Chapter 17 Summary
Engaging in Oral Communication
Objectives and Outcomes:
Communicate ideas and plans effectively in front of an audience
Decide and select what information needs to go into your presentation
Involve your audience either by asking questions or using notes to keep track of whats going on
Use visual aids that are appropriate for your topic
Create a professional image based on appearance and demeanor; speak loudly enough so the whole audience can hear and understand
Be a good, active listener
Types of Presentations
There are three basic types of presentations, Informal, Formal, and Class presentations.
Informal presentations are usually at work and the audience is either your professional peers or your immediate subordinates or supervisors. Topics of informal presentations usually involve work related issues. For example the book gives the example of the progress you've made designing a curcuit board for a customer. Not much background info is needed because audience is farmiliar with topic and speaker.
Formal presentations take more preparation because the audience is not farmiliar with the speaker and topic so background on yourself and topic is probably needed. A formal presentation could be a couple of experts explaining to possibe customers of a company the benefits of their new product.
Class presentations give students an opportunity to expand their public speaking skills. The other class members can be asked to act as a particular audience so the speaker can get the feel of the real thing.
Audiences
Four Types
Professional peers: Understand field jargon and background information. Presentation should be organized and well detailed. Typically ask more difficult questions at the end.
Nonexpert Professionals: Do not usually understand jargon. Want technical info but not so many technical little details. Listen to recommendations and conclusion.
International Audiences: Appreciate your awareness and respect for their culture. May not understand visual aids and hand signals the way that you intend. Simple and well defined sequence will help tremendously.
General Audiences: Multiple agendas but come together for a common purpose. Like to see clear statement of purpose, defined terms, useful analogies, interesting examples, effective visuals, and clear transitions. Like to be involved.
Involve Listeners
The audience at a presentation might lose interest if not being involved in some way. Ways to involve audience include creating an audience centered atmosphere, encourage active audience involvment, make what you say easy to listen to and remember, and change the pace and structure of your presentation.
Types of Visuals
Chalkboards or white board
Flip Charts
Posters, charts, tables, diagrams, maps, or photos
Slides
Powerpoint
Transparencies
Movies
Physical Models
Demonstrations
Professional Appearance
Things to remember for professional appearance include:
Wear appropriate clothing
Handle notes comfortably
Make eye contact with audience
Handle mistakes smoothly
Relax your hands
Relax your feet
Move naturally
Use the podium comfortably (if available)
20 comments:
The information in this chapter is similar to what is often covered in a speech class, but still very important. It is important to be comfortable and relaxed for a presentation. This can be achieved by being prepared and confident in the information you are presenting. Knowing what kind of audience you will be presenting to will help you prepare for how technical (for educated audiences of the subject matter) or untechnical (for uneducated audiences) the presenation should be. Using visuals helps keep the audience engaged as well as having the audience be active in the presentation.
This chapter seems like it would be a simple topic, but a lot of people actually hate doing speeches. I know i've heard somewhere that it is americas number one fear. I think the last section should have been emphasized a lot more. Appearance plays a big part in how seriously people will take you. If you don't dress the part, people won't think that you are taking your speech seriously, so they won't either. Good stuff.
I think this information is pretty basic for giving speeches. I have had speech class before and we went over this type of information in there. I think that knowing what type of audience you will have can make your speech go a lot smoother because then you will know how to present yourself and what type of words to use so that the audience can understand you.
This chapter is a lot like what we have done for the TPR assignment in class. There are many ways to prepare and put together an oral presentation and this chaper hit all of those types. It did seem a little repetative at times but I think that was mainly do to the fact that we had gone over a lot of this chapter in class discussions. Also just like I've said before on blog comments this chapter made a point to show that you need to take your audience into consideration when formulating and giving you speech. If you talk with too much jargon then the speech really won't do much good.
This chapter is important to the quality of a presentation. The more prepared and comfortable an individual is the better the presentation will be. This was something taught in Speech class as well as practiced in may of my college classes,including this class. The point of knowing your audience can not be stressed enough, no one wants to sit through a presentation they can not understand. Good visual aids also help to make the presentation much easier.Presenting a project before you do it for your class has been something I have found useful, in font of people you trust to give you constructive criticism makes a difference.
I thought the part of the chapter about appearance and what is appropriate to wear was the most interesting or helpful part of the chapter. A person could overdress or under dress and knowing which is the norm for the occasion is sometimes difficult to know. Appearance can say a lot about a person and what they stand for and appearance can also send false messages.
