Reading Reflection Three: Making great presentations

Throughout the article, the one phrase that stuck out to me coined by the author was the “I need you, you need me,” saying. He made a valid point that the audiences is generally someone who is seeking help and by listening to the presentation, the audience will hopefully go home with new profound knowledge that will be applicable in their lives. He points out that by showing up to a presentation, the audience is expecting some counseling, wisdom and advice. Hence, by being present for a lecture, the audience is showing dedication and an earnest to learn. Similarly, the presenter is trying to demonstrate understanding for a specialized area and is seeking for the audience’s approval. Without a signal of gratitude, such as a round of applause or endorsement, the presenter loses interest and is not motivated to move on.

With the reciprocal need of audience and presenter in mind, I think I would have approached giving a presentation to my college Education course very differently. For one thing, I never really thought about the main point of the professor wanting each group to give a presentation. My mentality was that the teacher wanted us to learn to how to speak publicly and that it was an easy way out of presenting his own lecture. Little did I think that it was actually an exercise where our group had to research and be the panel of experts on a particular topic and to teach the class about a certain matter. Since my mindset was rested on the fact that the entire class already knew information about what we were going to present and how no one listens anyways, I didn’t try hard to make the presentation exciting or interesting. It ever crossed my mind that the audience was actually trying to gain something from our presentation and that they were intrigued. Also, as a presenter, I didn’t really care for earning the audience’s approval, only a decent grade on my part of speech would have sufficed. With the lack of communication and a non-existent relationship between the audience and I, we didn’t bond well and the presentation was just as boring as I anticipated. If I had been given time to reevaluate the relationship between audience and presenter, I think I would have tried making the presentation enlightening and engaging.

The reading addressed the importance of the first ninety seconds of your presentation and the importance of eye contact.
I always knew that you have to have eye contact with your audience to keep them engaged as well as letting your audience know that you are talking to them. However, I do not like having eye contact with my audience because I get nervous very easily and I hate speaking in front of a large group of people.

I remember this one time in my biology class in high school where I had to present information about the human ear. The class was so huge which made me extremely nervous and when I started my presentation i just jumped right in instead of warming up to the class first. i also made poor eye contact with my classmates which I think resulted in them dosing off. And when I ended my presentation, I just ended it abruptly and said “yeah…”

The reading was very interesting, and as much as I tried to read all of it, it was very difficult because in some of the pages, half the words were smeared.

One thing I learned and found very interesting was the positive side of being nervous. I would have never thought that being nervous had positive effects. To me it was always negative, being nervous leads to stress and leads to over thinking things and therefore presentations always go wrong, or when put on the spot light we go blank. I personally never knew how to deal with it; I just took it by the horns. For me, public speaking was something I was always exposed to since high school and over the years. The way that our coach “got rid” of our nervousness was to practice speeches in public places, or put us in uncomfortable places and situations to learn how to speak under pressure and criticism. This use to make me stress more than ever, just the idea of being criticized and the pressure to say the right things made me more nervous than what I already was. But I think that was my problem, I always associated nervousness with negative. I would have never thought of it as a positive thing, or think about the benefits. If I were to focus more on the positives, as well as develop an anti-nervousness technique, speaking in public would not be as bad as I use to make it for myself. Interestingly, I feel more confident speaking under pressure; it tends to work better this way. When I, for example have to lead a discussion, I am able to perform compared to having the option of participating in class. I do not understand why that is, or if it has to do with my experience of public speaking under pressure.

From this reading, I learned techniques to improve my public speaking, it made me see and better understand how to deal with it. I honestly believe that my life as a public speaker and active participant in class is going to improve.

In the reading, “I can see you naked” it had some great advices that I could have applied in my senior year in high school. During my senior year in High School all the seniors had to give a senior speech in front of multiple teachers. In the reading it says, warming up before you give a public speech can help with the trembles and nervousness going through your entire body. Also, making eye contact can help you address a major point and send a strong message to the audience. When I had to deliver my senior speech in high school I wish I knew this tip because I couldn’t stop moving and sweating while I was giving my speech. When I gave my senior speech my mouth was saying things continuously, but I didn’t even know what I was saying. My eyes were wandering all over the room and focused on unimportant objects,which was an indication of me being nervous. It was more extreme during this process because there wasn’t just one teacher listening in what you were saying about a certain topic, but multiple eyes just glaring at your every movement. Also, in the reading it said something that I believe is true beyond any limits. I believe people who say they never get nervous are lying. I believe anyone who is about to public speak or try anything new in general in front of an audience has a bit of nervousness in them because they obviously don’t know the feedbacks that they will receive. Even the dominant public speakers or presenters, I believe can crush under any negative feedbacks. I know I am a person who gets nervous easily and I know this because when I am nervous I start to sweat little by little and the evidence is on my back. X) This happened during my senior speech, which was extremely embarrassing. But after reading this entry and from personal experiences in college, I believe the only way to become a better presenter or speaker is to keep trying and applying yourself in situations where your in front of an audience and learn new tricks that will help you overcome that nervousness.

I found the most interesting section to be the one about eye contact. The exercise where you have to keep eye contact with your friend or lover for two minutes without laughing, talking, or touching, seems particularly difficult. It made me realize just how powerful eye contact is. I think this could be a powerful tool for connecting with an audience, just as it could also make the audience feel uncomfortable if you stare too long at any particular audience member. You have to moderate your level of eye contact so that it’s reasonable and equally distributed throughout your audience, so that everyone feels like they are being spoken to, but no one feels singled out.

