It has been suggested that, more than giving a speech, the anticipation of public speaking plays a large role in the level of anxiety felt (Beatty & Valencic, 2000). .
It has also been suggested that most of the anxiety felt associated with public speaking is not directed toward the act of speaking itself, but how a person feels he/she is being viewed by the audience (Freeman, Sawyer, & Behnke, 1997). This idea was also explored by Ayers and Heuett (1997). Anxiety caused by the audience's judgement of the speaker also seems to increase with the size of the audience (Beaver, 1998). Public speaking anxiety appears to be closely linked to stage fright (Bippus & Daly, 1999). The theories of self-esteem and how it relates to public speaking anxiety have been studied in the past (Mansell & Clark, 1999). .
How a person prepares for a speech and the amount of time spent preparing for a speech may directly affect the amount of anxiety felt while speaking (Daly, Vangelisti, & Weber, 1995). The effects of preparation vs. no preparation on public speaking anxiety has been observed by Harvey, Clark, Ehlers, and Ronald (2000) and (Menzel, & Carrell, 1994) . The corrolation between self-esteem and public speaking anxiety, as well as social phobia, has also been studied in the past (Hu, Bestow, Lipman, Bell, et al., 1992). These two variables (preparation time and self-esteem) have not been studied together, however. .
The idea of anticipatory anxiety, the fear of an impending event, has been hypothesized in the past (Behnke & Sawyer, 2000 and Hu & Romans-Kroll, 1995). They were looking for the difference between male and female public speakers. They concluded that both male and female subjects exhibited a "V-shaped" pattern of anxiety at three different points. The points were: after receiving a public speaking assignment, during the preparation stage, but right before the actual speech. This is similar to the present study in that it examines anxiety over three different points.