Oral Presentations AND Criteria to Evaluate Oral Presentations

Diaz, Ph.D.Philosophy Kean University ORAL PRESENTATIONS Using sheets titled Criteria to Evaluate Oral Presentations, I sit in the back of the room as you present your Group Papers or yo

Jesus A Diaz, Ph.D.

Philosophy Kean University

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Using sheets titled Criteria to Evaluate Oral Presentations, I sit in

the back of the room as you present your Group Papers or your Individual Papers to the class As you speak, I write my impressions on the sheets

Following this handout you will find several Criteria to Evaluate Oral Presentations sheets Some are blank, in case I need them; I used others to

grade presentations from students who took this class before you Reading both sets will alert you to my expectations

Avoid common mistakes:

(1) DO NOT JUST START YOUR PRESENTATION: Open with an

introduction

(2) POOR EYE CONTACT OR LOW VOICE VOLUME: You will not

grab your audience's attention this way Some of your peers will go to

sleep, others start talking among themselves, play with the PCs or open a book Your confidence suffers when you realize they are not paying

attention A voice appropriate to the room captures their attention

immediately

You lower your voice if you are in a restaurant Public speaking

demands a much louder volume than a one-to-one conversation

THE REST APPLIES TO POWER POINT

(3) DELAYED STARTS DUE TO TECHNICAL PROBLEMS RUNNING POWER POINT: Lap tops that do not hook up to the PC in the class room, media (CDs, flash drives, floppies, etc.) that fail My

suggestions:

( i) When you have a few slides ready, test them in the class room PC You can do this before I arrive or after class The Lab Assistant can help

(ii) Do not bring just one CD, one floppy or whatever media you use Bring more than one copy of the whole presentation in different media E-mailing slides to yourself will allow you to download them if all physically

transportable media fail Because downloading takes too n1uch class time, I will allow it only if physical media fails

(4) POWER POINT COLOR CONTRAST: Reading your slides will not

be easy if the background color and the color of the letters are similar

Several days before your presentation, check contrast in the class room PC projecting your image on the screen The color settings in your PC may not

be the same as in the classroom PC

(5) DO NOT OVERLOAD THE SLIDES WITH MORE TEXT THAN ANYONE CAN READ DURING A PRESENTATION: Oral

communications professionals avoid inserting text in Power Point slides If they do, the text is brief and necessary For example, do not have a slide like this:

"The Cuban Revolution has x stages In the first, Castro gains and consolidates power During this phase, he "

That slide should be:

Go to page 3

VICTORY AND CONSOLIDATION

TOWARD A TOTALITARIAN STATE

and so on YOU provide the details in YOUR words The audience cannot read a long text while listening to you Besides, YOU are the presenter, not the slides

Cutting and pasting text from their papers to Power Point is the most horrible thing students do.

(6) CONNECTION BETWEEN IMAGES AND WHAT YOU ARE

SAYING: The relation between the point you are making and the image

projected on the screen should be substantial The image should make it

easier for the audience to understand you Show a graph if you are explaining statistics If you are talking about Shiva, a Hindu god, show art depicting the deity If talking about child marriage, show photos from child marriage

ceremonies One group on Widow Burning began its presentation with a clip from a movie showing a widow jumping into her late husband's cremation fire

Go to page 4

(7) WHERE TO GET IMAGES: Most Internet search engines (Googgle,

Yahoo, Altavista, Metacrawler and others) are data banks of image files Click at <Images> in the search engine's home page and type the key word

or words appropriate to your search Also at any search engine hon1epage type "PHOTO DATA BANK." The screen will display several options

The Bettmann Archive and Getty Images, the sources professionals use,

contain the most extensive collection of images, but many are copyrighted

From whatever source, you can download image files by right clicking

at the image and following the prompts Test if Power Point opens the image files you download Some images might require photo editing software

(8) AUDIO: Talk with the Lab Assistant if you want audio during your

pres en tati on.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

(1) Admit your ignorance if someone asks a question you cannot

answer I know you are not experts in the subjects of your presentations

(2) The Two Films and Your Assignment explains the relation between

the Group Essay and the Group Oral Presentation

, '.

Jesus A Diaz, Ph.D, Philosophy

ORAL PRESENTATIONS

Individual (Final Paper)

I_I

TOPIC:

NAME ' OF PRESENTER(S):

GROUP

'.

INDIVIDUAL

1) FACTUAL' ACCURRACY: Are the facts presented true? Does the literature cited suppport them?

3) ~ LOGICAL ORDER' OF, PRESENTATION: Did the, points follow in a

meaningful way? If more than one member of the group presented, did

they decide ahead of time who would present what or did they show

4) ~~ Too fast, too slow, just about right.

, 5) VOLUME OF VOICE: Too loud, too low, fluctuating aimlessly

I I,

6) U~' OF POWERPOINT: Did presenter(s) use PowerPoint to enhance presentation or to let the slides speak for he/she/them? WaslWere presenter(s) just reading slides? Were images appropriate to topic?

7) EYE CONTACT: Did presenter(s)face audience and looked at their

eyes (except when necessary to deal with a PC problem, change slides or other contingencies)?

,,'

8) ATTITUDE

dismissive,

TOWARD AUDIENCE QUESTIONS: Hostile, arrogant,

9) USE OF ALLOTED TIME: Did presenter(s) run out of time, finish too soon?

GRADES

The criteria in this sheet apply to Group Presentations

-Cultural Events (these involve the films) and to Individual Presentations (these involve your Final Papers).

If presenting for Group Presentation - Cultural Events, calculate your grade as follows:

I

GROUP PAPER

50%

+ GROUP PRESENTATION

50%

GRADE IN ASSIGNMEMT

100%

If presenting for your final paper, I calculate your grade as follows:

FINAL PAPER

50%

+ ORAL PRESENTATION

50%

= GRADE IN ASSIGNMENT

100%

POINTS YOU EARNED IN THE ASSIGNMENT IDENTIFIED IN FRONT OF THIS SHEET: