get stuck or forget your transitions.