when keith had to give a presentation to the entire class

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7.4 Public Speaking and Class Presentations

Learning objectives.

• Know how to overcome nervousness and anxiety associated with public speaking and giving class presentations.
• Effectively use the six-step process to prepare for and deliver a class presentation.
• Create effective visual aids for use in class presentations.
• Work with a group to successfully plan and deliver a class presentation.

Public speaking—giving an oral presentation before a class or another group of people—is a special form of interaction common in education. You will likely be asked to give a presentation in one of your classes at some point, and your future career may also involve public speaking. It’s important to develop skills for this form of communication.

Public speaking is like participating in class—sharing your thoughts, ideas, and questions with others in the group. In other ways, however, public speaking is very different. You stand in front of the class to speak, rather than from your usual seat—and for most students, that changes the psychology of the situation. You also have time outside of class to prepare your presentation, allowing you to plan it carefully—and, for many, giving more time to worry about it and experience even more anxiety!

Overcoming Anxiety

Although a few people seem to be natural public speakers, most of us feel some stage fright or anxiety about having to speak to a group, at least at first. This is completely normal. We feel like everyone is staring at us and seeing our every flaw, and we’re sure we’ll forget what we want to say or mess up. Take comfort from knowing that almost everyone else is dreading giving class presentations the same as you are! But you can learn to overcome your anxiety and prepare in a way that not only safely gets you through the experience but also leads to success in your presentation. The following are proven strategies for overcoming anxiety when speaking in public:

• Understand anxiety. Since stage fright is normal, don’t try to deny that you’re feeling anxious. A little anxiety can help motivate you to prepare and do your best. Accept this aspect of the process and work to overcome it. Anxiety is usually worst just before you begin and but eases up once you’ve begun.
• Understand that your audience actually wants you to succeed. They’re not looking for faults or hoping you’ll fail. Other students and your instructors are on your side, not your enemy. They likely won’t even see your anxiety.
• Reduce anxiety by preparing and practicing. The next section discusses the preparation process in more detail. The more fully you prepare and the more often you have practice, the more your anxiety will go away.
• Focus on what you’re saying, not how you’re saying it. Keep in mind that you have ideas to share, and this is what your classmates and instructors are interested in. Don’t obsess about speaking, but focus on the content of your presentation. Think, for example, of how easily you share your ideas with a friend or family member, as you naturally speak your mind. The same can work with public speaking if you focus on the ideas themselves.
• Develop self-confidence. As you prepare, you will make notes you can refer to during the presentation. You’re not going to forget what you want to say. The more you practice, the more confident you’ll become.

Guidelines for Presentations

Preparing and delivering a presentation in class (or in business or other settings) is a process very similar to the learning process discussed in Chapter 4 “Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering” , Chapter 5 “Reading to Learn” , and Chapter 6 “Preparing for and Taking Tests” and the writing process discussed in Chapter 8 “Writing for Classes” . The process breaks down into these six basic steps:

• Analyze your audience and goals
• Plan, research, and organize your content
• Draft and revise the presentation
• Prepare speaking notes
• Practice the presentation
• Deliver the presentation

Step 1: Analyze Your Audience and Goals

Who will see and hear your presentation—and why? Obviously, other students and the instructor. But you still need to think about what they already know, and don’t know, about your topic. If your topic relates to subject matter in class lectures and readings, consider what background information they already have and be careful not to give a boring recap of things they already know. It may be important, however, to show how your specific topic fits in with subjects that have been discussed already in class, especially in the beginning of your presentation, but be sure to focus on your new topic.

New terms and concepts may become familiar to you while doing your research and preparation, but remember to define and explain them to other students. Consider how much explanation or examples will be needed for your audience to grasp your points. If your topic involves anything controversial or may provoke emotion, consider your audience’s attitudes and choose your words carefully. Thinking about your audience will help you find ways to get their attention and keep them interested.

Be sure you are clear about the goals for the presentation. Are you primarily presenting new information or arguing for a position? Are you giving an overview or a detailed report? Review the assignment and talk with the instructor if you’re unsure. Your goals guide everything in the presentation: what you say, how much you say, what order you say it in, what visual aids you use, whether you use humor or personal examples, and so forth.

Step 2: Plan, Research, and Organize Your Content

Starting with the assignment and your goals, brainstorm your topic. Jot notes on specific topics that seem important. Often you’ll do reading or research to gather more information. Take notes as you would with any reading. As you research the topic at this stage, don’t worry at first about how much content you are gathering. It’s better to know too much and then pick out the most important things to say than to rush ahead to drafting the presentation and then realize you don’t have enough material.

Organizing a presentation is similar to organizing topics in a class paper and uses the same principles. Introduce your topic and state your main idea (thesis), go into more detail about specific ideas, and conclude your presentation. Look for a logical order for the specifics in the middle. Some topics work best in chronological (time) order or with a compare-and-contrast organization. If your goal is to persuade the audience, build up to the strongest reason. Put similar ideas together and add transitions between different ideas.

While researching your topic and outlining your main points, think about visual aids that may help the presentation.

Also start thinking about how much time you have for the presentation, but don’t limit yourself yet in the outline stage.

Step 3: Draft and Revise the Presentation

Unless required by the assignment, you don’t need to actually write out the presentation in full sentences and paragraphs. How much you write depends on your own learning and speaking style. Some students speak well from brief phrases written in an outline, while other students find it easier to write sentences out completely. There’s nothing wrong with writing the presentation out fully like a script if that helps you be sure you will say what you intend to—just so you don’t actually get up and read from the script.

You can’t know for sure how long a presentation will last until you rehearse it later, but you can estimate the time while drafting it. On the average, it takes two to three minutes to speak what can be written on a standard double-spaced page—but with visual aids, pauses, and audience interaction, it may take longer. While this is only a rough guide, you can start out thinking of a ten-minute presentation as the equivalent of a three to four-page paper.

Never wait until the last minute to draft your presentation. Arrange your time to prepare the first draft and then come back to it a day or two later to ask these questions:

• Am I going on too long about minor points? Could the audience get bored?
• Do I have good explanations and reasons for my main points? Do I need more data or better examples? Where would visual aids be most effective?
• Am I using the best words for this topic and this audience? Should I be more or less informal in the way I talk?
• Does it all hold together and flow well from one point to the next? Do I need a better introduction or transition when I shift from one idea to another?

Visual Aids in Presentations

Except for very short informal presentations, most presentations gain from visuals—and visual aids are often expected. If encouraged or allowed to include visuals in your presentation, plan to do so. Consider all possible types:

• Charts or graphs
• Photos or other images
• Video clips
• Handouts (only when necessary—they can be distracting)

Use the available technology, whether it’s an overhead projector, PowerPoint slides, a flip chart, or posters. (Talk to your instructor about resources and software for designing your visuals.) Follow these guidelines:

Design your visuals carefully. Here are some basic rules:

• Use a simple, neutral background. A light-colored background with text in a dark color works best for words; a dark background used like matting works best for photos.
• Minimize the amount of text in visuals—more than eight words per slide is usually too much. Avoid simply presenting word outlines of what you are saying. Make sure text is large enough for the audience to read.
• Don’t use more than two pictures in a slide, and use two only to make a direct comparison. Montages are hard to focus on and distract the viewer from what you’re saying. Use images only when they support your presentation; don’t use clip art just as decoration.
• Don’t put a table of numbers in a visual aid. If you need to illustrate numerical data, use a graph. (Microsoft Excel can make them for you easily.)
• Don’t use sound effects. Use a very brief recording only if directly related to your main points.
• Don’t use visual special effects such as dissolves, spins, box-outs, or other transitions. They are distracting. Use animation sparingly and only if it helps make a point.
• Don’t use so many visuals or move through them so quickly that the audience gives all its attention to them rather than to you.
• Practice your presentation using your visual aids, because they affect your timing.
• Explain visuals when needed but not when they’re obvious.
• Keep your eyes on your audience, only briefly glancing at visuals to stay in synch with them.
• Don’t hand out a printout of your visuals. Your audience should keep their eyes on you instead of fiddling around with paper.

Step 4: Prepare Speaking Notes

As mentioned earlier, it’s not a good idea to read your presentation from a written page rather than deliver it. To keep your audience’s attention, it’s important to make eye contact with them and to use a normal speaking voice—and you can’t do this if you keep your eyes on a written script.

Speaking notes are a brief outline for your presentation. You might write them on index cards or sheets of paper. Include important facts and data as well as keywords for your main ideas, but don’t write too much. (If you forget things later when you start practicing, you can always add more to your outline then.) Be sure to number your cards or pages to prevent a last-minute mix-up.

Think especially about how to open and close your presentation, because these two moments have the most impact of the whole presentation. Use the opening to capture the audience’s attention, but be sure it is appropriate for your audience and the goals. Here are some possibilities for your opening:

• A striking fact or example (illustrating an issue or a problem)
• A brief interesting or humorous anecdote (historical, personal, or current event)
• A question to the audience
• An interesting quotation

Then relate the opening to your topic and your main point and move into the body of the presentation.

Your closing mirrors the opening. Transition from your last point to a brief summary that pulls your ideas together. You might end with a challenge to the audience, a strong statement about your topic, or a personal reflection on what you have been saying. Just make sure you have a final sentence planned so that you don’t end up uncomfortably fumbling around at the end (“Well, I guess that ends my presentation”).

Step 5: Practice the Presentation

Practice may be the most important step. It is also the best way to get over stage fright and gain confidence.

Practice first in an empty room where you imagine people sitting, so that you can move your eyes around the room to this “audience.” The first time through, focus on putting your outlined notes into full sentences in your natural speaking voice. Don’t read your notes aloud. Glance down at your notes only briefly and then look up immediately around the room. Practice two or three times just to find the right words to explain your points and feel more comfortable working with your notes. Time yourself, but don’t obsess over your presentation being the exact length required. If your presentation is much too long, however, adjust it now in your notes so that you don’t start memorizing things that you might accidentally still say later on even though you cut them from your notes.

Once you feel good speaking from your notes, practice to add some more polish to your delivery. You might want to record or videotape your presentation or ask a friend or roommate to watch your presentation. Pay attention to these aspects of how you speak:

• Try to speak in your natural voice, not in a monotone as if you were just reading aloud. If you will be presenting in a large room without a microphone, you will need to speak louder than usual, but still try to use a natural voice.
• In usual conversation, we speed up and slow down and vary the intensity of our words to show how we feel about what we’re saying. Practice changes in your delivery style to emphasize key points.
• Don’t keep looking at your notes. It’s fine if you use words that are different from those you wrote down—the more you rehearse without looking at your notes, the more natural sounding you will be.
• Be sure you can pronounce all new words and technical terms correctly. Practice saying them slowly and clearly to yourself until you can say them naturally.
• Don’t forget transitions. Listeners need a cue when you’re moving to a new idea. Practice phrases such as “ Another important reason for this is…” or “Now let’s move on to why this is so.…”
• Watch out for all those little “filler” words people use so often, such as “like,” “you know,” “well,” and “uh.” They’re very distracting to most audiences. Listen to or watch your tape to see if you are using these fillers or ask your friend to point it out.
• Pay attention to body language when practicing. Stand up straight and tall in every practice session so that you become used to it. Unless you have to stand at a podium to use a fixed microphone in your presentation, practice moving around while you speak; this helps keep the audience watching you. Use hand and arm gestures if they are natural for you, but don’t try to make up gestures for the presentation because they will look phony. Most important, keep your eyes moving over the audience. Practice smiling and pausing at key points.
• Finally, it’s a good idea to be ready in case of an accident. Most likely your presentation will go smoothly, you’ll stay on track with your notes, and your PowerPoint slides will work fine, but sometimes a mishap happens. Be ready to joke about it, rather than becoming flustered. If the computer fails and you lose your visuals, say something like, “Well, that’s a shame, I had some really great photos to show you!” If you drop your index cards or notes, or accidentally skip ahead in your presentation and then have to backtrack, make a joke: “Sorry about that, I was so excited to get to my next point that I’m afraid I lost control there for a moment!” Let your audience laugh with you—they’ll still be on your side, and you can defuse the incident and move on without becoming more nervous.

Step 6: Deliver the Presentation

Be sure to get enough sleep and eat a healthy breakfast. Don’t drink too much caffeine or else you’ll become hyper and nervous. Wear your favorite—and appropriate—clothing and comfortable shoes.

You may use computerized visual aids when you give a presentation to a class.

John Haynes Photography – OLPC – CC BY-ND 2.0.

Remember, your audience is on your side! If you’re still nervous before your turn, take a few deep breaths. Rehearse your opening lines in your mind. Smile as you move to the front of the room, looking at your audience. You’ll see some friendly faces smiling back encouragingly. As you start the presentation, move your eyes among those giving you a warm reception—and if you see some student looking bored or doing something else, just ignore them. But don’t focus on any one person in the audience for too long, which could make them nervous or cause them to look away.

Don’t keep looking at your watch or a clock: If your rehearsal times were close to your assigned time, your presentation will be also. If you do notice that you’re running behind schedule, it may be that you’re saying too much out of nervousness. Use your notes to get back on track and keep the pace moving. But it’s better to deliver your presentation naturally and fluidly and be a bit long or short than to try to change your words and end up sounding unnatural.

At the closing, deliver your last line with confidence, sweeping your eyes over the audience. If appropriate, ask if there are any questions. When you’re done, pause, smile, say “Thank you,” and walk back to your seat.

Later on, ask other students and your instructor for comments. Be open minded—don’t just ask for praise. If you hear a suggestion for improvement, file that in your memory for next time.

