Speech Feedback and Evaluation

It’s finally here: presentation day! Hopefully, you feel confident because you have already prepared extensively; however, you may still be anxious about speaking in front of your peers. That’s okay! Feeling nervous is perfectly normal. In this chapter, we will discuss ways to manage that anxiety and how to adapt when things don’t go according to plan. We will also discuss how you can provide feedback to other presenters and help you reflect on the presentation process as a whole.

During the Presentation

We want to emphasize that it is perfectly normal to feel nervous. It’s a widespread response to public speaking. Fortunately, there are many strategies for dealing with your anxiety.

Managing Anxiety

Studies have been done to assess how nervous or stressed people typically get during presentations by examining physiological responses at three intervals:

• One minute before the presentation
• The first minute of the speech
• The last minute of the speech.

They found that nervousness usually peaked at one of these intervals. Which one do you think it is? They discovered that nervousness usually peaked at the anticipation stage, one minute before the presentation. They also found that nervousness tends to go down as the speech progresses. If you find yourself feeling this way right before your speech, here are some things you can try:

• Practice/rehearse in similar conditions/settings to your speech
• Be organized
• Think positively
• Analyze your audience
• Adapt your language to your speaking style

During the presentation itself, there are four main areas where you can focus attention to manage your anxiety:

1. Observing your body’s reaction
2. Interacting non-verbally with the audience
3. Keeping a sense of humor
4. Using standard stress management techniques

Observing Your Body’s Reaction

Physical movement helps channel some of the excess energy that your body produces in response to anxiety. If possible, move around the front of the room rather than remaining imprisoned behind the lectern or gripping it for dear life (avoid pacing from side to side, however). Move closer to the audience and then stop for a moment. If you are afraid that moving away from the lectern will reveal your shaking hands, hold on to your note card. This will give your hands something to do. Other options include performing vocal warm-ups immediately before your speech, keeping water (preferably in a non-spillable bottle with a spout) nearby to combat dry mouth, and doing a few stretches before taking the stage.

Deep breathing will also help to counteract the effects of excess adrenaline. As we saw in our note card examples, you can place cues or symbols in your notes, such as “slow down” or ☺, that remind you to pause and breathe during points in your speech. It is also a good idea to wait a moment before you get started to set an appropriate pace from the outset. Look at your audience and smile. It is a reflex for some of your audience members to smile back. Those smiles will reassure you that your audience members are friendly.

Interacting Non-verbally with the Audience

During your speech, make a point of establishing direct eye contact with your audience members. By looking at individuals, you establish a series of one-to-one contacts, similar to those in interpersonal communication. An audience becomes much less threatening when you think of them not as an anonymous mass but as a collection of individuals. A gentleman once shared his worst speaking experience: right before starting his speech, he reached the front of the room and forgot everything he was supposed to say. When asked what he saw in the front of the room, he looked quizzically and responded, “I didn’t see anything. All I remember is a mental image of me in the front of the room, blowing it.” The moral of this story is that speaking anxiety becomes more intense if you focus on yourself rather than concentrate on your audience and your material.

Keeping a Sense of Humor

No matter how well we plan, unexpected events still occur. That fact is what makes public speaking so interesting. When the unexpected happens to you, do not let it rattle you. Here’s an example. At the end of a class period, late in the afternoon of a long day, a student raised her hand and asked the professor if he knew he was wearing two different colored shoes, one black and one blue. He looked down and saw she was right; his boots did not match. He laughed at himself, complimented the student on her observational skills, and proceeded with the critical material he had to deliver. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself.

Stress Management Techniques

Even when we use positive thinking and are well-prepared, some of us still feel a great deal of anxiety about public speaking. When that is the case, it can be more helpful to use stress management than to try to make the anxiety go away. Here are two main tools that can help:

• Visualization: imagining the details of what a successful speech would look and sound like from beginning to end; a way of hypnotizing yourself into positive thinking by using your mind’s eye to make success real.
• Systematic desensitization: Gradual exposure to the thing that causes fear—in this case, giving a speech—can ultimately lead to decreased anxiety. The more practice you get speaking in front of people, the less fear and anxiety you’ll have about public speaking. Organizations like Toastmasters, which provide a supportive environment for learning and practicing, are good options for individuals with a phobia of presenting or public speaking.

A Note about Microphones

If you use a microphone during your speech, there are a few potential issues to be aware of. First, do a sound check and know how the microphone works—how to turn it on and off, mute it, and raise or lower it. If possible, position it to the height you need before you go onstage. Make sure the microphone does not block your face. If you are using a clip-on microphone (called a Lavaliere mic), you’ll need to wear something with a lapel or collar that can be clipped to. Ensure your hair and jewelry are out of the way to avoid rustling noises and place the microphone 8 to 10 inches below your chin. Finally, do not get too close to the microphone. Many people stand too close to the mic and end up hunched over it, creating a lousy posture and an uncomfortable position. If you get too close, the mic will pick up your breathing and words, creating screeching feedback that will make your audience jump in their seats. Doing a sound check and getting comfortable with the equipment before you go onstage will prevent most microphone errors.

