Chapter 17 - Engaging in Oral Communication
In this chapter, Burnett discusses different types, purposes, and organizational ideas for oral presentations. According to the text,
a survey taken of 700 managers rated the ability to communicate ideas and plans effectively in front of an audience as the most important career skill. You can improve your oral presentation skills by understanding and knowing the different types as well as knowing how to adapt to your audience.
Types of Presentations
Presentations can be given in many different situations consisting of meetings, seminars, classes, and professional conferences.
- Informal Presentations - Informal simply means that the people know you. There can be two different audiences for an informal presentation. One would be an audience that is already familiar with your work, allowing you to be quite informal. The other is an audience that wants to learn new information on your topic. Just because this presentation is "informal" does not mean that it doesn't require an ample amount of preparation and organization.
- Formal Presentations - The audience for a formal presentation may not be familiar with you or your work so it will take more time and effort to prepare. You need to provide more background information and adjust the material to your audience's needs.
- Class Presentations - These presentations are helpful for getting practice to strengthen oral presentation skills. They also can provide constructive criticism and tell you which areas are your strongest.
Audiences
There are four possible audiences for an oral presentation:
Professional peers
Non-expert professionals
International audiences
General audiences
You may need to make adjustments for these different audiences such as content, vocabulary, and amount of detail.
Engaging the Listeners
Several options exist to assist in informing, entertaining, and motivating those listening to your presentation.
1. Create and audience-centered atmosphere
2. Encourage active involvement
3. Make what you say easy to listen to (and remember)
4. Vary the pacing and structure of your presentation
Organizing your information
There are a lot of different ways you can organize your information. For starters, you will more than likely need to use an outline or note cards.
Another aspect of organization for a presentation is the way in which your material is organized for the audience. This can be done with visuals. There are many different things to consider when using visuals including size and color.
A powerful visual tool for an oral presentation is to use PowerPoint.
Other common visual tools for presentations are handouts and/or poster displays.
Presenting Yourself
It is important to have the appropriate appearance for your presentation depending on the setting in which you are presenting. If you present yourself inaccurately, it could be distracting to your audience.
Some of the most distracting behaviors come from being nervous. These distractions cease when the speaker relaxes in front of the audience.
Vocal Characteristics
Important aspects of your vocal characteristics during an oral presentation are:
Volume - the speaker's voice needs to be a sufficient volume to project through the entire room.
Articulation - articulating each word makes everything clearer and easier to understand.
Pronunciation - Pronounce every part of each word and avoid slurring letters or syllables.
Rate - make sure not too speak too rapidly. Slower delivery allows the audience to collect their thoughts.
Pitch - pitch (your voices highness or lowness), helps you from sounding monotone which can be very boring.
After your presentation is finished it is important to be ready to answer any questions that your audience may have.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
I agree with all these rules of speaking--appearance is important, voice clarity and volume should be paid attention to, etc. However, I wonder about the part about the four "possible audiences". It seems like there are lot more audiences possible in the workplace. Those don't seem like an extremely broad range of the types of people you might encounter when giving presentations. Good job on the summary though, and this is important info for everyone since almost everyone will be giving some kind of presentation in the workplace eventually.
Speeking can be very uncomfortable for some people especially if you are up in front of a crowd alone. I think that appearance is deffinatley important as well as the clarity of your voice and the organization of your information. You also have to take into consideration your audience and I am going to agree with Amy about more of a variety when it comes to audiences in the workplace. If you stop and think about it there are so many different groups of people and I think that the book could have described more than it did. I think that this chapter is very valuable not just for people interested in speech but everyone to increase their self esteem as well as their confidence in front of others.
While considering chapter 17 "Engaging in Oral Communication", it is apparent that there is a considerable amount of information relative to the city counsel proposel we have prepared in this class. According to the text, I would consider this a formal presentation being delivered to a combination of non-professional peers (city counsel) and a general audience (others present at the meeting). The rest of what Burnett says in this chapter applies to our presentation also. Since our presentation is short, it will be important to engage our audience with clarity and crisp-clear voices. Lastly, organization is also imperative. I believe that we have a properly organized format.
