Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Speech Critiques- Speech #1
We got off to a wonderful start this morning. The speeches made some thoughtful and practiced application to our class discussions on speech preparation. All the presenters from this morning should be proud of their efforts. Today's critiquers should post their speech critiques here. (Be sure to only use first names!) Share in your critique some of the strengths and improvements from today's speech presentations. It would be helpful if you included actual suggestions on how to make improvements. Thanks for a great class this morning!
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18 comments:
Moe
Katherine’s speech presentation on the game console Guitar Hero was really interesting. I enjoyed the presentation because of the deliverance, and examples that she had; like the actual Guitar and from “South Park” and “Aerosmith”, it was really creative. I really liked the way Katherine spoke to the class; it was real friendly and welcoming. She was very enthusiastic and it made me pay attention. I think the presentation would have been a little better if we actually got to view a clip of an actual Guitar hero in function from like youtube. I think it would have benefited some of the audience who knew nothing about the game console. Another improvement could have been the motion of Katherine’s pacing, it didn’t bother me as much as it bothered other people in the audience, but the walking back an forth could be toned down for future speeches. Other than the pacing and improving of visual examples like a youtube clip, the presentation was well prepared and organized and Katherine achieved her purpose of explaining Guitar Hero.
Cindy spoke about the recently deceased news commentator Tim Russert and his legacy as both a professional news commentator and family man.
The tone in Cindy's voice was very appealing as was the use of her eye contact to engage her audience. I also thought her credibility statements had a very nice flow.
There are a few areas of Cindy's delivery she may want look to improve upon. By slowing down on her delivery, her audience might find it easier to follow and retain the information presented. Also, the impact to convey Russert's character as both a professional and family man could have been enhanced and had more of an emotional impact on the audience by using additional pictures and visuals.
Most often during presentations, speakers tend to develop nervous ticks i.e. "ums." Cindy would benefit by avoiding these pauses by allowing herself to simply take her time to deliver her presentation.
Jewel delivered her speech on the TomTom GPS system. The purpose of the speech was to be informative and I thought she did a great job keeping the explanation simple. GPS systems use very advanced technology, and it would be very easy to lose your audience with too in-depth of an explanation. However, Jewel managed to convey how they work using everyday language that allowed the audience to follow along. I also thought that the PowerPoint slides were very appealing. Each slide had a different picture related to her topic which helped in keeping the attention of the audience. Jewel also looked very comfortable presenting and had a smile on her face throughout the presentation.
However, even though she seemed comfortable in front of the class, she did speak rather quickly and used a lot of “ums.” I think she would benefit, as would the audience, if she were to take some time, and slow down a little bit in the delivery of her speech. In the same light, Jewel kept her body faced towards the slide which interfered with her eye contact, causing a little bit of distance between her as the speaker and the audience.
Overall however, I think Jewel did a good job in the putting together of her speech. It was very informative and her appealing slides and use of simple language helped keep the attention of the audience.
Jaime delivered her speech on "Meet the Press,"and gave us a great insight on the show and what it's all about.
Jaime had a lot of information about the show, and used great graphics to grab our attention and keep us interested in her presentation. She used lots of gestures which made us feel like she was comfortable in talking about the topic. We were able to tell what was in her opening, as well as her conclusion, which helps the audience know where we are in the speech.
Some suggestions to Jaime would be to be a little more organized in the middle of the presentation. I heard the 3 points in the intro, but was confused during the middle about which one she was on. The gestures got a little extra every once in a while, and she was flipping her notecards. Maybe grip on to them with both hands like I did to prevent excess movement :). Also, try to use stronger connectives so we know you're moving on to another point in the speech. Relax so the ums disappear (a problem we all have!). Otherwise, great job!
Amy's speech about the Borgata was great. She had a lot of energy and was still able to talk about the Borgata without being persuasive. Her words were clear and concise although her pace seemed to speed up toward the end. Her creditability was clear as well and I was able to make connections as she went on to her next point. I would suggest slowing down, reading less off the note cards, making better eye contact with the audience, and only using emphasis when needed. Overall, I think that Amy did a great job for her first informative speech. She had a topic that was very hard to not be persuasive, and she pulled it off. I look forward to her next speech and hope that this critique helps!
Erika delivered her speech on Myspace. I thought that her speech was well thought out and her example using her own myspace page to show what one looked like was interesting. The speech was very informative about features and security updates that will be happening to myspace that most of the class including myself did not know.
I also thought that showing the myspace signup was a good ending too because it let people know where they can begin to do social networking if they did not already have a myspace page.