Coping with Mistakes and Surprises

Even the most prepared speaker will occasionally encounter unexpected challenges. Here are a few strategies for combating the unexpected in your presentations.

Speech Content Issues

What if a note card goes missing, or you unintentionally skip important information at the beginning of your speech? While situations like these might seem like the worst nightmare of a novice public speaker, they can be easily overcome. Pause for a moment to think about what to do. Is it essential to include the missing information, or can it be omitted without hindering the audience’s ability to understand your speech? Does the information fit better now or in a later segment, if it needs to be included? If you can move on without the missing element, that is often the best choice, but pausing for a few seconds to decide will be less distracting to the audience than sputtering through a few “umms” and “uhs.” Situations like these demonstrate why having a glass of water with you is a good idea when you speak. Pausing for a moment to take a sip of water is a natural movement, so the audience may not notice anything is amiss.

Technical Difficulties

Technology has become a valuable aid in public speaking, enabling us to utilize audio or video clips, presentation software, or direct links to websites. It does break down occasionally, though! If web servers go offline, files will not download, or media content may be incompatible with the computer in the presentation room. Always have a backup plan in case of technical difficulties. As you develop your speech and visual aids, think through what you will do if you cannot show a particular graph or if your presentation slides are garbled. Your beautifully prepared chart may be superior to the verbal description you can provide. Still, your ability to provide a succinct verbal description when technology fails will give your audience the information they need and keep your speech moving forward.

External Distractions

Unfortunately, you can’t control audience etiquette during your speech, but you can decide how to react. Inevitably, an audience member will walk in late, a cell phone will ring, or a car alarm will go off outside. If you are interrupted by external events like these, it is often helpful and sometimes necessary to pause and wait so that you can regain the audience’s attention. Whatever the event, maintain your composure. Do not get upset or angry about these glitches. Your audience will be impressed if you remain calm and quickly implement a “Plan B” for moving forward.

Reading Your Audience

Recognizing your audience’s mood by observing their body language can help you adjust your message and see who agrees with you, who doesn’t, and who is still deciding. With this information, you can direct your attention, including eye contact and questions, to the areas of the room where they can have the most impact. As the speaker, you are conscious that you are being observed. But your audience members probably don’t think of themselves as being observed, so their body language will be easy to read.

Handling Q&A

Question-and-answer sessions can be trickier to manage than the presentation itself. You can prepare for and rehearse the presentation, but audience members could ask a question you didn’t consider or know how to answer. There are three critical elements to think about when incorporating Q&A as part of your presentation:

1. Audience Expectations
2. Timing of Q&As
3. Knowing How to Respond

Audience Expectations

At the beginning of your speech, give the audience information about who you are and your expertise on the subject. Once they know what you do (and what you know), it will be easier for the audience to align their questions with your area of expertise, and for you to bow out of answering questions outside your subject area.

Timing of Q&As

Questions are easier to manage when you are expecting them. Unless you are part of a panel, meeting, or teleconference, it is likely easier to inform the audience that you will take questions at the end of your presentation. This way, you can avoid interruptions to your speech that can distract you and cause you to lose time. If audience members interrupt during your talk, you can ask them politely to hold on to their questions until the Q&A session at the end. If you’re in a web conference, consider having the audience “park” their questions in the chat during specific times. Then, you can pause, take a breath, and catch up on questions that have arisen from your audience.

Knowing How to Respond

Never pretend that you know the answer to a question if you don’t. The audience will pick up on it! Instead, calmly apologize and say that the question is outside of the scope of your knowledge, but that you’d be happy to find out after the presentation (or suggest some resources where the person could find out for themselves). If you are uncertain how to answer a question, say, “That’s interesting. Could you elaborate on that?” Such a response will make the audience member feel good because they have asked an interesting question, and it will give you a moment to comprehend what they are asking.

Sometimes, presenters rush to answer a question because they are nervous or want to make a good impression. Pause momentarily before you begin your answer to think about what you want to say. This approach will help you avoid misinterpreting the question or taking offense at a question that is not intended that way. A final tip is to be cautious about how you answer to avoid offending your audience. You are presenting on a topic because you know it, but your audience is not. It is essential not to make the audience feel inferior because there are things they don’t know. Avoid comments such as “Oh, yes, it’s easy to do that…” Instead, say something like, “Yes, that can be tricky. I would recommend…” Also, avoid a bossy tone. For example, phrase your response with “What I find helpful is…” rather than “What you should do is…”

Evaluating a Speech

Feedback is an essential part of the presentation experience. It is often said that we are our own worst critics. Many people are overly critical of themselves and may exaggerate how poorly a speech or presentation went. Other times, there’s not much exaggeration. In both cases, it is helpful to conduct a post-examination of your performance as a presenter.