For some people speaking infront of an audience can be one of the hardest things they'll ever go through. In this chapter Burnett explains many of the different rules and expectations of speaking infront of an audience. I have been in front of many different audiences and still get nervous, its just the way some people are. However there are many ways to get around that by concidering who your audience is. You have to be sure that your audience can relate to you and if you have a visual make sure it is appropriate and easy for the audience to understand.
Great advice in this chapter. For any one that has never spoken to groups I would highly reccomend it as extremely helpful. I hope Emily reads it before next week...
Oral presentations can always be a difficult task to overcome. I am currently in a speech class and have had to deal with all the information given in this chapter for each speech. In the preparation for any speech, this is a good chapter to read over and reacquaint yourself with what is needed to present.
I have always tried to avoid classes where by I have to do an oral presentation. Over the last couple years, I could no longer avoid presentations because pretty much all my classes involved some kind of presentations at the end of the semester. Most of these classes have involved working collaboratively as a team on a design project. At the end of the semester, all the teams had to present the design work to the rest of the class. Working with other students and getting involved in group discussions has relatively improved my confidence and skills in oral communication. This chapter focuses on key strategies to plan, design and perform oral presentations effectively. Getting involved in discussion and practicing is a good way to gain confidence and improve skills in oral presentations.
One of the biggest fears of the public is speaking in front of people. We would rather die then get up and talk in front of the class. Oral presentations are a very good way to get information across to a lot of people at one time. Teachers are very good oral presenters. It is also a very good written article and well put together.
This chapter is really important chapter is also well summarised. I think the delivery, vocal quality, clarity are important. Also the presentation greatly depends on the type of the audience. I was little uncomfortable but could adjust with my class mates in my class presentation but i would be nervous to present infornt of other memebers or judges. Also, the main important thing is to be familiar with the presentation and engaging the listers. Overall, the chapter gave an important tips on eangaging in oral communication.
I agree with all of the rules about speaking that the book has laid out for us. It is important to keep in mind the main aspects of speech, such as volume, tone, and clarity. I also feel that appearance is important because if you get up and give a speech dressed like a slob people might be likely to be interested and may not take what you are saying very seriously. I feel that if a person who isn’t very comfortable speaking follows these guidelines they could have more confidence in themselves and calm their nerves, allowing them to concentrate on the delivery of their presentation.
Presentations are becoming a must for any person in a management position. Your supper visors expect progress reports and information on what you’re working on or a proposal of what should be happening. Presentations can be very difficult to put together. This summary gives us information on the different types of audiences and tips of how to put together a great presentation and the different types of presentation for those audiences. I know that this information will help me with the presentation I am working on for a group our company is a member of. The presentation will tell about our company, our services we provide, and also train a few people about asphalt maintenance.
i am glad to improve my speaking habit with the help of speech class. I was nervous when i first gave my presentation in front of class but if we practice, we can do well. This chapter give us to manage our quality give oral communication. How we should do and what make it good in front of audience can be pick up from this chapter. Finally, this chapter give important hint.
oral presentations can be very hard for some people. i know before i had my speech class i was always a little nervous to get up and talk infront of a big group. and since a good amount of people are like that, i suggest reading this chapter because it is filled with good information and little tips. i wish i could have read this chapter a long time ago to help me with my speech class. public speaking is something that everyone will probably have to do at some point in your lives, so it is a good thing to feel confident in yourself when that opportunity arises.
I don't really get nervous when speaking in front of a class anymore. Naturally in elementary school and jr high I did. But as I got older I started to realize that no one besides the teacher cares how well you do your presentation. When I give presentations I try to make it fit the criteria given by the teacher but also try to make it not so boring to listen to.
This summary was very well written. i remember in highschool when i was shy and had a hard time standing infront of people i didnt know that well and giving some sort of speech. i have now grown out of that and dont really have problems with presentations. i totally agree about the voice clarity and volume. if peopel cant hear/understand you, they will not be listening intently to you, so they might miss something.
Presentations are given in different situations, like in seminars, classes, and conferences. There are different types of presentation like informal, formal and class presentations where oral communication is a must. There are four possible audiences for an oral presentation: Professional peers, Non-expert professionals, International audiences, and General audiences. One should look for the volume, clear words, pronunciation, rate, and pitch which are the important aspects of vocal characteristics during oral presentations. I liked this topics and reminds me of my presentation in the class.
Post a Comment