On this speech critique, the person that I had the pleasure to critique was Javier Garcia with his speech on “What Is Engineering? ” Throughout this speech critique report, I’m going to explain some of the sections that Javier covered very well and some of the sections that he needs improvement in. Also, with an explanation of why I gave him a certain score in a section and advice on how to improve upon it. I’m going to start off with the first section, out of the three, involved with the speech evaluation form.
The first section of the speech evaluation form is the substance and organization. This section is evaluating on how well the speech was organized and if the speech was creditable. Javier did fairly well in this section but, did have some trouble with his transitions and signposts. It was difficult keeping up with his main points because you didn’t really know when did the last main point ended. He used his cites as transitions but that makes it difficult for the listener to follow because he goes from explaining one thing into rapidly explaining another.
Which is why I gave him a three in that sub-section due to his transition problem. Having effective transitions really helps out the listener to follow the speech. As mention in Raleigh and Tuman (2014),” A transition is a sentence that indicates you are moving from one part of your speech to the next” (p. 271). What a transition does for the audience is give them a clear understanding of your speech and makes it easier for them to follow instead of trying to figure out your main pints in a speed which causes them to not listen.
A way of developing a better use of transitions is to go back to your speech outline when completed and reread it to makes sure your introducing your main points each time. What you should be thinking when creating the speech outline is to to make it sound like a run-on sentence and those transitions be punctuations in your speech. Some ways that Javier can use transitions is whenever he’s finished explaining a main point is to let the audience know that he has finished talking about a certain point and give a short introducing of the following point. An example of this could be,” now that I’ve talked about this …
I’m to explain this … ” Simple but effective enough for the audience to really digest the pervious point and prepare for the upcoming point. Overall, Javier did a good job in this section with having good supporting materials, citing his sources appropriately during the speech, and his reasoning behind his claims being valid. Now that i covered the first section, I’m going to talk about the second section. Section two of the speech evaluation form is delivery which is how well you present your speech with a combination of verbal and non-verbal delivery.
In this section, Javier did a good job with covering most of the sub-sections of the delivery section but, did have some troubles with his non-verbal delivery. Didn’t really used any kind of hand gestures throughout his speech and didn’t have any king of movement as well due to using the podium. He used the podium as a security blanket by holding on to it throughout the whole speech causing him to be really stiff during his speech. Which is why I give him a three on that subsection due to the pervious explanation.
Using gestures can grasps the audience attention by almost signaling them to pay attention to you. Explained in Raleigh and Tuman (2014),” Gestures can add flair to your speech delivery” (p. 392). It keeps the audience involve with your speech with constant movement of your hands which keeps the audience alert and focused on you and your speech. A way that Javier can change this for the next speech, is to stay away from the podium, which will encourage him to use gestures, and practice some hand gestures.
A good way to approach this is when practicing your speech, practice standing up without any kind of supporting objects, such as the podium in the last speech, and in front of a mirror, as Mrs. Heasley tell us in class, so you can see if you do any kind of hand gestures and you don’t do so, that is a great reminder because you get instant feedback. Also, you can look up how to videos on how to proprietary use hand gestures in a speeches by either professional speakers or professors that teacher in the respected department.
Javier did perform well in the rest of the sub-categories in the delivery section such as having a appropriate volume rate, having confidence while presenting, and used his language to enhance intersect. As I explained his performance of the second section, Now I’m going to explain his performance in the last section. The last section of the speech evaluation form is other considerations which means a section of the overall background of the speech. The one sub-category of this section that I felt that Javier could’ve executed better was the appearance of being prepare.
I’m not trying to say that he did know the material but when he’s presenting a speech in front of the audience and reading his out-line can really make the audience feel like he wasn’t prepare or intersected in the audience at all. After observing this, I decided to give a three in the sub-category of the section because maintaining eye contact with the audience as much as possible let’s the audience know that you appreciate their attend and therefore, keeps the audience interacting. What I recommend is to next time try to not use the out-line so much and only use it to keep you on track and to read off any direct quotes you may have.
Try to have an ideal or mental picture in your head of how your out-line looks like so you kind of have memorizes your main points and can talk about them without reading your out-line word for word. Overall, Javier did a outstanding job with the rest of the subcategories in this section like meeting all of the requirements of the assignment and adapting the speech to fit the audience. It was a pleasure having the chance to critique Javier on his speech, “What is Engineering? ” Also, having the chance of improving some of the critiques I listed throughout this essay and him becoming a better speaker than he already is.