Her speaking style was a little fast paced but if Erika slows down and thinks about what she is saying she will also be able to cut out a lot of the "um"s too. I think most of it was nerves that were hindering her but with more time in front of a classroom she should be fine.
Jason's speech on Sirius Radio was very informative. He started his presentation off with a clever statement which really got the audience interested. He was very knowledgeable about the topic and brought in some personal experiences which gave a personal touch to the speech. I also thought that Jason had great eye contact, and a good rate and tone.
Some things to work on would be to cite more on the powerpoint slides to gain more credibility. Also, try to keep the slides very similar to each other in order to have a nice flow.
Overall, this was a great presentation. For someone like myself, who did not know much about Sirius Radio, I was able to follow the entire speech and learn a lot!
Megan
Dan's presentation was about Ted Kennedy: An American Icon. Dan started off great. He had an interesting, attention grabbing intro that presented Ted Kennedy as a man worthy of 'going down' in history as "one of the greats". It was definitely a "sticky" intro. Next, dan brought in a youtube clip that fit perfectly with his topic. It related very well and showed us how and why others admire Ted Kennedy as well. Dan also had a very conversational tone throughout his presentation. He has a really nice speaking voice, with varied pitch and a great volume. In addition, he was able to incorporate pauses in a conversational way.
There are some things Dan can improve on for next time. He has to make sure he keeps the audiences eye-contact and does not read too much off of his note cards. He knew his stuff, but he looked down too much! Also for next time he should develop a clearer conclusion. This time, he ended and then went to a final slide, described a picture, and then trailed off to an additional ending. Next time, he needs to formulate a clear, two sentence conclusion. Finally, for next time Dan needs to work on visual delivery. He needs to smile more and use more body language. For this topic, we needed to see more emotion coming from the speaker to see his admiration for Ted Kennedy as well.
Otherwise, I thought Dan did really well for his first speech. I think that his research was evident and he presented Ted Kennedy in an interesting light. I really enjoyed his topic, and learned things about Ted Kennedy that I had never known before!
Melissa’s presentation on Chris Gardner was great. Even though I had previously seen the movie “The Pursuit of Happiness” about Chris Gardner I still learned an incredible amount. The details in Melissa’s speech really helped me stay interested throughout the entire presentation. The clip also was a beneficial element because it helped bring Chris Gardner to life and being able to see him speak strengthened the speech. The best thing about the presentation was the connectives, which helped the speech flow smoothly. Every time a new topic was announced there was a nice transition that connected the previous ideas to the new ideas.
However, Melissa read a little too much from her note cards and caused a bit of a disconnection from the audience. If there was a little more eye contact than it would have made Melissa have a better link to the audience. Another aspect that may help Melissa could be to take some pauses and enjoy the audience to keep a steady pace. Taking a pause may also help Melissa from going to fast.
Overall I think Melissa had a great speech and she did very well bringing in details that helped to captivate the audience.
Melvina's presentation on Google Docs was extremely informative. There was many great things to take from her presentation. Melvina's posture, tone, happiness, as well as her research were all outstanding. I really liked how Melvina used Google Docs in her works cited.
Somethings that can be worked on for Melvina would be keeping her slides shorter with less information,as well as using a more effective closing. It's hard to be picky on Melvina's presentation becasue it was all around extremely well done.
Sean's presentation on the chinese resaurant P.F. Chang was full of interesting information about the restaurant chain. Even if the audience already knew and loved the restaurant, Sean gave the type of information only available through intensive research. His information flowed extremely well and everything was stated clearly
and purposefully. The slides presented were also extremely uniform and easy to understand. Furthermore, because the slides were not extremely flashy, the audience could pay attention to Sean and his statements instead of
just looking at the powerpoint.
Although the presentation was clear and informative, not enough positive energy was exerted during the presentation. At times, the presentation seemed slightly forced and there was no clear attention getter. Increased citing would have also added to the validity of the presentation. Finally, a stronger conclusion would have added a clear finishing impact. Even though there are a few improvements that can be made, the presentation was still strong and informative.
Wendy did a great presentation on Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden. Wendy's research and knowledge about Mr. Biden really shined throughout her presentation. I had no knowledge of Mr. Biden's personal life prior to her presentation, so I learned a lot from Wendy. Her attention getter and introduction sucked me in immediately and kept me on board throughout the presentation. Wendy also made great eye contact with the audience and had a very appropriate tone throughout the presentation.