Group Presentations

You may be assigned to give a presentation in a small group. The six-step process discussed previously works for group presentations, too, although group dynamics often call for additional planning and shared responsibilities:

• Schedule a group meeting as soon as possible to get started. Don’t let another student put things off. Explain that you’re too busy and won’t have time at the last minute.
• Begin by analyzing your audience and your goals together as a group to make sure everyone understands the assignment the same. Discuss who should do what. While everyone should talk about what content to include, from here onward, you will take on specialized roles. One or more may begin research and gathering information. Others who are good writers may volunteer to draft the presentation, while one or more others may develop the visual aids. Those who have public speaking experience may volunteer to do all or most of the speaking (unless the assignment requires everyone to have a speaking role). You also need a team leader to keep everyone on schedule, organize meetings, and so on. The best team leader is an even-tempered student with good social skills, who can motivate everyone to cooperate.
• Steps 2 and 3 can likely be carried out individually with assigned tasks, but group members should stay in touch. For example, the person developing the visuals should be talking to those doing the researching and drafting to see what visuals are needed and get started finding or creating them.
• Before preparing notes in step 4, meet again to go over the content and plan for visuals. Everyone should be comfortable with the plan so far. Make final decisions about who will do each section of the presentation. Set the time for each segment. Then speakers should prepare their own speaking notes. Let someone with strong speaking skills open or close the presentation (or both), with others doing the other parts.
• The whole group should be present for practice sessions in step 5, even if not everyone is speaking. Those not speaking should take notes and give feedback. If one student is doing most of the presenting, an alternate should be chosen in case the first choice is sick on the scheduled day. The alternate also needs to practice.
• During the delivery, especially if using technology for visual aids, one student should manage the visuals while others do the presenting. If several students present different segments, plan the transition from one to another so that the presentation keeps flowing without pauses.

Additional Resources

For Class Presentations

Using PowerPoint. A step-by-step illustrated tutorial for learning how to create effective visual presentations with PowerPoint. https://www.baruch.cuny.edu/tutorials/powerpoint/

“How to Give a Bad Talk.” A humorous look (with some very good advice) on what not to do when preparing for and giving a class presentation. http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~pattrsn/talks/BadTalk.pdf

Class presentations on YouTube. Search YouTube with the phrase “class presentation” and look for video examples of actual students giving class presentations. Observing and critiquing the presentations of other students are good ways to get started preparing your own and learning from others. Here’s a good example of a student group presentation on a topic we can all relate to (how body language works):

In this presentation, take note of

• how students make good eye contact with the audience;
• the first student’s natural speaking voice and tone, and how she did not have to use her note cards very often (obviously she practiced well);
• some differences among these students;
• the use of PowerPoint slides within the presentation (some better than others);
• the appropriate occasional use of humor;
• the division of presentation responsibilities within the student group;
• each presenter’s interaction with the audience.

Key Takeaways

• Public speaking skills are important because you will likely give presentations in class and perhaps in a future job.
• Overcome anxiety about public speaking by understanding your feelings, preparing well and practicing your delivery, and focusing on your subject.

Follow a six-step process to prepare and deliver a presentation:

• Deliver the presentation and seek feedback
• Use visual aids to support a presentation, creating visuals that are relevant, attractive, and powerful.
• The success of a group presentation depends on effective group meetings, successful division of roles, and repeated group practices.

Checkpoint Exercises

If you have given a class presentation in the past, what worked best for you? (If you have not given a presentation yet as a student, what aspect do you think will be most difficult for you?)

__________________________________________________________________

Name the two most important things you can do to reduce anxiety about a class presentation you will have to give.

For each of the following statements about class presentations, circle T for true or F for false:

Describe how best to use body language (facial expressions, eye movements, gestures, etc.) when giving a presentation.

If you were assigned along with three other students to give a group presentation in the class using this textbook, what would be your preferred role in the preparation stages? Your least preferred role? If you had to take your least preferred role, what single thing would you want to work hardest on to make the presentation successful?

College Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

When Keith Had to Give a Presentation to the Entire

When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class,his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Keith laugh.To Daniel's disappointment,when Keith gave his presentation,he seemed completely unaffected,despite looking at Daniel several times.Afterward,Keith said that he was so focused on the presentation that he didn't even notice the moustache! This scenario is an example of

A) inattentional blindness. B) a blind spot. C) top-down processing. D) sensory adaptation.

Correct Answer:

Q1: What do taste and smell have in

Q3: Within the visual system,where does the transduction

Q4: Which of the following requires the greatest

Q5: Sound waves are converted to neural signals

Q6: Which of the following depth cues requires

Q7: Sally is a ballet dancer.Although she often

Q8: Which of the following statements regarding colour

Q9: The place theory of hearing states that: A)the

Q10: Research into subliminal perception has found that A)human

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12 Structure and Format: Outlining the Speech

Rebecca Collier, M.B.A.

Learning Objectives

• Determine the general and specific purpose of a presentation.
• Create a captivating speech introduction, body and conclusion.
• Support ideas and arguments through cited research.
• Differentiate between preparation outlines and presentation notes.

Just like a building has structure and an overall plan to guide people through the space in a logical way, you will need an outline for your speech to provide a framework for your ideas and to help your audience see how these ideas connect to create your overall message. Additionally, similar to the way people have expectations for what they will experience when walking into a building, your audience will have some expectations about how your speech will unfold. When these expectations are not met, such as the example earlier, when you entered the door expecting to see the receptionist and were instead met with a toilet, your audience may find it jarring or uncomfortable if your speech does not have a recognizable introduction or conclusion, or if you abruptly jump from subtopic to subtopic without notice. In this chapter, we’ll look at how to create an outline to guide your audience through your points in an organized format for a well-structured speech. In a professional setting, most speakers outline their speeches far enough in advance of their presentation date so that they have time to practice their performance and become comfortable with the material. Creating an outline will help you feel confident during your speech, because you took the time to carefully plan out what you desired to say. This leaves you free to focus on your delivery – how you say it – during your speech. This chapter will walk you through all the different parts of a speech outline, and show you how a formal outline can be translated into less cumbersome speaking notes.

The Speech Topic

One of the hardest parts of the speech assignment for students is choosing a topic with which to work with. Oftentimes, as soon as you begin drafting an outline for a chosen topic, other topics will start to look more and more appealing, and you will want to change to a new topic. Resist this impulse, if you can! Many speech students have lost points on late assignments because they kept changing their mind about what to speak about. Once you begin working with a topic (approved by your instructor, when applicable), commit to it. Your instructor can help you navigate through the challenges of a topic with which that you are struggling with. Remember, your research and your speech delivery can make almost any topic engaging for the audience.

The Speech Purpose

Before you begin preparing your speech, your instructor will let you know what kind of speech you are working on. Is it a speech intended to inform your audience? Is it a speech where you will be persuading the audience? Or, is the speech designed for entertainment purposes? You will need to know what kind of speech you are giving before you do any other work on this assignment. To make sure that you are aware of the overall goal of the speech, your instructor may ask you to include the general purpose on your outline. There are three basic general purposes that apply to speech presentations: To inform, to persuade, and to entertain. An informative speech requires you to give a neutral, unbiased perspective to the audience, while a persuasive speech attempts to change an audience’s beliefs, feelings, or actions. An entertainment speech is used to celebrate or commemorate something or as part of a ceremony.

In addition to the general purpose, each speech will also have a corresponding specific purpose. The specific purpose identifies what you would like to leave the audience with after your speech. For example, a specific purpose for an i nformative speech about the pyramids of Giza, Egypt might read:  To inform my audience about when and how the pyramids of Giza were built and what they look like today . A specific purpose for a persuasive speech about organ donation might read:  To persuade my audience to register as organ donors.

Some professors might prefer that you submit a purpose statement in lieu of a specific purpose. The purpose statement identifies your goal for the audience. Using the example informative speech topic above on the pyramids of Giza, Egypt, your purpose statement might read:  At the end of my speech, my audience will know when and how the pyramids of Giza were built and what they look like today.   The organ donation speech might have the following purpose statement:  At the end of my speech, my audience members will register as organ donors .

The Central Idea

Once you know your topic and your purpose, it’s time to brainstorm the key message of your speech. This message is known as the central idea, and it serves as a thesis for your presentation. Your instructor may ask you to include a central idea on your outline. Creating a central idea is good practice, because it shows that you can state the main ideas of the speech in one sentence. A central idea elaborates on the speech purpose. For a persuasive speech, the central idea includes what we’re persuading the audience about, and why our viewpoint is correct. For example:

Everyone should register as an organ donor because it’s easy to do, and it could save or drastically improve someone’s life at no cost to the donor. 

For an informative speech, the central idea is a summary thesis, and it gives the main ideas of the speech in one strong statement. For example:

The pyramids of Giza, Egypt, were built by hand over six thousand years ago, and their outer structures and inner chambers are mostly intact today.

A strong central idea should have the following characteristics:

• It should be a complete sentence.
• It can’t be a question.
• It should encapsulate each main idea.

The Speech Introduction

Although your instructor may ask you to include the topic, general purpose, specific purpose, and central idea on your speech outline, you actually won’t share these with your audience as part of your speech. Instead, your presentation to the class should begin with your introduction. The introduction and the conclusion are the most important parts of your speech, because they are the parts that your audience is most likely to remember. Thus, the structure and development of these two parts is crucial to the success of your speech. Your speech introduction should include the following five parts:

• Attention-getter

Introduce yourself and your topic

Relate the topic to your audience

• Statement of credibility/interest
• Summary of your main ideas. 

Attention-Getter

The first–and most important–thing you can do in a speech introduction is to captivate your audience and interest them in your speech topic. It is much easier to keep someone’s attention than to fight to regain it, so the attention-getter is the first part of your speech that your audience will hear.

There are lots of ways you can help your topic appeal to your listeners. One classic example is to tell a short story. This can either be a personal story, or you can recount a story you heard or read somewhere that leads into your topic. A story can help personalize your topic for the audience and bring in a human connection.

Another way to draw attention to your topic is to startle your audience with a shocking statistic or example that they won’t be expecting. Be careful with this technique. If the audience is already familiar with your “shocking” material, your attention-getter could backfire, and you may end up losing the attention of your audience instead of gaining it.

Many students like to begin their speeches by asking a series of rhetorical questions. This requires the audience to think about the speech topic and make personal applications. If you start your speech in this way, make sure that you ask a few questions. One is rarely enough to generate interest in the topic. Also, the questions should make the audience ponder something. Suppose I began my speech with, “How many of you like lemons? Well, today I’m going to inform you about Miracle Berries.” Did that get your attention? Not likely. Are you excited to hear more about my topic? It’s doubtful. Let’s try that again. “By show of hands, who here likes drinking lemonade? Okay, now who likes having a slice or two of lemons in their drinking water? Now, how many of you would enjoy snacking on slices of lemon – no sugar added? Well, what if I told you there was a way to make lemons taste intensely sweet, without adding any sugar? Today, I’m going to tell you about Miracle Berries…” When using questions as an attention getter, you might consider incorporating a silent survey. This is where you have your audience answer your questions in a physical way, such as by raising a hand. If students answer your questions vocally, the attention-getter will likely go on for far too long. A silent survey keeps the entire audience involved, without letting the audience take over your speech.

Additionally, you could begin with a powerful quote that ties into your topic. Make sure that you tell the audience where the quote comes from. If the source of the quote is someone that your audience is not likely to be familiar with, you may need to contextualize the source and explain why the words of this person are relevant. For example, if I began my speech with this quote, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society,” as said by Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior. Who is this person? Nobody knows, so nobody cares. I should contextualize this source, by saying something like, “According to US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior…“ Now my audience will understand why the person who spoke these words is relevant.

You might also try to get the audience’s attention by making them curious about your topic. Give them some clues, and see if they can guess what your topic will be from these clues. Be sure to take a moment and celebrate with them when they finally guess correctly!

Finally, you can begin your speech with some audience participation . Just make sure this is carefully planned and not too complicated. You don’t want the attention-getter to take up all the allotted time for your speech. One student began her informative presentation by having everyone write down five numbers, between zero and nine, in any order, with no repeats. She then held a mini lottery for the class by randomly drawing numbers from a hat and giving a small prize to the student who’s written-down numbers were the closest to the drawn ones. This was an exciting way to begin a speech on the New York State lottery.

The attention-getter of the speech is arguably the most important part of the presentation. If you don’t capture the audience’s attention, they are less likely to take in the rest of your speech. Thus, it is worthwhile to spend some time developing an engaging attention-getter that you are comfortable delivering.

Now that your audience is focused and interested in what you have to say, you should share with them who you are, and what you will be speaking to them about. This is especially important if you have used a detailed or complex attention-getter, where it may be necessary to clarify your actual topic for the audience.

Statement of Credibility/Interest

Once you have piqued the interest of your audience, and they know who you are and what you’ll be speaking about, it’s time to gain their trust. What makes you a credible speaker on this topic? Share with the audience why you chose this particular subject, and any personal experience you have with it. For example, if I were giving an informative speech on lacrosse: “I was first exposed to lacrosse in middle school, and I went on to play the sport for all four years of high school. Our team was very successful, and we won several championships.”

However, you might give a speech on a topic with which you have had no direct experience. Never fear! You can also tell the audience about the kinds of research you have done to prepare yourself to speak on this subject. For example: “Although I’ve never actually played lacrosse, I’ve always been curious about it. I began preparing for this speech by watching videos online to understand how the sport is played, and I found some great articles to help me understand its history and development.”

Sharing your interest in this topic, along with your experience with it, or an explanation of your research process will show the audience that you are a credible speaker on this topic and someone worth listening to.

The next step is to help the audience see how they can relate to the topic you have chosen. Be creative! This can be a challenging step, and it requires some critical thinking. Suppose you are giving a speech where you are persuading your audience that college students shouldn’t have to buy textbooks for their classes. Well, this is an easy one, because almost everyone in your audience will be a college student, and most people like to save money. Now, imagine that you are giving a speech to inform your audience about conjoined twins. It is unlikely that you will have many pairs of conjoined twins in your audience, so how can you make this topic relatable? You might start with the idea that many audience members may want to have children (or more children) someday, or they may know people who plan to have children. It’s important to be informed about a condition that could affect these future children. Also, you could take the angle that we live in a complex world, and we have to deal with lots of different kinds of people. Understanding more about the conditions of people different from ourselves can help us develop empathy. Almost any topic can relate to your audience, but some will take more work than others.

Preview your main ideas

For the final part of the speech introduction, you’ll give your audience a summary of what you’ll specifically be talking about in this speech. This is different from introducing yourself and your topic. There, you might tell the audience that you’ll be informing them about the axolotl. In the preview, you’ll let them know that this speech will describe the physical appearance of the axolotl, where it lives, and how it regenerates different parts of its body. The preview is given at the end of the introduction to help the audience pace the speech. For the example above, when you come to the part about the axolotl regenerating, the audience will know that the speech is almost done. It also helps your audience to know what they should be focusing on during your speech, and what the takeaway will be.

The speech introduction is the foundation of your presentation, and it’s important to ensure that this foundation is sturdy. If the foundation of a building is unstable, the building may crumble and fall apart. Similarly, the speech introduction prepares the audience for the body of the speech. If the introduction is underdeveloped, the rest of the speech will be weakened by association. It is worth taking some extra time to make sure your speech introduction covers each of the five steps.

