Discussion Question

PART #1

Answer each question below separately

Effective Presentations:Discuss 3-4 key delivery skills, verbal and nonverbal, that you need to improve to increase the effectiveness of your ability to deliver professional presentations.

Evaluating Speakers:Discuss what 3 presentation errors irritate you the worst when you are attending a presentation. Why does each one irritate you? What actions do you take to make sure you do not make the same mistakes?

Reflections:Based on the book readings, reflect on the 3 to 5 most important things you learned in this class to help you become a better presenter. Also discuss how you can use the knowledge and skills in the future.

Public Speaking:Since the course began, what changes will you make to increase the appropriateness and effectiveness of your presentation skills. Provide examples.

PART #2

Reply to six students

1. I have notice that I use a lot of hand gestures when I do my recorded presentations. To be honest, I
could also work on my preparation. Lastly, I could work on expanding my vocabulary. Overuse of
hand gestures. Gesturing while speaking is a natural way people enhance their message. Although
some people are naturally ‘hand-talkers,’ an overuse of hand gestures conveys nervousness and can
be off-putting to many people. Listeners begin to focus on the land gestures and miss the words
and delivery. After all, can you really take an over-dramatic hand gesturer seriously? I also want
to practice my presentation as many times as I need to to feel comfortable delivering it with ease
and confidence within the time allotted for the presentation. I do not practice many times and end
up having to start and restart my recording. People often judge others by their outward appearances.
In the same way, people also judge you by how you speak and express yourself. This is why it is
so important to expand your vocabulary. Whether it is writing or speaking, the different ways you
can say the same things can depend on how many words you know. Often times, you may be
searching for a word to help you explain exactly how you are feeling. However, the words you
know or don’t, can greatly impact how you say it. One of the great things about learning new words
is that it helps you communicate and present better.
2. When it comes to key delivery skills, we learned from the chapters from this week that one thing
you can do that is nonverbal is researching your topic thoroughly. This will allow you to be better
prepared to deliver the information to your audience in a way that is organized and makes sense for
everyone. In turn by doing this, you would be able to speak with confidence because you understand
the material more and would be able to address any questions your audience may have. I didn’t
really think about it before, but like the reading mentioned; the audience will assume you are the
subject matter expert of the information you are presenting and I feel like this is true because of the
time spent in researching and building the materials used to create your specific presentation.
Another delivery skill is creating materials that will help aid your audience in consuming the
material you are presenting. Another thing the reading really make me think about is simplifying
the material. I am so used to just filling my slides with data because before I thought that really
showed how prepared I was. I would always write myself bullet points for each slide because that
helped me keep my train of thought and guided me to speak on the slides and not the other way
around where the slides worked as my guide.
3.
The first skill that I could use to improve the effectiveness of my presentations is a more
consistent usage of white space. By continuing to practice this key element I can not only retain the
interest of my audience for longer, I can also direct them fluidly from topic to topic without losing
them because there are too many other cues and superfluous elements at play.
Another item I can use in order to assist with my skills lies in the selection of graphics and pictures
that I’m using. This ties in with the first one in terms of preserving white space, but on its own it
promotes the use of a careful selection of visuals that will be displayed to audiences. Instead of
throwing five pictures that may have some relation to the topic, it is probably better to have one or
two pieces that hold a more dominant meaning and make a solid contribution to the topic at hand.
The third skill that I believe I need to work on is maintaining a particular pace during presentations.
Although this is something that we subconsciously do, by analyzing how much content I need to
convey, how much the audience is able to absorb, and other factors, I can increase the effectiveness
by leaps and bounds if I move at an appropriate speed. Yes, it’s great that a presenter can speak at
a fast rate, however they’re only wasting their own time, and the audiences, if they fail to keep at a
reasonable pace.
4. The most common mistake I see in professional presentations is an absence of images, interesting
graphics, or demonstrations. As a result, it is hard for people to find company presentations
engaging or retain any information. While less is more, including pictures and visually appealingnot overwhelming- graphics are essential for making a memorable slideshow. Another common
mistake that I see is when presenters read off the slides. A lot of professional presentations are text
heavy for the sole purpose of the presenter reading off the slide and elaborating further. I think
these sorts of presentations tend to drone and are irritating because they feel like a waste of time.
If a presenter was only going to read off the slide, it would have saved everyone time if they just
distributed the slideshow and prompted their recipients to email them any questions they had or if
there was something they wanted more elaboration on. Finally, I find it frustrating when a presenter
is mumbling through the presentation. It is frustrating when you cannot hear or understand the
presenter and have to ask to go back over the information they already covered. Again, I feel as
though this habit wastes the audience’s time as well as the presenters. In order to avoid making the
same mistakes, I like to make my presentations brief and visually appealing so that I have an
engaging basis for my presentation. I also like to run through my presentations and practice what I
would like to convey a few times so that I sound natural and can recite the points I want to make
clearly.
5. The first presentation error I would say that irritates me the most is someone who reads each slide
word for word. In my opinion it feels like the presenter does not know the material at all. At my
work it’s pretty common when you have to give a presentation and provided a PowerPoint that is
not yours, but what I normally do to avoid this is by going through the presentation myself then
talking about each slide in my own words. One of the things we learned that I didn’t really think
about it is hard for people to listen and read at the same time. But I also don’t want to wait forever
for everyone to read everything in their head. The second thing I don’t like that you can some times
see presenters do is keeping eye contact for too long. It can get creepy when they just look at you
the whole time and pretend there is no one else in the room. I always try to just scan the room from
left to right. The third and final thing that I don’t like to see presenters do is jump around in the
content as if they just don’t have a general direction. It really makes it hard to find what is important
in the presentation. I think if you basically just practice your delivery you can avoid this.
6. One of the things that irritate me the most when I am attending a presentation is when it does not
start on time. It frustrates me because I am giving them my time and I would expect the
presenters to respect my time. To avoid this, I will ensure to always be ready to go before the
scheduled presentation even begins to make sure it starts on time.
Another thing that irritates me is when a presenter refuses to move on with it until they receive an
answer back from the crowd when asking a question. I understand this is meant to encourage
engagement from the crowd and make sure they are listening, but it can be annoying when it
stalls out a presentation. To avoid this, I will make sure to not include something in a presentation
that requires an audience member to respond in order to progress it.
Similarly to starting on time, it also irritates me when a presentation goes too long. Presentations
often can be planned out to ensure they fit within a time limit, so it is frustrating to see that they
did not accommodate enough to ensure it ends on time. In order to prevent this from happening to
me, I will rehearse my presentation with a timer to ensure I am not spending too much time on
any slides to ensure the presentation fits within the estimated time limit.