It’s finally time for my group presentation this week. I could not help feeling nervous despite preparing because Ryan, Corliss and Ian are much better speakers than I am. Nervousness aside, the lesson begins with a discussion on the objectives of a presentation. I originally thought that all presentations are the same, but the style of presenting differs from one person to another. I turned out to be wrong as the lesson went on about how different type of objectives requires us to present differently. An educational presentation will show more information to the audience because they're too many important information to impart to the audience who knew little to nothing about the topic at all. At the same time, the simple language should be used so that the audience can take in the information easily and can start digesting the information that has been presented to them. As such, the pace of the presentation will vary according to the level of understanding that the audience has which will have to be confirmed from time to time. While this concept is not new to us, it is something that we do not often experience even in university! In my personal opinion, there is a general misguided concept with the style of presentation and the type of presentation as it was with me.
Gould (2017, July). Argument picture.
A persuasive speech is an argumentative presentation. We are really familiar with argumentative essays since our secondary school time and we all know that ultimately, an argument meant that there will be disagreement. The interesting thing I learnt was that we are unable to defend against every criticism. I looked up for an example of how disagreements in a presentation are dealt with because it’s not a common situation that I often encountered. A disagreement arises from offending someone but is almost unavoidable in discussions about provocative views because being able to disagree is a right of free speech. To argue is to communicate with the audience, and the criticism is their view. As such, it is advised to take a step back and paraphrase and relay back the question such that everyone else with a different view can correctly understand the opposing viewpoint. We should never get defensive about a criticism but instead try to focus on the facts that are being presented (Evans, 2015).
Overall, our group presentation seems rather good according to Prof Matt and none of the audience had much to say about it. However, I personally felt that I could have done better if I was able to inject my words with more emotions and say them out loud. It was not a problem while we were practising but I was not able to overcome my nervous energy with my emotions. Ryan, Corliss and Ian presented brilliantly, though Ian almost did not shake off the fervent energy from when he read that poem about anxiety. There was the part about Corliss’ hair and Ian’s hat covering their faces being an issue, so I looked that up. I was surprised to learn that it is also linked to turning the lights off as an article states that turning off lights or potentially blocking the view of our faces will prevent the audience from focusing on us. If they cannot focus on us, they will not be able to connect with us as well and will lead to lesser audience engagement (Rister, 2012). Nevertheless, I am glad to have learnt more about presentations than I ever did before!
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