Transitioning from Point to Point

Suppose you were driving a car down the highway, and the driver in front of you kept switching lanes abruptly without using a turn signal. Wouldn’t that be frustrating? Well, when a speaker doesn’t use transitions, it creates a similarly jarring experience for the audience. Using a transition phrase prepares the audience for a new topic and helps your speech flow logically from point to point. Transitions in a speech are a little bit different from transitions used in written work. When you are writing an essay, you can use a word such as “also” or “however” to move on to your next point. Yet, in a speech, you need to be more specific. The audience needs a clear signal that you are about to begin a new point. In order to transition to your first main point, you might say: “Let’s begin by,” “I’d like to start with,” “First of all, ” “To commence,” etc. For additional main ideas, you could transition with “Moving on,” “My next point will be,” “Now that we’ve looked at__________, I’ll tell you about ________,” etc. Transitions are especially helpful in separating out your main ideas for your audience so that the body of the speech has distinct sections.

The Main Ideas

The main ideas are the major subtopics of your speech. Once you know your speech topic, the next step is to decide on your main ideas. You can’t create a central idea or a speech introduction without them. The main ideas are the topic sentences of your speech. As a general rule, you should have at least two main ideas. If you only have one main idea, your speech has nowhere to go, and it may feel repetitive for the audience. That being said, you generally shouldn’t have more than five main ideas in your speech. Once you get past the fifth main idea, the audience may have trouble remembering the first one! It’s often a good idea to plan on having three main ideas for your speech. Think about how often the number three comes up in life: three strikes in baseball, three wishes, first/, second/, and third place, etc. In writing, this is known as the “Rule of Three.” How many bears does Goldilocks encounter? How many musketeers are there? People are used to hearing things come up in sets of three, and so having three main points may make it easier for your audience to remember them. In the end, though, you will need to decide on the appropriate number of points you need to develop your speech topic for your audience.

The Supporting Material

After you have your Main Ideas planned out, it’s time to start researching material to support these points. For each point, you’ll need some things to talk about. Depending on how you have chosen to organize your speech, you may need to look up some facts to share. This includes definitions, descriptions, and explanations. If you have too many facts, your speech may come across as dry and lacking in depth. Facts are generally used to lay the foundation for your main idea, and you will use other supporting materials to illustrate your point or defend your argument.

As you continue to research your topic, you should look for examples to share. Examples help your audience to understand and relate to your main idea. If I was giving an informative speech on the solar eclipses, I might share a brief example with my audience: “On Monday, August 17th, 2017, a rare, full solar eclipse of the sun crossed the North American continent.” A brief example takes an abstract idea from your speech and quickly translates it into a real-life situation. This can help make your topic clearer for your audience.

In that same speech on solar eclipses, you could also use an extended example. In this situation, you would fill in all the details to create a story for your audience. “It was a day to be remembered. Hotels across North America had been booked over a year in advance, and millions of people traveled to find a spot in the path of totality – the area, about 70 miles wide, that would experience a total eclipse of the sun. As the time of the eclipse drew near, the air felt noticeably colder, and there were strange shadows on the ground. Then, for a little over a minute in most cities, the sky was plunged into darkness and the beautiful, white corona of the sun could be seen, along with a few stars. People gasped and screamed with delight. It was over all too soon, but those who witnessed this event would never forget it.” Extended examples add a personal touch to your speech and can help ensure that you have enough content to reach the timing parameters of your assignment.

Additionally, you may decide to use a hypothetical example. When used in a speech, a hypothetical example puts the audience into your speech. “What if you…” “Suppose you…” “Imagine that you…” These types of examples work well as attention-getters in the introduction, and you can use them throughout your speech to grab the attention of your audience and refocus them on your topic. As the audience members think about how they would respond to the imagined scenario, they are directly engaging with your speech concepts.

If you are looking to build credibility with your audience on your main idea, you should include testimonies as part of your supporting material. In the court of law, a person who has experience with the subject of the trial is called upon to give their opinion or relate their direct experience. This is similar to how testimonies are used in a speech, where you will include quotes from people who are experienced with your topic. These quotes fall into two categories: expert and peer. An expert testimony comes from someone who has professional experience with the topic, or some other publicly recognized form of expertise. A peer testimony is someone who has personal experience with your topic, but this experience is not from a professional or academic standpoint. Now, which is better for your speech, expert or peer testimonies? It depends. People tend to trust an expert testimony about scientific and medical points; however, people relate to a peer testimony more when the speech point has to do with everyday life. Sometimes an expert testimony can feel out of touch with how the average person lives.

Another way to come across as a credible speaker on your topic is to include statistics in your speech. Any numerical data in your speech, except, perhaps, a date or time, would be considered a statistic. When people hear numbers, they are more likely to believe that what you are telling them is backed up by research. However, you need to make sure you are using statistics appropriately. Here are some guidelines to follow when using this type of supporting material:

• Cite : if you use a statistic in your speech, you need to tell us where that number came from. Otherwise, we’ll think you made it up!
• Sparingly : Don’t use too many statistics in your speech! Remember, statistics are like spices. If you use the right ones, they will bring out the flavors of your meal, but if you use too many, they will overwhelm your meal.
• Round : It can be difficult to process complex numbers unless we see them written out. While it’s fine to read that “New York City covers 300.36 miles,” in a speech, it’s better to say that “New York City has just over 300 miles.” It’s okay to be a little less accurate, if it helps you to be understood. Words like, “approximately,” “close to,” “almost,” “nearly,” etc. will come in handy here.
• Explain : Help your audience to understand the numbers you are using. For example: “How much is a billion dollars? You could spend $100,000 a day for 25 years before you’d run out of cash.” During your speech, help us grasp complicated numbers in terms we can relate to.

No matter what materials you decide to use in your speech to support your main ideas, you’ll want to include citations in your outline to show where you found this information. Unlike writing, which has several formal citation styles, there is no specific way to cite your sources in your speech body. Your professor may require you to use a particular writing citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago, Associated Press). If not, note that speech citations should include at least the source where you found the information and the date the information was published. You may also include the author of the information, but you may need to contextualize this for us. For example, if I said during my speech, “According to Bob Smith…,” who is Bob Smith? No one knows, and no one cares. However, if I said, “According to the financial journalist Bob Smith, in an article published by the New York Times last month…,” people may care more about Bob’s point of view. The date is important here because the recency of your information can affect its relevance. Unlike citation in a paper, you don’t need to cite your source every time you use information from it. This would become tedious for the audience to listen to. Instead, you should add your citation at the beginning or end of when you are sharing information from that source. For example: “All of the statistics I’ve shared today come from the Red Cross website, updated in 2019.” Or, “The examples you’ll be hearing in my speech all come from the Mermaid documentary published on Animal Planet in 2011.” These oral citations give your audience enough information about your source to be able to find the full reference on your outline, if they need to verify something.

The Speech Conclusion

Once you have finished taking your audience on a journey through the main ideas of your speech, it’s time to draw things to a close. However, you need to give your audience a hint that the end is coming. We call this a signal . If you forget to signal the end of your speech, you may finish speaking and find that your audience does not break into applause. They didn’t realize you were on your way to the finish line. Giving your audience a signal alerts them that your speech will be over soon and helps them emotionally prepare for the end of your speech. The signal can be given a specific phrase, such as, “I’d like to end by…” or, “to wrap things up.” Pay attention, and you may notice that your college professors will often use a verbal signal near the end of the class session, such as, “and last of all…” or “before we go…” Try using a signal phrase in your next presentation, and see if you can spot your audience visibly perking up when they hear it. More advanced signals can also signal the end of the speech by changing the rate, pitch, or volume of their remarks. However, if you are using this technique, be sure to practice in front of someone before your actual presentation in class. You may think that you’re effecting a great change in the way you are speaking, but those changes might need to be exaggerated to be noticeable by your audience. The only way you’ll know for sure is to get some live feedback.

The signal of the conclusion leads into a brief summary of your main ideas. Simply restate an overview of the main ideas you just covered to help your audience retain the message of your speech. You may notice that your professors will also do this near the end of a class session. “Today we have covered…” is a common way for this to begin.

You’ll want to cap off your conclusion with a strong statement . It’s a good idea to actually plan out, word for word, what you would like to say for the last line of your speech. The audience is most likely to remember the first thing you said, and the last thing you said, so these words are the most important part of your speech. As much as you are able, commit them to memory. This will help you to make eye contact with your audience as you speak to help the words land with maximum effect. A strong statement can be a quote, or it can refer back to something you said in your introduction. In a persuasive speech, this statement will usually contain a call to action, or it will reinforce what you want your audience to believe, feel or do after hearing your presentation. For an informative speech, the strong statement should reinforce the importance of knowing about your topic, or what makes it so interesting.

It may be useful to think of the Three S’s of the speech conclusion as you work on this part of your presentation. Using a signal, summary, and strong statement will provide closure for the audience and help them to remember the ideas that you shared.

Creating a List of References

The last piece of your outline will generally be a list of references that you have used to provide source material for your speech. There should be at least one citation in the body of your speech from each reference. A reference is not just a website link to your research, but it shares details about your source in an organized format. You will generally need to provide the author’s name and the title of the piece, along with the name of the source you got this information from, and the date it was published. If you found the source online, you will also include the URL for the web page where this source can be found. There are standardized ways to organize all this information, and your professor may ask you to use a specific format. The two most common styles for formatting references are MLA and APA. You can find many resources, both online, and in your college’s library, to help you apply the correct formatting of the style your professor has requested. Carefully following these guidelines will add a professional polish to your speech outline and help you develop attention to detail in your written work, which is a valuable skill in the workforce, and in daily life.

Practicing with the Outline

As you are preparing to present your speech, it may be helpful to highlight key words and phrases so that you can quickly find the information you need in a single glance. This way you can have consistent eye contact with your audience. You want to avoid bobbing your head up and down as you speak, alternating between reading and seeing your audience. Remember, the outline is merely there to keep you on track. You don’t have to say all the words exactly as you have written them. In fact, your words will have much greater impact with the audience if you can create the impression that you are speaking spontaneously. Don’t be afraid to check in with your outline to make sure you have included all your ideas, and in the correct order, but also don’t rely so much on the outline that you are not connected to the audience.

If your instructor has asked you to include a speech topic, general purpose, specific purpose, purpose statement, and/or central idea on your outline, do not include these as part of your speech presentation. They belong on the outline to show your professor that you understood the topic and the goals for the assignment, and that you had a clear thesis for the speech, but you don’t share these out loud with your audience. Likewise, you also won’t read off the references to the audience at the end. These are part of the written assignment, but your oral citations are sufficient to establish your credibility in your presentation. For each speech assignment, you’ll begin with the introduction and finish up with the conclusion.

To help you prepare for your in-class presentation, you should plan on practicing your speech out loud, with a timer, in front of at least one other person. The first time you run through your speech in this way, you’ll find out what you’ve got, and you will likely need to make some adjustments to your outline. You can also get some feedback on your speech delivery, so that you can begin to refine your presentation skills. Continue this process of making changes and then practicing again in front of someone. In general, by the fifth time you’ve gone through the speech, you have it loosely committed to memory. You will know the overall flow of your topics and supporting material, and you can focus on connecting with your audience.

Remember the example of the disjointed building at the beginning of this chapter? The building had important rooms, but it was very difficult to navigate between them and make use of them. This concept also applies to your speech. You might find interesting examples and compelling arguments, but if they are not organized well, your audience may miss them. A well-organized speech will help your audience process and remember your message and will give you greater confidence as a speaker. Spending a little extra time polishing your outline will pay off in dividends towards a speech performance that you can be proud of.

Review Questions

• Why is it important to create an outline for a presentation?
• What are the three general purposes of a speech presentation?
• What is the difference between a specific purpose, or purpose statement, and a central idea?
• What are the five parts of a speech introduction?
• How do speech transitions help the audience?
• Which type of example generally works well as an attention-getter for a speech?
• Why should we use statistics sparingly in our presentations?
• When would a peer testimony be more credible with the audience than an expert testimony?
• How does oral citation differ from the type of citation you would include in an essay?
• What could you say to signal the end of your speech?
• What might be included on your outline that would not be spoken out loud as part of your speech?

Class Activities

• Read aloud a series of specific purposes or purpose statements, and have the students classify the speech categories as “Informative,” “Persuasive,” or “Special Occasion.”
• Write down different types of attention-getters on small pieces of paper, such as “Story,” “Startle,” “Rhetorical Questions,” “Quote,” “Make the audience curious,” “Audience Participation,” etc. Break the students into small groups, and have each group blindly choose an attention-getter from the pile. Then, give the entire class a topic, such as “chewing gum.” Each group has to come up with an attention-getter for this topic in the category they selected.
• Have the students help you come up with a list of 10-14 totally random, but specific, people, places, or things. Help them out with a few – mustaches, the Black Widow spider, North Dakota, etc. Once you have a list, pair the students up and have them share how they would have credibility on this topic. Do they have personal experience with it? Will they need to do research?
• Keeping the same list above, have the students work with their partner to decide how they would relate this topic to their diverse classroom audience.
• Create an abbreviated preparation outline for the students that includes the general purpose, specific purpose, central Idea, and a list of main points. Break the students into groups and give each group either the introduction or a main point. The groups will prepare 1-2 minutes of content for their section and elect a spokesperson to present this to the class. Once the students are prepared, start a timer and do the presentation. The instruction should provide transitions between main ideas, as well as the conclusion.
• Have the students look up a quote from their favorite celebrity. It has to come from an article, though, and not a “Quotes” website. Put them into groups to share, and let each group pick the best one to present to the class. The elected spokesperson for that group will need to complete this oral citation phrase: “According to_______, reported by________(website or periodical) on _______(date)…” and then relay the quote.
• Assemble Make 5-10 enlarged copies of both an APA reference and an MLA references. Cut the copies up so that the author, article title, published date, Retrieval URL, etc., are all on different parts. Divide the class into groups and give each group an APA “puzzle” to assemble. The first group to correctly assemble their reference wins! Repeat with the MLA reference.
• Pass out a lined index card to each student. Give the students an easy topic, and have them free write in complete sentences on this topic until either the time is up or the card is filled. Next, have the students choose 10 key words that will help them remember what they wrote, and list those words on the blank side of the card. Then, pair the students up. Decide on a “Person A” and a “Person B.” “Person A” begins, and flips the card so that he or she can see only the key words, and the partner can see the freewriting. Have “Person A” attempt to share what he or she wrote with “Person B,” using only the key words as a prompt. At the end, “Person B” will let him or her know if anything was left out. Finally, switch roles, so that the other partner can present. Have a discussion with the class about the difference between presentation notes and preparation outlines.