There are several problems which I saw at last Wednesday's presentation that Wendy can address with her next presentation. First, she was expecting there to be a clicker, This became a problem because parts of her presentation relied on the use of the clicker to advance to the next part of the slide. If the clicker had been present, the use of it could have added even better value to her attention getter. In addition to that problem because the clicker was not available, she became thrown off track when she had to click with the mouse. The last issue I observed with her presentation was the ambiguity of her main points in her presentation. This was a problem because I was a little confused exactly what the main points of her presentation were. he presentation flowed very nicely from slide to slide, but I was not aware of exactly the main points she was speaking about.
Overall Wendy had a great presentation and I look forward to seeing her next one.
On the whole, Paul's presentation went very well. He went at a very good pace and rate while he was speaking and he did not use alot of "uhs" and "ums" in places where he paused. Although he did look at the slide a little much sometimes, when he didn't his eye contact with the audience was very good. There were only a few things he needed to work on. One of the things was that he needed to have a little more enthusiasm in his voice when speaking about his subject. He also should have had a slide for his conclusion, even if the slide on contained a simple picture. Lastly, he needed to include citations in his powerpoint, and in the verbal part of the speech. Other than these few things, he did an excellent job.
Chris' speech was on The Amazing Race. I liked how he presented the subject and provided a lot background information while not bogging his speech down with too many details. Chris looked very professional and made it look like he knew exactly what he was talking about. His speech opened with an excellent introduction that brought all of our attention in. THe major issue I had with the speech was the lack of solid connectives. Most of the topics simply changed into the next without a clear connective. Eye contact was another area that could have used some minor improvement.
Megan's speech on Wawa was extremely informative and well put together. Her slide presentations were uniform while still being interesting. Megan is extremely comfortable in front of the class and has great pace and volume throughout the entire presentation. Also, the video of the teenagers ordering the sandwiches that she chose to use was informative and entertaining. It really captivated the audience because everyone could relate to it - it's something we could see our friends doing.
Things I feel that Megan could improve on are her transitions. Her intro stated her main points but it was hard to tell when she was switching from point to point throughout the speech. Also, Megan could use more hand gestures to emphasizes her points. Finally, I felt that the picture of the Wawa "mascot" - the goose - could hve been saved for the last slide as sort of a memorable statement in order to leave a lasting impression on the audience.
Overall, I'd say that Megan did a great job on her presentation and really seemeed like the PR rep for the Wawa chain.
Claudia spoke about Malcolm Gladwell, the NY Times writer and author of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink."
I think she did a great job. Her attention-getter in the opening was a really creative and fun idea. It worked! The presentation itself contained a lot of information and let the audience in on many things that they may not have known before, even if they had heard of Mr. Gladwell. The sources were cited well both on the slides and verbally, and Claudia's voice was strong and comfortable. I also enjoyed the video clips - Nice touch!
The only areas I would work on were reading off of the cards a bit and saying "um" (But, as nearly everyone has said: We all do it!) . The slides were also a bit wordy at times, and the lack of a portable mouse made it harder to see her behind the computer, but that's something no one could control.
All in all, I think Claudia did an excellent job! Malcolm Gladwell is a fascinating person!
Kathleen's report on the iphone was actually pretty interesting. Though I had prior knowledge to it's existence I was unaware of some of the functions that separate it from other cell phones. However, the speech did not have a strong attention-getter. The speech was slow in the beginning but she seemed to become more confident as the speech progressed. Her visual aspects were appealing and worked to maintain my attention, especially the hyperlink to the video. Her voice maintained healthy rhythm and I never had trouble hearing her from the back of the room. Overall, she seemed to cover all that was necessary to say about her topic, and she managed to keep my attention the entire time by taking a topic that would not usually grab my attention and making it interesting.
Mo's speech on alternatively fueled automobiles was extremely informative. Mo perfectly used a video to give the audience a chance to see and sort of test drive one of the vehicles. Mo used good examples, and plain English for the audience to understand the technical design of the vehicles. Mo could have stated his thesis a bit more clearly and sooner. Some of Mo's statements were missing citations and did not adhere to the 6x6 rule, with some minor formatting adjustments Mo had a visually adequate presentation. The audience could tell at the same time that Mo was enthusiastic about his topic, and had done a lot of research. Mo was confident, scanned the room and made some eye contact. Mo should have placed his bibliography sooner in the presentation, and should start with attention getter instead of introducing himself first. Although at times Mo's presentation sounded a bit persuasive, overall, Mo's presentation allowed was very informative about his topic.
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