Self-Reflection

After delivering a speech, conduct a 30-60 second reflection. In many speech classes, you can reflect with your professor and classmates. In the business world, schedule buffer time after a professional presentation to reflect. Reflecting after a stressful experience is one way to build your lifelong learning skills and can help you grow your public speaking skills more quickly. One reflective method to consider is the What? So what? Now what? Framework. The video below will explain this framework:

To provide a slightly more objective approach to analyzing the delivery of your speech or presentation, consider the following questions:

• Did you make the most of your unique voice? Did the audience seem to understand you?
• Did you make the most of using body language? Did your body confidently support what you were saying?
• Did you use a coherent structure? Did the audience seem to make sense of your presentation? Was it logical?
• Did you show enthusiasm? Did you show the audience you cared about your presentation?
• Did you demonstrate expertise? Did you show credibility by citing reliable sources and distinguishing between facts and your opinion?
• Did you show that you practiced and prepared? Did your confidence show because you implemented a plan that included sufficient rehearsal, contingency plans, and other success strategies?

Honestly, asking yourself these questions to uncover your strengths and weaknesses should help you to become a better presenter. While it is essential to consider other types of feedback, such as that from the audience, your peers, or an instructor, it is also beneficial to have a realistic understanding of your performance. This understanding is part of gaining experience and improving as a presenter.

Considering the above video, let’s examine how to provide nonverbal and verbal feedback to a speaker.

Non-Verbal Feedback

Effective listening is more than just using your ears; it involves actively engaging with the speaker. Boothman (2008) recommends listening with your whole body, not just your ears. Consider how confident you would feel speaking to a room full of people with their eyes closed, arms and legs crossed, and bodies bent in slouches. These listeners present non-verbal cues, communicating that they are uninterested and unimpressed. Meanwhile, listeners sitting up straight, facing you with an intent look, are more likely to offer reassurance that the speaker’s words are being understood. Eye contact is another non-verbal cue to the speaker that you are paying attention. You don’t want to be bug-eyed and unblinking; the speaker might assume there is a tiger behind you and begin to panic as you seem to be doing. However, attentive eye contact can indicate you’re listening and help you stay focused. In some cultures, maintaining eye contact may cause discomfort, so be mindful of this. Additionally, you may be someone who listens more effectively with your eyes closed to visualize what is being said. This can be difficult for a speaker to recognize, so if this is you, consider incorporating one of the following non-verbals while you listen with your eyes closed.

Nodding your head affirmatively and making responses such as “Yes,” “Um-hum,” or “OK” can help the speaker gauge your interest. Even the speed of your head nod can signal your level of patience or understanding (Pease & Pease, 2006). Leaning in as a listener is far more encouraging than slumping in your seat.  Nevertheless, sending too many non-verbal responses to the speaker can also go wrong. After all, a conference room full of people shifting in their seats and nodding their heads may translate as a restless audience that the speaker needs to recapture.

Verbal Feedback

While speakers sometimes prefer to reserve all questions until the end of a presentation, asking questions when the opportunity presents itself can benefit you as a listener. For one, you have to listen to ask a question. Your goal should be to ask open-ended questions (“What do you think about…?” rather than “We should do …, right?”). You can use questions to confirm your understanding of the speaker’s message. You might ask a clarifying question if you’re unsure of a significant point. These are questions such as “What did you mean?” “Can you be more specific?” or “What is a concrete example of your point?” Such questions can help enhance your comprehension while also providing the speaker with feedback. When asking questions, approach the speaker in a positive and non-threatening manner. A good listener doesn’t seek to put the speaker on the defensive. You want to demonstrate objectivity and willingness to listen to the speaker’s response.

Finally, paraphrasing what has been said in your interactions with the speaker can be another valuable tool for a good listener. Imagine the difference if, before you respond to an upset colleague, you take a moment to say, “I understand you are disappointed we didn’t consult you before moving forward with the product release…” before you say, “We didn’t have time to get everyone’s input.” Reflecting on the speaker’s point of view before responding lets the speaker know you were listening and helps foster trust that everyone’s voice is heard.

Receiving Feedback

Being open to receiving feedback is the key to improving your performance as a presenter or speaker. Combining self-analysis with the input of your audience or peers is an opportunity to understand your strengths as a presenter better and what resonated well with your audience. It may be a bit more uncomfortable to look at things that did not go well or receive feedback that’s judgmental, biased, or otherwise laden with emotion. When receiving and making sense of feedback, being self-aware and honest with yourself is essential. This honesty will help you distinguish between an environmental situation, a situation that lies with the audience member, or a situation with the presenter.