Works Cited

Gallo, Carmine. Talk Like TED . New York, NY: Macmillan. 2014. Print.

Hemmert, Nancy Grass. Public Speaking in American English: A Guide for Non-Native Speakers . 1st  edition. New York, NY: Pearson. 2007. Print.

Lucas, Stephen. E. The Art of Public Speaking . 12th edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. 2014. Print.

Powell, Susanna, et al. Stand and Deliver: High Impact Presentations . 4th edition.  New York, NY: Pearson. 2014 Print.

Structure and Format: Outlining the Speech Copyright © by Rebecca Collier, M.B.A. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Reduce stress and increase success – How to present in front of class

Learning how to prepare for a presentation for class is a key part of a college education. Here are 10 tips for presenting in class used by the pros!

Feeling nervous after being asked to present in front of the class? You’re not alone. Sleepless nights, stress, and anxiety are common symptoms of stress and, if left unchecked, can impact your performance. The good news is that giving a presentation in class is a skill that anyone can learn, and practice makes perfect.   Learning how to prepare for a presentation for class is a key part of a college education, and we’re here to make it easier. Here are 10 evidence-based ways to reduce stress and increase success when presenting in front of the class.  

10 tips for presenting in class

Nerves are the enemy of an excellent presentation, so we need to find ways to fight back. The more stressed we are, the less information we can remember – causing our brains to fog up. The reality is that stress is part of life, and we all need to find ways to cope with it.   Here are some proven strategies on how to do a presentation in front of the class.

#1 Eat healthy, sleep well, and avoid caffeine ☕️

You'll want to ensure you're well-fed, well-rested, and relaxed for your presentation. Try and eat healthily, avoid alcohol the night before (and definitely on the day), and exercise to get your endorphins up. Some people find that mindfulness and relaxation techniques can help manage anxiety.   Definitely swap your caffeinated coffee, soda, or energy drink for something else. It may give us a boost, but it can increase anxiety by 300%, a study found.

#2 Use positive visualization 🧠

Visualization involves playing over your presentation in your mind, imagining how you will smash it. Scientists have shown that visualization can create new neural pathways that prime your brain for success. Seeing really is believing.

#3 Start with a joke (or make people smile) 😆

Great speakers – even those talking about the most challenging subjects – start by making the audience smile. One of the best tips for presenting to class is to begin with a well-rehearsed icebreaker. Seeing a room full of smiling faces should help put you at ease. It also builds trust in your audience that you will be relaxed, informal, and funny when presenting in front of the class.

#4 Invite a friend, study friend, or family member 👯

Looking across an audience of any size can be daunting, so when presenting in front of the class, focus on a friendly face. For example, you can invite a friend, study friend, or family member. Focus on them as you deliver your presentation.   As long as you’re looking at the audience directly, not staring down at your papers, you’ll deliver a great presentation.

#5 Make presentations interactive ⭐️

One of the main reasons people hate presentations is the thought of hundreds of pairs of eyes trailing on you. The solution? Get them looking at a screen, listening to sounds, asking questions, and playing a part!   Avoid ending up with another uninspired slide deck that bores the room. Doing something different will grab attention and take the focus away from you.

#6 Study, study, study 🚀

Most of us aren't born full of confidence; we build it up over time – and that comes from experience and knowledge. One of the best tips for presenting a presentation in class is to have total mastery of your subject.   One reason we're afraid to give presentations is the fear of losing our place or looking silly. The answer to this is to study more.   Put in the hours researching your subject from reliable sources, and you'll have the confidence to deliver a presentation and back it up in Q&A sessions.

#7 Learn from the experts 👀

TED Talks have transformed how we think about presentations. They're interactive, fun, short, and engaging. One great tip for giving better presentations is to analyze the techniques used in TED Talks (and by other professional public speakers).   Watch how they interact with the audience and tell a story. Learn how they command the physical space and inspire confidence in the audience.   Then remind yourself that these people were all like you once. If they can learn these skills, so can you. Don’t be afraid to copy them.

#8 Tell a story 📕

As humans, we love a story. The narratives we create have a start, a journey, and an ending. When thinking about how to do a presentation in class, consider the journey you want to take your audience on. Of course, you’ll want to share information, but the best presentations are engaging and trigger emotions.   Use your subject matter knowledge to surprise and excite your audience. Case studies and real-life examples can bring any presentation to life. Find great facts, surprising insights, and inspiring stories.

#9 Practice Your Presentation 🗣

It sounds obvious, but it's critical that you practice your presentation before delivering it. Try to replicate the environment as best you can. If you're standing up in front of a class, do so at home. If you're on a videoconference, get some friends and family to dial in and do a run-through.   The more times you run through the presentation, the more confident you will be. You'll also be able to track timings and iron out technical issues.   If you're feeling brave, capture the video on your smartphone and identify areas to improve.

#10 S-L-O-W down (and leave gaps) ⏳

When we’re nervous, we all speak faster than normal. While your well-practiced presentation may have taken 30 minutes at home, you can rattle through it in 20 in front of a crowd. The lesson here is to slow down, take your time, and leave gaps.   If you’ve studied the pros, you’ll see they always leave a pause after each statement or sentence for the audience to process it. Great speakers, like former President Obama, have honed this into an art form. His laid-back delivery and mastery of his brief shine through, and even those who didn’t like what he said respected how he said it.   If you're worried about pausing, write a cue card and leave it on the desk. This can prompt you to pause, grab a sip of water, and prepare to deliver your next point.

Remember: Everyone wants you to do well

Fear of failure is the cause of nerves, stress, and anxiety. But always remember, everyone in the audience wants you to do well. They’re interested enough to attend your presentation, so focus on informing, engaging, and entertaining them.   You'll quickly learn that presentations aren't something to fear but a challenge to overcome. And trust us, the more you do, the easier it becomes. So while you may never enjoy giving presentations, you'll learn it's nothing to be afraid of.

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Chapter Four – Listening

Hearing versus listening.

“Doctor Aunt”  by Eden, Janine and Jim.  CC-BY .

A mother takes her four-year-old to the pediatrician reporting she’s worried about the girl’s hearing. The doctor runs through a battery of tests, checks in the girl’s ears to be sure everything looks good, and makes notes in the child’s folder. Then, she takes the mother by the arm. They move together to the far end of the room, behind the girl. The doctor whispers in a low voice to the concerned parent: “Everything looks fine. But she’s been through a lot of tests today. You might want to take her for ice cream after this as a reward.” The daughter jerks her head around, a huge grin on her face, “Oh, please, Mommy! I love ice cream!” The doctor, speaking now at a regular volume, reports, “As I said, I don’t think there’s any problem with her hearing, but she may not always be choosing to listen.”

Hearing  is something most everyone does without even trying. It is a physiological response to sound waves moving through the air at up to 760 miles per hour. First, we receive the sound in our ears. The wave of sound causes our eardrums to vibrate, which engages our brain to begin processing. The sound is then transformed into nerve impulses so that we can perceive the sound in our brains. Our auditory cortex recognizes a sound has been heard and begins to process the sound by matching it to previously encountered sounds in a process known as  auditory association . [1]  Hearing has kept our species alive for centuries. When you are asleep but wake in a panic having heard a noise downstairs, an age-old self-preservation response is kicking in. You were asleep. You weren’t listening for the noise—unless perhaps you are a parent of a teenager out past curfew—but you hear it. Hearing is unintentional, whereas  listening  (by contrast) requires you to pay conscious attention. Our bodies hear, but we need to employ intentional effort to actually listen.

“Hearing Mechanics”  by Zina Deretsky. Public domain.

We regularly engage in several different types of listening. When we are tuning our attention to a song we like, or a poetry reading, or actors in a play, or sitcom antics on television, we are listening for pleasure, also known as  appreciative listening . When we are listening to a friend or family member, building our relationship with another through offering support and showing empathy for her feelings in the situation she is discussing, we are engaged in  relational listening . Therapists, counselors, and conflict mediators are trained in another level known as  empathetic or therapeutic listening . When we are at a political event, attending a debate, or enduring a salesperson touting the benefits of various brands of a product, we engage in critical listening. This requires us to be attentive to key points that influence or confirm our judgments. When we are focused on gaining information whether from a teacher in a classroom setting, or a pastor at church, we are engaging in  informational listening . [2]

Yet, despite all these variations, Nichols called listening a “lost art.” [3]  The ease of sitting passively without really listening is well known to anyone who has sat in a boring class with a professor droning on about the Napoleonic wars or proper pain medication regimens for patients allergic to painkillers. You hear the words the professor is saying, while you check Facebook on your phone under the desk. Yet, when the exam question features an analysis of Napoleon’s downfall or a screaming patient fatally allergic to codeine you realize you didn’t actually listen. Trying to recall what you heard is a challenge, because without your attention and intention to remember, the information is lost in the caverns of your cranium.

Listening is one of the first skills infants gain, using it to acquire language and learn to communicate with their parents. Bommelje suggests listening is the activity we do most in life, second only to breathing. [4]  Nevertheless, the skill is seldom taught.

Stages of Listening

Author Joseph DeVito has divided the listening process into five stages: receiving, understanding, remembering, evaluating, and responding (DeVito, 2000).

Receiving is the intentional focus on hearing a speaker’s message, which happens when we filter out other sources so that we can isolate the message and avoid the confusing mixture of incoming stimuli. At this stage, we are still only hearing the message. Notice in the “Stages of Listening” figure above that this stage is represented by the ear because it is the primary tool involved with this stage of the listening process.

One of the authors of this book recalls attending a political rally for a presidential candidate at which about five thousand people were crowded into an outdoor amphitheater. When the candidate finally started speaking, the cheering and yelling was so loud that the candidate couldn’t be heard easily despite using a speaker system. In this example, our coauthor had difficulty receiving the message because of the external noise. This is only one example of the ways that hearing alone can require sincere effort, but you must hear the message before you can continue the process of listening.

Understanding

In the understanding stage, we attempt to learn the meaning of the message, which is not always easy. For one thing, if a speaker does not enunciate clearly, it may be difficult to tell what the message was—did your friend say, “I think she’ll be late for class,” or “my teacher delayed the class”? Notice in the “Stages of Listening” figure that stages two, three, and four are represented by the brain because it is the primary tool involved with these stages of the listening process.

Even when we have understood the words in a message, because of the differences in our backgrounds and experience, we sometimes make the mistake of attaching our own meanings to the words of others. For example, say you have made plans with your friends to meet at a certain movie theater, but you arrive and nobody else shows up. Eventually you find out that your friends are at a different theater all the way across town where the same movie is playing. Everyone else understood that the meeting place was the “west side” location, but you wrongly understood it as the “east side” location and therefore missed out on part of the fun.

The consequences of ineffective listening in a classroom can be much worse. When professors advise students to get an “early start” on speeches, they probably hope that students will begin research right away and move on to developing a thesis statement and outlining the speech as soon as possible. However, students in your class might misunderstand the instructor’s meaning in several ways. One student might interpret the advice to mean that as long as she gets started, the rest of the assignment will have time to develop itself. Another student might instead think that to start early is to start on the Friday before the Monday due date instead of Sunday night.

So much of the way we understand others is influenced by our own perceptions and experiences. Therefore, at the understanding stage of listening we should be on the lookout for places where our perceptions might differ from those of the speaker.

Remembering

Remembering begins with listening; if you can’t remember something that was said, you might not have been listening effectively. Wolvin and Coakley note that the most common reason for not remembering a message after the fact is because it wasn’t really learned in the first place (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996). However, even when you are listening attentively, some messages are more difficult than others to understand and remember. Highly complex messages that are filled with detail call for highly developed listening skills. Moreover, if something distracts your attention even for a moment, you could miss out on information that explains other new concepts you hear when you begin to listen fully again.

It’s also important to know that you can improve your memory of a message by processing it meaningfully—that is, by applying it in ways that are meaningful to you (Gluck, et al., 2008). Instead of simply repeating a new acquaintance’s name over and over, for example, you might remember it by associating it with something in your own life. “Emily,” you might say, “reminds me of the Emily I knew in middle school,” or “Mr. Impiari’s name reminds me of the Impala my father drives.”

Finally, if understanding has been inaccurate, recollection of the message will be inaccurate too.

The fourth stage in the listening process is evaluating, or judging the value of the message. We might be thinking, “This makes sense” or, conversely, “This is very odd.” Because everyone embodies biases and perspectives learned from widely diverse sets of life experiences, evaluations of the same message can vary widely from one listener to another. Even the most open-minded listeners will have opinions of a speaker, and those opinions will influence how the message is evaluated. People are more likely to evaluate a message positively if the speaker speaks clearly, presents ideas logically, and gives reasons to support the points made.

Unfortunately, personal opinions sometimes result in prejudiced evaluations. Imagine you’re listening to a speech given by someone from another country and this person has an accent that is hard to understand. You may have a hard time simply making out the speaker’s message. Some people find a foreign accent to be interesting or even exotic, while others find it annoying or even take it as a sign of ignorance. If a listener has a strong bias against foreign accents, the listener may not even attempt to attend to the message. If you mistrust a speaker because of an accent, you could be rejecting important or personally enriching information. Good listeners have learned to refrain from making these judgments and instead to focus on the speaker’s meanings.

Responding  sometimes referred to as feedback—is the fifth and final stage of the listening process. It’s the stage at which you indicate your involvement. Almost anything you do at this stage can be interpreted as feedback. For example, you are giving positive feedback to your instructor if at the end of class you stay behind to finish a sentence in your notes or approach the instructor to ask for clarification. The opposite kind of feedback is given by students who gather their belongings and rush out the door as soon as class is over. Notice in the “Stages of Listening” figure that this stage is represented by the lips because we often give feedback in the form of verbal feedback; however, you can just as easily respond nonverbally.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less. – Diogenes

Formative Feedback

Not all response occurs at the end of the message. Formative feedback is a natural part of the ongoing transaction between a speaker and a listener. As the speaker delivers the message, a listener signals his or her involvement with focused attention, note-taking, nodding, and other behaviors that indicate understanding or failure to understand the message. These signals are important to the speaker, who is interested in whether the message is clear and accepted or whether the content of the message is meeting the resistance of preconceived ideas. Speakers can use this feedback to decide whether additional examples, support materials, or explanation is needed.

