Were loud and soft variations used appropriately?.Was eye contact effective in connecting the speaker to the whole audience?.Does the speaker have any distracting mannerisms?.Were gestures natural, timely, and complementary?.Did the speaker’s posture display confidence and poise?.Did the speaker make appropriate use of the speaking area?.Would an additional visual aid help to convey the message?.Were they simple and easy to understand?.Did they add energy to the presentation or remove it?.Was the use of visual aids timed well with the speaker’s words?.Were appropriate pauses used before and after the punch lines, phrases, or words?.Was it safe and appropriate given the audience?.Was the message you– and we-focused, or was it I- and me-focused?.Was there audience interaction? Was it effective?.Was the speaker enthusiastic? How can you tell?.Enthusiasm and Connection to the Audience If appropriate, was there a call-to-action?ĭelivery skills are like a gigantic toolbox - the best speakers know precisely when to use every tool and for what purpose.Like the opening, the words, body language, and visuals in the speech conclusion are all critical to speaking success. Did the speaker transition smoothly from one part of the presentation to the next?.Was the speech organized logically? Was it easy to follow?.Were metaphors and symbolism use to improve understanding?.Were examples or statistics provided to support the arguments?.Did all arguments, stories, anecdotes relate back to the primary objective? Did the speech opening clearly establish the intent of the presentation?.Did the speech open with a story? A joke? A startling statistic? A controversial statement? A powerful visual?.Was a hook used effectively to draw the audience into the speech? Or did the speaker open with a dry “ It’s great to be here today.“.What body language was demonstrated by the speaker as they approached the speaking area? Body language at this moment will often indicate their level of confidence.ĭue to the primacy effect, words, body language, and visuals in the speech opening are all critical to speaking success.Did the introduction establish why the audience should listen to this speaker with this topic at this time?.How was the speaker introduced? Was it appropriate?.Were there other speakers before this one? Were their messages similar, opposed, or unrelated?.Focus is important - extraneous information can weaken an otherwise effective argument. The content of the speech should be selected and organized to achieve the primary speech objective. In addition to the live audience, is there an external target audience? (e.g.What are the key demographic features of the audience? Technical? Students? Elderly? Athletes? Business leaders?.Where and when is the speech being delivered?.Similarly, different techniques will be applied when communicating with teenagers as opposed to communicating with corporate leaders.

Why is this person delivering this speech? Are they the right person?Ī speaker will need to use different techniques to connect with an audience of 1500 than they would with an audience of 15.What is the primary message being delivered?.

What is the speaker’s goal? Is it to educate, to motivate, to persuade, or to entertain?.

Knowing the speaker’s objective is critical to analyzing the speech, and should certainly influence how you study it. The Most Important Thing to Analyze: The Speech Objectives These questions also apply when you conduct a self evaluation of your own speeches. Ask these questions whether you attend the presentation, or whether you view a video or read the speech text. The first in the series, this article outlines questions to ask yourself when assessing a presentation.

Modified Sandwich Technique for Evaluations.

It also discusses speech perception from the communication point of view. Thus this paper comments on the weight of Ohala’s arguments and notes whether any theory of the fundamental basis of speech perception can actually be proven or disproven. When dealing with plausibility arguments, one must be careful to ponder the evidence for different positions. The arguments Ohala uses to attack the articulatory theories of speech perception do not really disprove them instead, they simply argue that an acoustically based theory is more plausible. However, like many human perception theories, it is difficult (if not impossible) to verify experimentally.

It is very reasonable that listeners need not refer to articulation during speech perception. In this review of John Ohala’s paper (‘‘Speech perception is hearing sounds, not tongues’’), we are sympathetic to his position that acoustic properties have largely driven the selection of sounds found in speech production.

Ispeech critique