The chapter gave a lot of details relating to giving speeches, similar to what my speech classes have covered. I think the last to sections are particularly important. Without visuals it may be hard for the audience to fully comprehend or pay attention to the speaker. Looking professional for your audience is number one. If a speaker is fidgeting then the audience is going to concentrate more on what the speaker is doing than what they are saying.
This information seems to be covered in every speech class that i have taken and seems to be common sense yet many people, including myself, do not fallow all the guidelines. I myself personally hate giving speeches. I get nervous even though i'm fully prepared which causes me to forget a lot of the information that i already know. The best method seems to be to practice often and be fully prepared.
This chapter would have been an excellent chapter to read before doing our technical publication reports. Except for a 100-level speaking class I took my sophomore year here, I have not had much experience giving public speeches. It would have been nice to familiarize myself with some basics from this chapter before jumping into this project. Two subjects come to mind when I think back on this chapter: identifying the audience and visuals. Both are important when preparing you presentation. For my TPR report I had to identify my audience as people who were not familiar with biology, and I had to create visuals that would make the audience understand better.
Oral communication is a interesting chapter to talk about. Well, oral communication is pretty much talking to other people that is not done in paper or writing. It reminded me about oral history and i think this chapter is another part of technical communication that is very important and need to be taken seriuosly by tech-comm majors. I considered oral communication as another aspect of speech commnunication because it is basically talking and not writing.
This is very useful information that can be used by anybody. Some time in every body’s life they will have to give a speech in some matter; either work related, a friend’s wedding or maybe even speaking at a funeral. So learning all of these tricks to make you feel the most comfortable and to make your speech be most successful. I have also learned this information in my speech classes but the information never changes to help you become the most successful.
Presenting is never an easy task. A presenter should be calm, cool, and confident. If a presenter can master these, they will be able to give a presentation that is informative and impacting. The presenter should be able to give the presentation with our without there visuals. Knowing your information is key. Just reading the power point slides will not give your audience the information they need and will not leave a lasting impression on them. Apperance is very important in presenting. Looking professional always helps, but sometimes taking the enviroment and audience into account a more casual dress may be used.
I have always found that 'It's not what you say, it's how you say it' to be a true saying. Actions speak louder than words and what you wear and how you act when giving your presentation will determine how the audience takes the information. If you look and act professional, they will more likely listen closely to what you say and give it more value. If you are dressed like a bum, and aren't clear in your non-verbals, the audience is more likely to be uninterested and won't give much value to your information. Being a Taekwondo instructor, I'm in front of classes quite a bit and those kids and adults are paying more attention to what I'm doing and how I'm acting than the words that I am saying. This can help bridge the language barrier quite a bit if your non-verbals are done well.
Speeches are a surprisingly common part of our lives (especially in our professions). We are constantly giving a form of a speech every time we communicate with others. This communication may not seem like much of a speech because it doesn't resemble what we call a speech. A lot of people have stage fright and are afraid of talking in front of a large audience, but most of us will need to at some point in our career. Knowing these guidelines and following them can help one be a better presenter and with practice, one can feel comfortable amongst almost any audience. I agree with Jed on the fact that it's not what you say, it's how you say it. If we are comfortable and know how to act and what to say, we can be confident with what we are saying--leading to a great speech.
Most of the oral presentations I have had give were to kids. As a member of a Cub Scout camp staff I was required to teach the boys a specific skill-set based on their age. I think these presentations would fall under the formal presentation type, because the audience is assumed to have no expertise in the area being presented. The audience type would be that of the general audience, but depending on the subject and if it were Boy Scouts instead of Cub Scouts the audience type could change to non-expert professionals. It is very important to involve the kids in the presentation, because it keeps them engaged and helps them to learn the subject better. The visual aides which accompanied these presentations were predominantly demonstrations or posters.
Public speaking is a career builder. To be able to orally portray your thoughts and possibly technical information to your audience is very important in any vocation.
I think providing visuals for a presentation help to elaborate on it and benefit the audience to better understand what the presentation is about. For me, I'm not one to be the best at giving a presentation as you all have seen, but I try. I know i do some of the things you are not to do as explained in the context. These are things like, handling mistakes smoothly, being jittery instead of moving naturally, etc. I give props to people who give a good presentation because for me, I will need some more practice like classroom presentations to get better.
This is basically the same as what we have talked about all semester, but instead of putting your ideas just into writting you need to speak out your ideas to help your audience understand them. All the rules are the same, you need to know your audience, the context of the presentation, and use appropriate formats.
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