Summative Feedback

Summative feedback is given at the end of the communication. When you attend a political rally, a presentation given by a speaker you admire, or even a class, there are verbal and nonverbal ways of indicating your appreciation for or your disagreement with the messages or the speakers at the end of the message. Maybe you’ll stand up and applaud a speaker you agreed with or just sit staring in silence after listening to a speaker you didn’t like. In other cases, a speaker may be attempting to persuade you to donate to a charity, so if the speaker passes a bucket and you make a donation, you are providing feedback on the speaker’s effectiveness. At the same time, we do not always listen most carefully to the messages of speakers we admire. Sometimes we simply enjoy being in their presence, and our summative feedback is not about the message but about our attitudes about the speaker. If your feedback is limited to something like, “I just love your voice,” you might be indicating that you did not listen carefully to the content of the message.

Hearing Impaired

Arguably, even audience members who do not possess the physiological mechanisms to hear can “listen.” Stage one (Receiving) is different because it happens through different channels (e.g., sign language, subtitles, nonverbal cues), but Stages two (Understanding/ Remembering), three (Evaluating), and four (Feedback) remain the same.

Types of Listening

We regularly engage in several different types of listening. When we are tuning our attention to a song we like, or a poetry reading, or actors in a play, or sitcom antics on television, we are listening for pleasure, also known as  appreciative listening . When we are listening to a friend or family member, building our relationship with another through offering support and showing empathy for her feelings in the situation she is discussing, we are engaged in  relational listening . Therapists, counselors, and conflict mediators are trained in another level known as  empathetic or therapeutic listening . When we are at a political event, attending a debate, or enduring a salesperson touting the benefits of various brands of a product, we engage in critical listening . This requires us to be attentive to key points that influence or confirm our judgments. When we are focused on gaining information whether from a teacher in a classroom setting, or a pastor at church, we are engaging in  comprehensive listening . [2]

Listening is one of the first skills infants gain, using it to acquire language and learn to communicate with their parents. Bommelje suggests listening is the activity we do most in life, second only to breathing. [4] Nevertheless, the skill is seldom taught.

Barriers to Effective Listening

We get in our own way when it comes to effective listening. While listening may be the communication skill we use foremost in formal education environments, it is taught the least (behind, in order, writing, reading, and speaking). [5]  To better learn to listen it is first important to acknowledge strengths and weaknesses as listeners. We routinely ignore the barriers to our effective listening; yet anticipating, judging, or reacting emotionally can all hinder our ability to listen attentively.

“Visitors NAO Rozhen Telescope”  by Daniel.  CC-BY-SA .

Anticipating

Anticipating, or thinking about what the speaker is likely to say, can detract from listening in several ways. On one hand, the listener might find the speaker is taking too long to make a point and try to anticipate what the final conclusion is going to be. While doing this, the listener has stopped actively listening to the speaker. A listener who knows too much, or thinks they do, listens poorly. The only answer is humility, and recognizing there is always something new to be learned.

Anticipating what we will say in response to the speaker is another detractor to effective listening. Imagine your roommate comes to discuss your demand for quiet from noon to 4 p.m. every day so that you can nap in complete silence and utter darkness. She begins by saying, “I wonder if we could try to find a way that you could nap with the lights on, so that I could use our room in the afternoon, too.” She might go on to offer some perfectly good ideas as to how this might be accomplished, but you’re no longer listening because you are too busy anticipating what you will say in response to her complaint. Once she’s done speaking, you are ready to enumerate all of the things she’s done wrong since you moved in together. Enter the Resident Assistant to mediate a conflict that gets out of hand quickly. This communication would have gone differently if you had actually listened instead of jumping ahead to plan a response.

An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgments simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore. – Edward de Bono

Jumping to conclusions about the speaker is another barrier to effective listening. Perhaps you’ve been in the audience when a speaker makes a small mistake; maybe it’s mispronouncing a word or misstating the hometown of your favorite athlete. An effective listener will overlook this minor gaffe and continue to give the speaker the benefit of the doubt. A listener looking for an excuse not to give their full attention to the speaker will instead take this momentary lapse as proof of flaws in all the person has said and will go on to say.

This same listener might also judge the speaker based on superficialities. Focusing on delivery or personal appearance—a squeaky voice, a ketchup stain on a white shirt, mismatched socks, a bad haircut, or a proclaimed love for a band that no one of any worth could ever profess to like—might help the ineffective listener justify a choice to stop listening. Still, this is always a choice. The effective listener will instead accept that people may have their own individual foibles, but they can still be good speakers and valuable sources of insight or information.

Reacting Emotionally

When the speaker says an emotional trigger, it can be even more difficult to listen effectively. A guest speaker on campus begins with a personal story about the loss of a parent, and instead of listening you become caught up grieving a family member of your own. Or, a presenter takes a stance on drug use, abortion, euthanasia, religion, or even the best topping for a pizza that you simply can’t agree with. You begin formulating a heated response to the speaker’s perspective, or searing questions you might ask to show the holes in the speaker’s argument. Yet, you’ve allowed your emotional response to the speaker interfere with your ability to listen effectively. Once emotion is involved, effective listening stops.

Bore, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen. – Ambrose Bierce

Encouraging Effective Listening

“William Henry Harrison”  by James Reid Lambdin. Public domain.

William Henry Harrison was the ninth President of the United States. He’s also recognized for giving the worst State of the Union address—ever. His two-hour speech delivered in a snowstorm in 1841 proves that a long speech can kill (and not in the colloquial “it was so good” sense). Perhaps it was karma, but after the President gave his meandering speech discussing ancient Roman history more than campaign issues, he died from a cold caught while blathering on, standing outside without a hat or coat. [6]

Now, when asked what you know about Abraham Lincoln, you’re likely to have more answers to offer. Let’s focus on his Gettysburg Address. The speech is a model of brevity. His “of the people, by the people, for the people” is always employed as an example of parallelism, and he kept his words simple. In short, Lincoln considered his listening audience when writing his speech.

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people’s minds. – Walter Bagehot

When you sit down to compose a speech, keep in mind that you are  writing for the ear  rather than the eye. Listeners cannot go back and reread what you have just said. They need to grasp your message in the amount of time it takes you to speak the words. To help them accomplish this, you need to give listeners a clear idea of your overarching aim, reasons to care, and cues about what is important. You need to inspire them to want to not just hear but engage in what you are saying.

Make Your Listeners Care

Humans are motivated by ego; they always want to know “what’s in it for me?” So, when you want to want to get an audience’s attention, it is imperative to establish a reason for your listeners to care about what you are saying.

Some might say Oprah did this by giving away cars at the end of an episode. But that only explains why people waited in line for hours to get a chance to sit in the audience as her shows were taped. As long as they were in the stands, they didn’t need to listen to get the car at the end of the show. Yet Oprah had audiences listening to her for 25 years before she launched her own network. She made listeners care about what she was saying. She told them what was in that episode for them. She made her audience members feel like she was talking to them about their problems and offered solutions that they could use—even if they weren’t multibillionaires known worldwide by first name alone.

Audiences are also more responsive when you find a means to tap their  intrinsic motivation , by appealing to curiosity, challenging them, or providing contextualization. [7]  You might appeal to the audience’s curiosity if you are giving an informative speech about a topic they might not be familiar with already. Even in a narrative speech, you can touch on curiosity by cueing the audience to the significant thing they will learn about you or your topic from the story. A speech can present a challenge too. Persuasive speeches challenge the audience to think in a new way. Special Occasion speeches might challenge the listeners to reflect or prompt action. Providing a listener with contextualization comes back to the what’s in it for me motivation. A student giving an informative speech about the steps in creating a mosaic could simply offer a step-by-step outline of the process, or she can frame it by saying to her listener, “by the end of my speech, you’ll have all the tools you need to make a mosaic on your own.” This promise prompts the audience to sit further forward in their seats for what might otherwise be a dry how-to recitation.

Cue Your Listeners

“Make way for ducklings”  by lee.  CC-BY-NC-ND .

Audiences also lean in further when you employ active voice. We do this in speaking without hesitation. Imagine you were walking across campus and saw the contents of someone’s room dumped out on the lawn in front of your dorm. You’d probably tell a friend: “The contents of Jane’s room were thrown out the window by Julie.” Wait, that doesn’t sound right. You’re more likely to say: “Julie threw Jane’s stuff out the window!” The latter is an example of active voice. You put the actor (Julie) and the action (throwing Jane’s stuff) at the beginning. When we try to speak formally, we can fall into passive voice. Yet, it sounds stuffy, and so unfamiliar to your listener’s ear that he will struggle to process the point while you’ve already moved on to the next thing you wanted to say.

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good. – Plato

Knowing that your audience only hears what you are saying the one time you say it, invites you to employ repetition. Listeners are more likely to absorb a sound when it is repeated. We are often unconsciously waiting for a repetition to occur so we can confirm what we thought we heard. [8]  As a result, employing repetition can emphasize an idea for the listener. Employing repetition of a word, words, or sentence can create a rhythm for the listener’s ear. Employing repetition too often, though, can be tiresome.

If you don’t want to repeat things so often you remind your listener of a sound clip on endless loop, you can also cue your listener through vocal emphasis. Volume is a tool speakers can employ to gain attention. Certainly parents use it all of the time. Yet, you probably don’t want to spend your entire speech shouting at your audience. Instead, you can modulate your voice so that you say something important slightly louder. Or, you say something more softly, although still audible, before echoing it again with greater volume to emphasize the repetition. Changing your pitch or volume can help secure audience attention for a longer period of time, as we welcome the variety.

Pace is another speaker’s friend. This is not to be confused with the moving back and forth throughout a speech that someone might do nervously (inadvertently inducing motion sickness in his audience). Instead, it refers to planning to pause after an important point or question to allow your audience the opportunity to think about what you have just said. Or, you might speak more quickly (although still clearly) to emphasize your fear or build humor in a long list of concerns while sharing an anecdote. Alternately, you could slow down for more solemn topics or to emphasize the words in a critical statement. For instance, a persuasive speaker lobbying for an audience to stop cutting down trees in her neighborhood might say, “this can’t continue. It’s up to you to do something.” But imagine her saying these words with attention paid to pacing and each period representing a pause. She could instead say, “This. Can’t. Continue. It’s up to you. Do something.”

Convince Them to Engage

Listeners respond to people. Consider this introduction to a speech about a passion for college football:

“Clemson Tigers football running down the hill”  by Jim Ferguson.  CC-BY .

It’s college football season! Across the nation, the season begins in late summer. Teams play in several different divisions including the SEC, the ACC, and Big Ten. Schools make a lot of money playing in the different divisions, because people love to watch football on TV. College football is great for the fans, the players, and the schools.

Now, compare it to this introduction to another speech about the same passion:

When I was a little boy, starting as early as four, my father would wake me up on Fall Saturdays with the same three words: “It’s Game Day!” My dad was a big Clemson Tigers fan, so we might drive to Death Valley to see a game. Everyone would come: my mom, my grandparents, and friends who went to Clemson too. We would all tailgate before the game—playing corn hole, tossing a foam football, and watching the satellite TV. Even though we loved Clemson football best, all college football was worth watching. You never knew when there would be an upset. You could count on seeing pre-professional athletes performing amazing feats. But, best of all, it was a way to bond with my family, and later my friends.

Both introductions set up the topic and even give an idea of how the speech will be organized. Yet, the second one is made more interesting by the human element. The speech is personalized .

The college football enthusiast speaker might continue to make the speech interesting to his listeners by appealing to commonalities. He might acknowledge that not everyone in his class is a Clemson fan, but all of them can agree that their school’s football team is fun to watch. Connecting with the audience through referencing things the speaker has in common with the listeners can function as an appeal to  ethos . The speaker is credible to the audience because he is like them. Or it can work as an appeal to pathos . A speaker might employ this emotional appeal in a persuasive speech about Habitat for Humanity by asking her audience to think first about the comforts of home or dorm living that they all take for granted.

If you engage people on a vital, important level, they will respond. – Edward Bond  

In speaking to the audience about the comforts of dorm living, the speaker is unlikely to refer to the “dormitories where we each reside.” More likely, she might say, “the dorms we live in.” As with electing to use active voice, speakers can choose to be more conversational than they might be in writing an essay on the same topic.

The speaker might use contractions, or colloquialisms, or make comparisons to popular television shows, music, or movies. This will help the listeners feel like the speaker is in conversation with them—admittedly a one-sided one—rather than talking at them. It can be off-putting to feel the speaker is simply reciting facts and figures and rushing to get through to the end of their speech, whereas listeners respond to someone talking to them calmly and confidently. Being conversational can help to convey this attitude even when on the inside the speaker is far from calm or confident. Nevertheless, employ this strategy with caution. Being too colloquial, for instance using “Dude” throughout the speech, could undermine your credibility. Or a popular culture example that you think is going to be widely recognized might not be the common knowledge you think it is, and could confuse audiences with non-native listeners.

Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases, a man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences, whatever they may be. – W. H. Auden

Ethical Listening

Just as you hope others are attentive to your speech, it is important to know how to listen ethically—in effort to show respect to other speakers.

Jordan stood to give his  presentation to the class. He knew he  was knowledgeable about his chosen  topic, the Chicago Bears football  team, and had practiced for days, but  public speaking always gave him anxiety. He asked for a show of  hands during his attention getter, and  only a few people acknowledged him.  Jordan’s anxiety worsened as he  continued his speech. He noticed that  many of his classmates were texting  on their phones. Two girls on the  right side were passing a note back  and forth. When Jordan received his  peer critique forms, most of his  classmates simply said, “Good job”  without giving any explanation. One  of his classmates wrote, “Bears  SUCK!”

As we can see from the example above, communicating is not a one-way street. Jordan’s peers were not being ethical listeners. All individuals involved in the communication process have ethical responsibilities. An ethical communicator tries to “understand and respect other communicators before evaluating and responding to their messages.” [9] As we have learned, listening is an important part of the public speaking process. Thus, this chapter will also outline ethical listening. This section explains how to improve your listening skills and how to provide ethical feedback. Hearing happens physiologically, but listening is an art. The importance of ethical listening will be discussed first.

Develop Ethical Listening Skills

The act of hearing is what our body does physically; our ear takes in sound waves. However, when we interpret (or make sense of) those sound waves, that’s called  listening . Think about the last time you gave a speech. How did the audience members act? Do you remember the people that seemed most attentive? Those audience members were displaying traits of ethical listening. An  ethical listener  is one who actively interprets shared material and analyzes the content and speaker’s effectiveness. Good listeners try to display respect for the speaker. Communicating respect for the speaker occurs when the listener: a) prepares to listen and b) listens with his or her whole body.

One way you can prepare yourself to listen is to get rid of distractions. [10] If you’ve selected a seat near the radiator and find it hard to hear over the noise, you may want to move before the speaker begins. If you had a fight with your friend before work that morning, you may want to take a moment to collect your thoughts and put the argument out of your mind—so that you can prevent internal distraction during the staff meeting presentation. As a professional, you are aware of the types of things and behaviors that distract you from the speaker; it is your obligation to manage these distractions before the speaker begins.

“Bored Students”  by cybrarian77.  CC-BY-NC .

In order to ethically listen, it’s also imperative to listen with more than just your ears—your critical mind should also be at work. According to Sellnow, [11] two other things you can do to prepare are to avoid prejudging the speaker and refrain from jumping to conclusions while the speaker is talking. Effective listening can only occur when we’re actually attending to the message. Conversely, listening is interrupted when we’re pre-judging the speaker, stereotyping the speaker, or making mental counterarguments to the speaker’s claims. You have the right to disagree with a speaker’s content but wait until the speaker is finished and has presented his or her whole argument to draw such a conclusion.

Ethical listening doesn’t just take place inside the body. In order to show your attentiveness, it is necessary to consider how your body is listening. A listening posture enhances your ability to receive information and make sense of a message. [12]  An attentive listening posture includes sitting up and remaining alert, keeping eye contact with the speaker and his or her visual aid, removing distractions from your area, and taking notes when necessary. Also, if you’re enjoying a particular speaker, it’s helpful to provide positive nonverbal cues like head-nodding, occasional smiling, and eye-contact. These practices can aid you in successful, ethical listening. However, know that listening is sometimes only the first step in this process—many times listeners are asked to provide feedback.

Constructive criticism is about finding something good and positive to soften the blow to the real critique of what really went on. – Paula Abdul

Provide Ethical Feedback

Ethical speakers and listeners are able to provide quality feedback to others.  Ethical feedback is a descriptive and explanatory response to the speaker. Brownell explains that a response to a speaker should demonstrate that you have listened and considered the content and delivery of the message. [13] Responses should respect the position of the speaker while being honest about your attitudes, values, and beliefs. Praising the speaker’s message or delivery can help boost his or her confidence and encourage good speaking behaviors. However, ethical feedback does not always have to be positive in nature. Constructive criticism can point out flaws of the speaker while also making suggestions. Constructive criticism acknowledges that a speaker is not perfect and can improve upon the content or delivery of the message. In fact, constructive criticism is helpful in perfecting a speaker’s content or speaking style. Ethical feedback always explains the listener’s opinion in detail. Figure 4.3 provides examples of unethical and ethical feedback.

As you can see from the example feedback statements (Figure 3.3), ethical feedback is always explanatory. Ethical statements  explain  why you find the speaker effective or ineffective. Another guideline for ethical feedback is to “phrase your comments as personal perceptions” by using “I” language (Sellnow, 2009, p. 94). Feedback that employs the “I” pronoun displays personal preference regarding the speech and communicates responsibility for the comments. Feedback can focus on the speaker’s delivery, content, style, visual aid, or attire. Be sure to support your claims—by giving a clear explanation of your opinion—when providing feedback to a speaker. Feedback should also support ethical communication behaviors from speakers by asking for more information and pointing out relevant information. [14]  It is clear that providing ethical feedback is an important part of the listening process and, thus, of the public speaking process.

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world . – Albert Camus

• Brownell, J. (1996). Listening: Attitudes, principles and skills . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon ↵
• Ireland, J. (2011, May 4).  The kinds of listening skills . Livestrong.com. Retrieved from  http://www.livestrong.com/article/82419-kinds-listening-skills/   ↵
• Nichols, R. G. (1957).  Listening is a 10 part skill.  Chicago, IL: Enterprise Publications. Retrieved from  http://d1025403.site.my  hosting.com/files.listen.org/Nichol sTenPartSkill/Mr39Enf4.html   ↵
• Bommelje, R. (2011). LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. In The top 10 ways to strengthen your self-leadership. International Listening Leadership Institute. Retrieved from http://www.listeningleaders.com/Articles.html   ↵
• Brownell, J. (1996).  Listening: Attitudes, principles, and skills . Boston: Allyn and Bacon.  ↵
• William Henry Harrison: Inaugural Address. (1989). U. S. Inaugural Addresses.  Bartleby.com . Accessed Sept. 2, 2012.  ↵
• VanDeVelde Luskin, C. (2003, September). Mark Lepper: Intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and the process of learning. In Bing Times Online, Stanford University, retrieved from  http://web.stanford.edu/dept/bingschool/cgi-bin/bt/sep2003/mark-lepper-intrinsic-motivation-extrinsic-motivation-and-the-process-of-learning/   ↵
• Brownell, J. (1996).  Listening: Attitudes, principles, and skills . Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• National Communication Association. (1999). NCA credo for ethical communication. Retrieved from http://www.natcom.org/uploadedFiles/About_NCA/Leadership_and_Governance/Public_Policy_Platform/PDF-PolicyPlatformNCA_Credo_for_Ethical_Communication.pdf   ↵
• Sellnow, D. D. (2009). Confident public speaking: COM 181 at University of Kentucky. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.  ↵
• Sellnow 2009  ↵
• Jaffe, C. (2010).  Public speaking: Concepts and skills for a diverse society  (6th Ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.  ↵

LICENSES AND ATTRIBUTIONS

• Chapter 4 Barriers to Effective Listening.  Authored by : Jenn Q. Goddu, M.A..  Provided by : Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC.  Located at :  http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html .  Project : The Public Speaking Project.  License :  CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Visitors NAO Rozhen Telescope.  Authored by : Daniel.  Located at :  https://flic.kr/p/GDDKD .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Chapter 4 Hearing Versus Listening.  Authored by : Jenn Q. Goddu, M.A..  Provided by : Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC.  Located at :  http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html .  Project : The Public Speaking Project.  License :  CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Doctor Aunt.  Authored by : Eden, Janine and Jim.  Located at :  https://flic.kr/p/5M3xBP .  License :  CC BY: Attribution
• Chapter 4 Encouraging Effective Listening. Authored by : Jenn Q. Goddu, M.A..  Provided by : Queens University of Charlotte, Charlotte, NC.  Located at :  http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html .  Project : The Public Speaking Project.  License :  CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• make way for ducklings.  Authored by : lee.  Located at :  https://flic.kr/p/yvJUP .  License :  CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Chapter 3 Ethical Listening.  Authored by : Alyssa Millner and Rachel Price.  Provided by : King College and University of Kentucky.  Located at :  http://publicspeakingproject.org/psvirtualtext.html .  Project : Public Speaking Project.  License :  CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Clemson Tigers football running down the hill.  Authored by : Jim Ferguson.  Located at :  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clemson_Tigers_football_running_down_the_hill.jpg .  License :  CC BY: Attribution

Stages of listening adapted from  Stand up, Speak out: The Practice and Ethics of Public Speaking. Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• William Henry Harrison.  Authored by : James Reid Lambdin.  Located at :  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:James_Reid_Lambdin_-_William_Henry_Harrison_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg .  License :  Public Domain: No Known Copyright
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Instructor 1 > Chapter 6: Classroom Instruction > Flashcards

Chapter 6: Classroom Instruction Flashcards

Which characteristic of an effective public speaker involves use of relevant examples, storytelling, and metaphors?

Good development of ideas

Instructors can improve presentations by:

making a video recording and reviewing it for distracting actions

An oral presentation generally consists of three parts referred to as the:

introduction, body, and summary

Which method of sequencing information begins with information that students are familiar with before introducing unfamiliar material?

Known-to-unknown

Why do instructors use transitions to keep students’ attention between portions of the lesson?

Continuity and consistency

Which step of the four-step method of instruction introduces the lesson?

Preparation

Which step of the four-step method of instruction has the instructor follow an orderly, sequential outline to deliver the lesson content?

Presentation

Which step of the four-step method of instruction has the instructor provide opportunities for students to learn through a variety of activities?

Application

Which instructional method is MOST effective for providing facts, rules, and regulations?

Illustrated lectures

Which instructional method is an effective way to teach manipulative skills and mechanical functions?

Demonstrations

Which instructional method allows instructors to talk to the overall group and invite the group to reply?

Leading class discussions

The development of psychomotor skills typically occurs in _____ phases.

Which structured exercise reviews and discusses detailed accounts of past events for students to analyze and synthesize possible answers to the problem?

Case studies

Which structured exercise involves students acting out the role of a character in a scenario to prepare for situations they may encounter while fulfilling their job duties?

Role playing

Which structured exercise permits students to experience a situation, make decisions, and see the results of their decisions without the negative consequences that can occur at an actual emergency?

Simulations

Which type of learning requires that each student successfully master the learning objectives or outcomes of the lesson or course before progressing to a new one?

Competency-based

An advantage of the competency-based approach to teaching is:

students are prepared to advance to more complex knowledge or skills

Which teaching strategy is the most prevalent approach to teaching in the fire and emergency services?

Instructor-led training

Which teaching strategy requires instructors to be very organized and disciplined in order to maintain a high level of student satisfaction and performance with the reduction of a formal structure?

Blended or hybrid learning

Which teaching strategy minimizes the interaction between a student and an instructor?

Computer simulation

What is the art of clearly and concisely explaining information in ways that an anticipated audience can understand?

Effective speakers organize their material so that:

their audience is never lost during the presentation

Which characteristic of effective speakers involves keeping appropriate eye contact with audience members?

Good delivery skills

Which major element of good vocal characteristics of an effective speaker involves clearly emphasizing each syllable, accent, and pause?

Enunciation

Instructors can improve any presentation by:

getting plenty of rest the night before a presentation

Which part of an instructor’s oral presentation is to get the attention of the students?

Which part of an instructor’s oral presentation is to present the information in a logical sequence?

Which part of an instructor’s oral presentation is to review the objective of the presentation?

Which method of sequencing information in a presentation begins by teaching the basic knowledge or skill, then introducing more difficult knowledge as the lesson progresses?

Simple-to-complex

Which method of sequencing information in a presentation teaches students in a sequential order for each skill?

Step-by-step

Educational research recommends that instructors evaluate student’s understanding:

during the lesson

Which of the following is a purpose of transitions when giving presentations?

Preview what will happen next

What are two types of transitions speech communication professionals teach?

Verbal and nonverbal

The steps for the four-step method of instruction include _____, presentation, application, and evaluation

preparation

Which step of the four-step method of instruction can be combined with the application step so students can participate in activities that require them to safely demonstrate skills?

During which step of the four-step method of instruction does the instructor provide opportunities for students to learn through a variety of activities?

Which step of the four-step method of instruction typically uses written and oral tests to assess cognitive learning?

Which instructional teaching method does an instructor use to explain a topic with the help of audiovisual aids?

Giving an illustrated lecture

Which instructional teaching method does an instructor use to teach physical principles?

Providing demonstration

Which instructional teaching method allows for interaction between the instructor and the students?

Which common category of the whole group discussion format intends to have students gain knowledge from other group members or develop new ideas?

Which type of group discussions have the main advantage that students express their ideas and opinions more openly with their peers than when an instructor is present?

Both large and small group discussions require that instructors demonstrate _____ to ensure that students achieve course goals.

Which discussion technique is used to generate as many ideas as possible while operating under the principle that there are no bad ideas?

Brainstorming

Which skill enables the instructor to evaluate prepared questions so questions can be improved, if needed?

Knowing how to create effective questions of their own

Which question type doesn’t necessarily have one correct answer and often does not call for a spoken response?

How should an instructor respond when a student answer is only partially correct?

Positively reinforce the correct portion, then redirect the question back to the student or ask another student to complete the answer

An instructor can respond to students’ questions that may be complex, illogical, or off topic by:

deferring the questions that are beyond the scope of the lesson

During which phase of the development of psychomotor skills does the instructor provide a great deal of influence while demonstrating as much patience as possible to encourage the student?

During which phase of the development of psychomotor skills does the instructor serve more as an evaluator and a coach than a teacher?

Associative

During which phase of the development of psychomotor skills does the instructor become the coach and is there to help students refine their efforts?

A case study involves analyzing and examining facts through:

discussion and problem-solving exercises

Which type of structured exercise involves students acting out the role of a character in a scenario to prepare for situations they may encounter while fulfilling their duties?

A simulation may include elements of:

computer-based training

Which type of structured exercise provides students with experiences to inspect, use, test, and evaluate equipment or processes?

Field and laboratory experiences

Which type of learning involves instructors teaching specific criteria that students must meet during testing?

Learning objectives are written to establish the _____ for competency by identifying and clearly describing the learning outcome (behavior).

What would be an advantage of the competency approach to teaching?

Students are prepared to advance to more complex knowledge or skills

Which teaching strategy splits some of the responsibilities among more than one instructor?

Multiple instructors

Which teaching strategy helps make abstract concepts more relatable to students?

Explain and illustrate with examples, stories, analogies, and metaphors

Which teaching strategy do instructors use to help students to recognize the importance of key points through emphasis and repetition?

Reinforcing learning

Which teaching strategy combines traditional (face-to-face) and online teaching methods?

Blended or hybrid

Which teaching strategy leads to an increased depth of knowledge and understanding of the material versus the traditional method?

Student-centered learning

Which teaching strategy has students read and study the material at home prior to coming to class?

Flipping the classroom

Computer based training (CBT) may be used in a more structured format to provide:

distance learning

Which teaching strategy holds students solely responsible for achieving course objectives determined by the instructor or chosen by the student?

Self-directed learning

Which teaching strategy has instructors pull from a variety of resources to better meet the learning needs of each student?

Individualized instruction

Instructor 1 (10 decks)

• Chapter 1: The Instructor as a Professional
• Chapter 2: Principles of Learning
• Chapter 3: Instructional Planning
• Chapter 4: Instructional Materials and Equipment
• Chapter 5: Learning Environment
• Chapter 6: Classroom Instruction
• Chapter 7: Student Interaction
• Chapter 8: Skills-Based Training Beyond the Classroom
• Chapter 9: Testing and Evaluation
• Chapter 10: Records, Reports, and Scheduling
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When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a ... alowishus wrote... Textbook  --> Replies Answer verified by a nargas wrote... or in seconds to unlock everything for free Related Topics Solved A classmate is working on her presentation on the endocrine system for class. You overhear her as sh Solved Three-year-old Stephanie decided that girls should only wear dresses and refuses to wear pants. ... Solved Develop an outline for a presentation on dreams that you might give to a high school class. Solved Garret told his classmate Keith that if he didn't write his term paper for him, then Garret was ... If you decided to give lipids, how much would you give and what flow rate would you use? Solved What is the recommended way to dress when you have to give a presentation? 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Get homework help and answers to your toughest questions in biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, accounting, business, humanities, and more. Master your assignments quickly with thousands of step-by-step solutions to countless textbook questions asked and answered by our members. If we don't have your question, don't worry. You can ask any homework question and get expert homework help in as little as two hours. Home Quick Links Social Facebook YouTube Help | | Biology-Forums.com is not affiliated with any publisher. Book covers, title and author names appear for reference only. × Do you know these Musicians from their Movies? Keith Movie Ending Explained “Keith” is a thought-provoking coming-of-age film that leaves viewers with a lot to ponder. The movie follows the story of Natalie, a high school student who forms an unlikely relationship with a mysterious and troubled classmate named Keith. The film takes viewers on a rollercoaster of emotions as they witness the complexities of teenage life and the struggles of growing up. The ending of “Keith” is both poignant and ambiguous, leaving many viewers with questions about the fate of the characters. In this article, we will delve into the ending of “Keith” and explore seven interesting facts about the film. Ending Explained: The ending of “Keith” sees Natalie grappling with the aftermath of Keith’s sudden departure. Despite his troubled past and the doubts surrounding their relationship, Natalie is left with a sense of loss and longing. The final scene shows Natalie sitting alone in her room, reflecting on the impact Keith had on her life. One interpretation of the ending is that Keith’s departure symbolizes the transient nature of teenage relationships. As teenagers, we often form intense connections with others that can feel all-consuming, but ultimately prove to be fleeting. Keith’s abrupt exit serves as a reminder of the impermanence of youth and the inevitability of change. Another interpretation is that Keith’s departure represents a turning point in Natalie’s life. His presence in her life forced her to confront her own insecurities and fears, ultimately leading her to a greater understanding of herself. Keith served as a catalyst for Natalie’s personal growth, and his departure marks the beginning of a new chapter in her life. Seven Interesting Facts: 1. The film “Keith” was released in 2008 and received positive reviews for its authentic portrayal of teenage relationships and emotions. 2. The character of Keith was portrayed by actor Jesse McCartney, who delivered a compelling performance that resonated with audiences. 3. The film’s director, Todd Kessler, drew inspiration from his own experiences as a teenager when crafting the story of “Keith.” 4. The soundtrack of “Keith” features an eclectic mix of songs that enhance the emotional impact of the film. 5. The film’s cinematography captures the raw beauty of adolescence, with sweeping shots of suburban landscapes and intimate close-ups of the characters. 6. “Keith” explores themes of love, loss, and self-discovery, resonating with viewers of all ages. 7. The film’s ambiguous ending sparked debate among viewers, with many speculating about the ultimate fate of the characters. Common Questions and Answers: 1. What is the significance of the title “Keith”? The title “Keith” refers to the enigmatic character who serves as the focal point of the film. Keith’s presence in Natalie’s life triggers a series of events that lead to her personal growth and self-discovery. 2. Why does Keith suddenly leave without saying goodbye? Keith’s departure is shrouded in mystery, leaving viewers to speculate about his motives. Some believe that Keith’s troubled past caught up with him, while others think he simply needed to move on from his brief encounter with Natalie. 3. Will Natalie ever see Keith again? The film leaves Natalie’s future uncertain, leaving viewers to wonder if she will ever cross paths with Keith again. Some believe that their connection was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, while others hold out hope for a reunion. 4. What lessons does Natalie learn from her relationship with Keith? Natalie’s relationship with Keith teaches her valuable lessons about love, loss, and self-acceptance. Through her interactions with Keith, Natalie learns to confront her fears and embrace the unknown. 5. How does the film “Keith” capture the essence of teenage life? “Keith” authentically portrays the complexities of teenage relationships and emotions, capturing the raw beauty of adolescence with honesty and sensitivity. 6. What role does music play in “Keith”? The film’s soundtrack enhances the emotional impact of the story, with songs that evoke a sense of nostalgia and longing. Music serves as a powerful narrative device, underscoring the themes of love and loss. 7. Why does Natalie feel conflicted about her relationship with Keith? Natalie’s conflicted feelings towards Keith stem from his enigmatic nature and troubled past. Despite their deep connection, Natalie struggles to reconcile her feelings for Keith with the uncertainty of their future. 8. How does Keith’s departure impact Natalie’s life? Keith’s departure leaves Natalie with a sense of loss and longing, forcing her to confront her own insecurities and fears. His absence serves as a catalyst for Natalie’s personal growth and self-discovery. 9. What role does Keith play in Natalie’s journey of self-discovery? Keith serves as a mentor and confidant to Natalie, guiding her towards a greater understanding of herself and her place in the world. His enigmatic presence challenges Natalie to confront her fears and embrace the unknown. 10. Why is the ending of “Keith” left ambiguous? The ambiguous ending of “Keith” invites viewers to interpret the fate of the characters for themselves, leaving room for speculation and debate. The open-ended conclusion allows for multiple interpretations and encourages viewers to reflect on the film’s themes. 11. What message does “Keith” convey about the impermanence of youth? “Keith” underscores the fleeting nature of teenage relationships and the impermanence of youth, reminding viewers of the transient nature of adolescence and the inevitability of change. 12. How does the film resonate with audiences of all ages? “Keith” resonates with audiences of all ages by exploring universal themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. The film’s emotional depth and authenticity strike a chord with viewers, regardless of their age or background. 13. What makes the character of Keith so compelling? Keith’s enigmatic nature and troubled past make him a complex and intriguing character, drawing viewers into his world and sparking curiosity about his motives. His presence in Natalie’s life leaves a lasting impact on both her and the audience. 14. What makes the ending of “Keith” so memorable? The ending of “Keith” lingers in the minds of viewers long after the credits roll, leaving them with a sense of longing and reflection. The ambiguous conclusion invites viewers to ponder the ultimate fate of the characters and the lessons learned from their brief encounter. Final Thoughts: In conclusion, “Keith” is a film that explores the complexities of teenage relationships and the struggles of growing up with honesty and sensitivity. The ending of the film leaves viewers with a sense of longing and reflection, prompting them to ponder the impermanence of youth and the transformative power of love. As we watch Natalie grapple with the aftermath of Keith’s departure, we are reminded of the fleeting nature of adolescence and the importance of embracing change. As one professional in the field of film criticism notes, “The ending of ‘Keith’ is a poignant reminder of the transient nature of teenage relationships, leaving viewers with a sense of longing and reflection.” Another professional adds, “The film’s ambiguous conclusion invites viewers to interpret the fate of the characters for themselves, sparking debate and speculation.” A third professional remarks, “The character of Keith is a complex and intriguing figure, drawing viewers into his world and prompting curiosity about his enigmatic nature.” And finally, a fourth professional observes, “The soundtrack of ‘Keith’ enhances the emotional impact of the story, underscoring the themes of love, loss, and self-discovery.” “Keith” is a film that resonates with audiences of all ages, inviting them to reflect on the complexities of youth and the transformative power of love. The ending leaves room for interpretation, sparking debate and speculation among viewers. As we journey with Natalie through the highs and lows of teenage life, we are reminded of the impermanence of youth and the enduring impact of fleeting connections. Related Posts Better call saul ending explained, puss in boots ending explained, ending of the midnight club explained, the last thing he told me ending explained, the push book ending explained, la otra mirada season 2 ending explained, now you see me ending explained, the blame game book ending explained, presumed innocent ending explained, 2001 space odyssey ending explained, the son movie ending explained, creed 2 ending explained, ending of shining explained, midnight suns ending explained, american graffiti ending explained, my fair lady ending explained, ending of ghost ship explained, last three days ending explained, mad honey ending explained, secrets in the mansion ending explained. Teaching Presentations Consider these points first…. Alyson, image found by doing OER commons search:  https://www.google.com/search?q=teaching+opportunity+quotes&biw=1455&bih=665&tbs=sur:fm&tbm=isch&imgil=QSAYBlsS_dj-7M%253A%253B7UFIBIxup06PZM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.justintarte.com%25252F2013%25252F09%25252Fdont-miss-your-opportunity.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=QSAYBlsS_dj-7M%253A%252C7UFIBIxup06PZM%252C_&usg=__FOLdaDhy12z9_nZwp-T7pdlZ0x0%3D&ved=0ahUKEwj6us_kiKbOAhUKwmMKHbdFA9cQyjcIPg&ei=y1GiV7qpEIqEjwO3i424DQ#imgrc=QSAYBlsS_dj-7M%3A Public speaking—giving an oral presentation before a class or another group of people—is a special form of interaction common in education. You will likely be asked to give a presentation in one of your classes at some point, and your future career may also involve public speaking. It’s important to develop skills for this form of communication. Public speaking is like participating in class—sharing your thoughts, ideas, and questions with others in the group. In other ways, however, public speaking is very different. You stand in front of the class to speak, rather than from your usual seat—and for most students, that changes the psychology of the situation. You also have time outside of class to prepare your presentation, allowing you to plan it carefully—and, for many, giving more time to worry about it and experience even more anxiety! Overcoming Anxiety Although a few people seem to be natural public speakers, most of us feel some stage fright or anxiety about having to speak to a group, at least at first. This is completely normal. We feel like everyone is staring at us and seeing our every flaw, and we’re sure we’ll forget what we want to say or mess up. Take comfort from knowing that almost everyone else is dreading giving class presentations the same as you are! But you can learn to overcome your anxiety and prepare in a way that not only safely gets you through the experience but also leads to success in your presentation. The following are proven strategies for overcoming anxiety when speaking in public: Understand anxiety. Since stage fright is normal, don’t try to deny that you’re feeling anxious. A little anxiety can help motivate you to prepare and do your best. Accept this aspect of the process and work to overcome it. Anxiety is usually worst just before you begin and but eases up once you’ve begun. Understand that your audience actually wants you to succeed. They’re not looking for faults or hoping you’ll fail. Other students and your instructors are on your side, not your enemy. They likely won’t even see your anxiety. Reduce anxiety by preparing and practicing. The next section discusses the preparation process in more detail. The more fully you prepare and the more often you have practice, the more your anxiety will go away. Focus on what you’re saying, not how you’re saying it. Keep in mind that you have ideas to share, and this is what your classmates and instructors are interested in. Don’t obsess about speaking, but focus on the content of your presentation. Think, for example, of how easily you share your ideas with a friend or family member, as you naturally speak your mind. The same can work with public speaking if you focus on the ideas themselves. Develop self-confidence. As you prepare, you will make notes you can refer to during the presentation. You’re not going to forget what you want to say. The more you practice, the more confident you’ll become. Guidelines for Presentations Preparing and delivering a presentation in class (or in business or other settings) is a process very similar to the learning process discussed in Chapter 4 “Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering”, Chapter 5 “Reading to Learn”, and Chapter 6 “Preparing for and Taking Tests” and the writing process discussed in Chapter 8 “Writing for Classes”. The process breaks down into these six basic steps: Analyze your audience and goals Plan, research, and organize your content Draft and revise the presentation Prepare speaking notes Practice the presentation Deliver the presentation STEP 1: Analyze Your Audience and Goals Who will see and hear your presentation—and why? Obviously, other students and the instructor. But you still need to think about what they already know, and don’t know, about your topic. If your topic relates to subject matter in class lectures and readings, consider what background information they already have and be careful not to give a boring recap of things they already know. It may be important, however, to show how your specific topic fits in with subjects that have been discussed already in class, especially in the beginning of your presentation, but be sure to focus on your new topic. New terms and concepts may become familiar to you while doing your research and preparation, but remember to define and explain them to other students. Consider how much explanation or examples will be needed for your audience to grasp your points. If your topic involves anything controversial or may provoke emotion, consider your audience’s attitudes and choose your words carefully. Thinking about your audience will help you find ways to get their attention and keep them interested. Be sure you are clear about the goals for the presentation. Are you primarily presenting new information or arguing for a position? Are you giving an overview or a detailed report? Review the assignment and talk with the instructor if you’re unsure. Your goals guide everything in the presentation: what you say, how much you say, what order you say it in, what visual aids you use, whether you use humor or personal examples, and so forth. STEP 2: Plan, Research, and Organize Your Content Organizing a presentation is similar to organizing topics in a class paper and uses the same principles. Introduce your topic and state your main idea (thesis), go into more detail about specific ideas, and conclude your presentation. Look for a logical order for the specifics in the middle. Some topics work best in chronological (time) order or with a compare-and-contrast organization. If your goal is to persuade the audience, build up to the strongest reason. Put similar ideas together and add transitions between different ideas. While researching your topic and outlining your main points, think about visual aids that may help the presentation. Also start thinking about how much time you have for the presentation, but don’t limit yourself yet in the outline stage. STEP 3: Draft and Revise the Presentation Unless required by the assignment, you don’t need to actually write out the presentation in full sentences and paragraphs. How much you write depends on your own learning and speaking style. Some students speak well from brief phrases written in an outline, while other students find it easier to write sentences out completely. There’s nothing wrong with writing the presentation out fully like a script if that helps you be sure you will say what you intend to—just so you don’t actually get up and read from the script. You can’t know for sure how long a presentation will last until you rehearse it later, but you can estimate the time while drafting it. On the average, it takes two to three minutes to speak what can be written on a standard double-spaced page—but with visual aids, pauses, and audience interaction, it may take longer. While this is only a rough guide, you can start out thinking of a ten-minute presentation as the equivalent of a three to four-page paper. Never wait until the last minute to draft your presentation. Arrange your time to prepare the first draft and then come back to it a day or two later to ask these questions: Am I going on too long about minor points? Could the audience get bored? Do I have good explanations and reasons for my main points? Do I need more data or better examples? Where would visual aids be most effective? Am I using the best words for this topic and this audience? Should I be more or less informal in the way I talk? Does it all hold together and flow well from one point to the next? Do I need a better introduction or transition when I shift from one idea to another? Visual Aids in Presentations Except for very short informal presentations, most presentations gain from visuals—and visual aids are often expected. If encouraged or allowed to include visuals in your presentation, plan to do so. Consider all possible types: Charts or graphs Photos or other images Video clips Handouts (only when necessary—they can be distracting) Use the available technology, whether it’s an overhead projector, PowerPoint slides, a flip chart, or posters. (Talk to your instructor about resources and software for designing your visuals.) Follow these guidelines: Use a simple, neutral background. A light-colored background with text in a dark color works best for words; a dark background used like matting works best for photos. Minimize the amount of text in visuals—more than eight words per slide is usually too much. Avoid simply presenting word outlines of what you are saying. Make sure text is large enough for the audience to read. Don’t use more than two pictures in a slide, and use two only to make a direct comparison. Montages are hard to focus on and distract the viewer from what you’re saying. Use images only when they support your presentation; don’t use clip art just as decoration. Don’t put a table of numbers in a visual aid. If you need to illustrate numerical data, use a graph. (Microsoft Excel can make them for you easily.) Don’t use sound effects. Use a very brief recording only if directly related to your main points. Don’t use visual special effects such as dissolves, spins, box-outs, or other transitions. They are distracting. Use animation sparingly and only if it helps make a point. Don’t use so many visuals or move through them so quickly that the audience gives all its attention to them rather than to you. Practice your presentation using your visual aids, because they affect your timing. Explain visuals when needed but not when they’re obvious. Keep your eyes on your audience, only briefly glancing at visuals to stay in synch with them. Don’t hand out a printout of your visuals. Your audience should keep their eyes on you instead of fiddling around with paper. STEP 4: Prepare Speaking Notes Speaking notes are a brief outline for your presentation. You might write them on index cards or sheets of paper. Include important facts and data as well as keywords for your main ideas, but don’t write too much. (If you forget things later when you start practicing, you can always add more to your outline then.) Be sure to number your cards or pages to prevent a last-minute mix-up. Think especially about how to open and close your presentation, because these two moments have the most impact of the whole presentation. Use the opening to capture the audience’s attention, but be sure it is appropriate for your audience and the goals. Here are some possibilities for your opening: A striking fact or example (illustrating an issue or a problem) A brief interesting or humorous anecdote (historical, personal, or current event) A question to the audience An interesting quotation Then relate the opening to your topic and your main point and move into the body of the presentation. Your closing mirrors the opening. Transition from your last point to a brief summary that pulls your ideas together. You might end with a challenge to the audience, a strong statement about your topic, or a personal reflection on what you have been saying. Just make sure you have a final sentence planned so that you don’t end up uncomfortably fumbling around at the end (“Well, I guess that ends my presentation”). STEP 5: Practice the Presentation Practice may be the most important step. It is also the best way to get over stage fright and gain confidence. Practice first in an empty room where you imagine people sitting, so that you can move your eyes around the room to this “audience.” The first time through, focus on putting your outlined notes into full sentences in your natural speaking voice. Don’t read your notes aloud. Glance down at your notes only briefly and then look up immediately around the room. Practice two or three times just to find the right words to explain your points and feel more comfortable working with your notes. Time yourself, but don’t obsess over your presentation being the exact length required. If your presentation is much too long, however, adjust it now in your notes so that you don’t start memorizing things that you might accidentally still say later on even though you cut them from your notes. Once you feel good speaking from your notes, practice to add some more polish to your delivery. You might want to record or videotape your presentation or ask a friend or roommate to watch your presentation. Pay attention to these aspects of how you speak: Try to speak in your natural voice, not in a monotone as if you were just reading aloud. If you will be presenting in a large room without a microphone, you will need to speak louder than usual, but still try to use a natural voice. In usual conversation, we speed up and slow down and vary the intensity of our words to show how we feel about what we’re saying. Practice changes in your delivery style to emphasize key points. Don’t keep looking at your notes. It’s fine if you use words that are different from those you wrote down—the more you rehearse without looking at your notes, the more natural sounding you will be. Be sure you can pronounce all new words and technical terms correctly. Practice saying them slowly and clearly to yourself until you can say them naturally. Don’t forget transitions. Listeners need a cue when you’re moving to a new idea. Practice phrases such as “ Another important reason for this is…” or “Now let’s move on to why this is so.…” Watch out for all those little “filler” words people use so often, such as “like,” “you know,” “well,” and “uh.” They’re very distracting to most audiences. Listen to or watch your tape to see if you are using these fillers or ask your friend to point it out. Pay attention to body language when practicing. Stand up straight and tall in every practice session so that you become used to it. Unless you have to stand at a podium to use a fixed microphone in your presentation, practice moving around while you speak; this helps keep the audience watching you. Use hand and arm gestures if they are natural for you, but don’t try to make up gestures for the presentation because they will look phony. Most important, keep your eyes moving over the audience. Practice smiling and pausing at key points. Finally, it’s a good idea to be ready in case of an accident. Most likely your presentation will go smoothly, you’ll stay on track with your notes, and your PowerPoint slides will work fine, but sometimes a mishap happens. Be ready to joke about it, rather than becoming flustered. If the computer fails and you lose your visuals, say something like, “Well, that’s a shame, I had some really great photos to show you!” If you drop your index cards or notes, or accidentally skip ahead in your presentation and then have to backtrack, make a joke: “Sorry about that, I was so excited to get to my next point that I’m afraid I lost control there for a moment!” Let your audience laugh with you—they’ll still be on your side, and you can defuse the incident and move on without becoming more nervous. STEP 6: Deliver the Presentation Be sure to get enough sleep and eat a healthy breakfast. Don’t drink too much caffeine or else you’ll become hyper and nervous. Wear your favorite—and appropriate—clothing and comfortable shoes. Remember, your audience is on your side! If you’re still nervous before your turn, take a few deep breaths. Rehearse your opening lines in your mind. Smile as you move to the front of the room, looking at your audience. You’ll see some friendly faces smiling back encouragingly. As you start the presentation, move your eyes among those giving you a warm reception—and if you see some student looking bored or doing something else, just ignore them. But don’t focus on any one person in the audience for too long, which could make them nervous or cause them to look away. Don’t keep looking at your watch or a clock: If your rehearsal times were close to your assigned time, your presentation will be also. If you do notice that you’re running behind schedule, it may be that you’re saying too much out of nervousness. Use your notes to get back on track and keep the pace moving. But it’s better to deliver your presentation naturally and fluidly and be a bit long or short than to try to change your words and end up sounding unnatural. At the closing, deliver your last line with confidence, sweeping your eyes over the audience. If appropriate, ask if there are any questions. When you’re done, pause, smile, say “Thank you,” and walk back to your seat. Later on, ask other students and your instructor for comments. Be open minded—don’t just ask for praise. If you hear a suggestion for improvement, file that in your memory for next time. Group Presentations You may be assigned to give a presentation in a small group. The six-step process discussed previously works for group presentations, too, although group dynamics often call for additional planning and shared responsibilities: Schedule a group meeting as soon as possible to get started. Don’t let another student put things off. Explain that you’re too busy and won’t have time at the last minute. Steps 2 and 3 can likely be carried out individually with assigned tasks, but group members should stay in touch. For example, the person developing the visuals should be talking to those doing the researching and drafting to see what visuals are needed and get started finding or creating them. Before preparing notes in step 4, meet again to go over the content and plan for visuals. Everyone should be comfortable with the plan so far. Make final decisions about who will do each section of the presentation. Set the time for each segment. Then speakers should prepare their own speaking notes. Let someone with strong speaking skills open or close the presentation (or both), with others doing the other parts. The whole group should be present for practice sessions in step 5, even if not everyone is speaking. Those not speaking should take notes and give feedback. If one student is doing most of the presenting, an alternate should be chosen in case the first choice is sick on the scheduled day. The alternate also needs to practice. During the delivery, especially if using technology for visual aids, one student should manage the visuals while others do the presenting. If several students present different segments, plan the transition from one to another so that the presentation keeps flowing without pauses. Additonal Resources Using PowerPoint. The following link is an online step-by-step illustrated tutorial for learning how to create effective visual presentations with PowerPoint. To view this tutorial you can click this link. “How to Give a Bad Talk.” The following is a link to a humorous look (with some very good advice) on what not to do when preparing for and giving a class presentation. To view this video you can click this link. Class Presentations on YouTube. For other example videos you can search YouTube with the phrase “class presentation” and look for video examples of actual students giving class presentations. Observing and critiquing the presentations of other students are good ways to get started preparing your own and learning from others. The followig video is a good example of a student group presentation on a topic we can all relate to (how body language works). If the video does not show up below you can view it on YouTube by clicking this link. In this presentation, take note of how students make good eye contact with the audience; the first student’s natural speaking voice and tone, and how she did not have to use her note cards very often (obviously she practiced well); some differences among these students; the use of PowerPoint slides within the presentation (some better than others); the appropriate occasional use of humor; the division of presentation responsibilities within the student group; each presenter’s interaction with the audience. Alyson, information above found in College Success OER:  https://courses.candelalearning.com/collegesuccess2xmaster/chapter/7-4-public-speaking-and-class-presentations/ 406 COMMENTS Psychology 101 The depressed spot in the retina that occupies the centre of the visual field in which images are focused MOST sharply is called the. Fovea. Research into subliminal perception has found. human beings can be affected by subliminal stimuli, but the effect is small. When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel ... Chapter 4 Quiz Flashcards A. Transduction B. Sensation C. Perception D. Sensory Adaptation, When Keith had to give a presentation in front of the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake mustache to make Keith laugh. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected, despite looking at Daniel several times. Solved When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire Question: When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Keith laugh. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected, despite looking at Daniel several times. Chapter 4 Flashcards 131-132 Objective: Module 4.1 3) When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Keith laugh. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected, despite looking at Daniel several times. Afterward, Keith said that he was so focused on the presentation that he didn't even ... Chapter 04 Chapter Quiz Questions-TIF When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Keith laugh. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected, despite looking at Daniel several times. Solved When Keith had to give a presentation to his class ... Question: When Keith had to give a presentation to his class, his classmate and friend Daniel decided to play a trick on Keith by wearing a big fake moustache to try to make him laugh during the presentation. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected despite looking at Daniel directly several ... 7.4 Public Speaking and Class Presentations Public speaking—giving an oral presentation before a class or another group of people—is a special form of interaction common in education. You will likely be asked to give a presentation in one of your classes at some point, and your future career may also involve public speaking. It's important to develop skills for this form of ... When Keith Had to Give a Presentation to the Entire When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class,his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Keith laugh.To Daniel's disappointment,when Keith gave his presentation,he seemed completely unaffected,despite looking at Daniel several times.Afterward,Keith said that he was so focused on the presentation that he didn't even notice the moustache! This scenario is an ... 12 Structure and Format: Outlining the Speech Break the students into groups and give each group either the introduction or a main point. The groups will prepare 1-2 minutes of content for their section and elect a spokesperson to present this to the class. Once the students are prepared, start a timer and do the presentation. How To Prepare For A Presentation In Class The good news is that giving a presentation in class is a skill that anyone can learn, and practice makes perfect. Learning how to prepare for a presentation for class is a key part of a college education, and we're here to make it easier. Here are 10 evidence-based ways to reduce stress and increase success when presenting in front of the class. When Keith had to give a presentation to his class, his classmate and When Keith had to give a presentation to his class, his classmate and friend Daniel decided to play a trick on Keith by wearing a big fake moustache to try to make him laugh during the presentation. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected despite looking at Daniel directly several times. ... Psych 1000 Flashcards When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Keith laugh. To Daniel's disappointment, when Keith gave his presentation, he seemed completely unaffected, despite looking at Daniel several times. Afterward, Keith said that he was so focused on the presentation that he didn't even notice the moustache! Chapter Four A mother takes her four-year-old to the pediatrician reporting she's worried about the girl's hearing. The doctor runs through a battery of tests, checks in the girl's ears to be sure everything looks good, and makes notes in the child's folder. Then, she takes the mother by the arm. They move together to the far end of the room, behind ... Chapter 6: Classroom Instruction Flashcards by A A Study These Flashcards. A. Positively reinforce the correct portion, then redirect the question back to the student or ask another student to complete the answer. 123. 48. Q. An instructor can respond to students' questions that may be complex, illogical, or off topic by: Study These Flashcards. A. (Solved) When Keith had to give a presentation to the entire class, his Our community brings together students, educators, and subject enthusiasts in an online study community. With around-the-clock expert help, you can find the help you need, whenever you need it. psychology chpt. 4 Flashcards Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like The study of how physical events relate to psychological experiences of those events, The minimum stimulation required to detect a stimulus is_____ Where the minimum required to detect the difference between 2 stimuli is a_____, Signal detection theory improves on simple thresholds by including the influence of: and more. What I Learned from the Worst Presentation of My Entire Career That would have made last Sunday an "okay" presentation (and similar to hundreds of other presentations over the last three decades). Not one brain freeze...or even two. I had four. (You can see each painful one in the cringe-worthy video above.) Oh...and that was in the second service. In the first service I had about 10. practice test 3 (pysch exam 1) Flashcards Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Which of the following requires the greatest amount of cognitive processing?, Research into subliminal perception has found that, When Alex had to give a presentation to the entire class, his classmate Daniel decided to wear a large fake moustache to make Alex laugh. To Daniel's disappointment, whenAlex gave his presentation, he ... Keith Movie Ending Explained Ending Explained: The ending of "Keith" sees Natalie grappling with the aftermath of Keith's sudden departure. Despite his troubled past and the doubts surrounding their relationship, Natalie is left with a sense of loss and longing. The final scene shows Natalie sitting alone in her room, reflecting on the impact Keith had on her life. Consider These Points First… Guidelines for Presentations. Preparing and delivering a presentation in class (or in business or other settings) is a process very similar to the learning process discussed in Chapter 4 "Listening, Taking Notes, and Remembering", Chapter 5 "Reading to Learn", and Chapter 6 "Preparing for and Taking Tests" and the writing process discussed in Chapter 8 "Writing for Classes". assignment essay homework paper phd report resume speech thesis