One of the things I find hardest to do is making eye contact with people. I’m not sure if it has something to do with my culture encouraging looking elsewhere rather than the person’s eyes when you’re speaking to adults (since it’s a sign of disrespect, not confidence, if you do look into their eyes), but it’s always been somewhat of a challenge for me to look into people’s eyes for long periods of time when I talk. Often times, I find myself feeling much more comfortable speaking when I don’t have to make eye contact. But at the same time, I feel uncomfortable because I feel like I should be looking into their eyes. One of the advice in the reading on improving eye contact was by practicing with a friend by looking into their eyes for two uninterrupted minutes (without talking, laughing, or touching). It’s something I haven’t done before to practice making eye contact, so I will try that to see how it works out.

The pdf was a bit hard to read, so I actually found the same reading in Google Books online, and I was reading the chapter “Spend a day with your voice.” That chapter was not on the pdf, but it was particularly interesting to me. I’m not sure if it’s just me, but I seem to have two different voices. There is a voice I use when I’m with close friends, family, and in comfortable settings–and it is also a voice that I like hearing myself with. But, when it comes to speaking in front of an audience or people I don’t really know well (especially adults), I tend to use a much more quieter voice without even realizing it myself. So, I often hear that my voice is on the soft-spoken side, and it often makes me feel self-conscious to speak in front of an audience. I wasn’t really sure how I could work on fixing this before reading this chapter. But, I really liked the advice on becoming better acquainted with your own voice by recording your voice, hearing your voice, and making improvements to your voice and the way you talk over some period of time. Since I have a voice recorder, I will try recording my voice at random times and spend some time with my voice to see how it works out for me.

In Thursday’s reading, the most important thing I learned is that nervousness is okay, and how to control it. When I must speak in front of large audiences I get really nervous and sometimes even nauseous. In the reading the writer gave several tips to decrease nervousness like taking a walk, letting your hands relax and keep your shoulders low. The writer also mention developing a warm up to reduce your stress and to make sure that things go well during your presentation. I personally have never thought of creating a warm up. I re-read my speech several times, but nothing other than that. I think some of the techniques will help maintain a reduced stress level caused by nervousness.

I remember one particular speech I gave, I was so nervous. I remember doing a good job presenting, but there was a podium blocking my legs so the audience never knew that my legs were kind of shaking the whole time. I think taking a walk before a speech or presentation will definitely help me, along with most of the other tips.

One important fact I learned from the reading was the importance of eye contact. In the past whenever I gave a presentation I always tried to avoid eye contact. Making eye contact with the audience made me nervous. I used to think that since the power point is visible to everyone they will look at that and I don’t have to worry about making eye contact. Hence, when I gave the presentation I would look straight ahead and avoid looking at anyone’s face. However, the article says that eye contact is necessary to hold the attention of the audience and it shows confidence in what you are saying. Also, to have eye contact with the audience until you get a positive facial expression and then move on. I think this is a very important point that will be useful for my future presentations.

Something I learned from the reading is the different kinds of warm up routines. I’ve personally never had a warm up routine or a ritual when I have to give a presentation. I do tend to get nervotable us when I give a presentation and even if I think I’m ready most of the time I forget to say key points or I go through the presentation really quick just to get it over with. Also, I do not make much eye contact with the audience it makes me feel uncomfortable knowing al lot of people are just staring at me waiting to see what I say and noticing when I make a mistake. Therefore I think having some kind of warm up might have helped in the past. Maybe it would have actually made me less nervous contrary to what just sitting and nervously waiting for your turn. I do think the warm up exercises might look weird to people and therefore may be a little discourage to actually use them, but I do agree with what Hoff said about athletes warming up before starting so how come presenters can’t do the same.

I really liked the part about the effect of making eye contact. I feel it is really important to make eye contact when talking to somebody because it shows you are confident in what you are saying. A lot of times people look away while talking and it distracts the person you are talking to because now they look away as well. It seems some people are just very shy and unable to maintain eye contact and it gets quite distracting when talking to them. Also you see people walking around campus everyday with their ipods and huge sunglasses or a hoody over their heads and it just seems like they do not want to talk to anyone. I feel that we are all here to be social or at least communicate with each other but so many people have a guard up that it makes it quite difficult. My personal favorite experience with eye contact is when I walk around and make eye contact with somebody and then they immediately look away or look down or check their phone etc. Every once in a while however somebody smiles back and makes my day!

After reading an article, I started thinking about the presentations I have given in the past. Well, I was thinking about all the times I have had to speak in front of someone, rather it be for an interview, evaluation, or presentation. I did find this interview to be insightful. To think that everyone is nervous to an extent did help me realize that I’m usually not the only one freaking out before a presentation. It really interests me of how people control their nervousness. There are people like me who overanalyze everything right before the presentation, and there are people who have ease with presenting from prior experience or just being comfortable with the attention of many people.
When I read about the “anti-nervous routine,” I found that having a “routine” right before a presentation can be helpful. I will try to have one just for the sake that I do not freak out. An experience where I had to deal with presenting in front of people was at a retail job interview. This is an example where I could have used this “anti-nervous routine.” The interview had taken a total of 3 hours. In one scenario, we were divided into group in order to present a commercial about a product that the company was selling. At first, I started thinking about how difficult this was going to be, given the allotted time. Next, we were divided randomly, so seeing that all of us had different personalities, the “leaders” decided to take on the project head-on. Little did I realize that it would most likely be them who stood out to the evaluators. All I was thinking about the whole time was what was I supposed to do. Next thing I know, I was just assigned a part to present. When we presented, all I know was that I was just focusing on the part that I presented. I have to admit that it I presented my part pretty blandly. Looking back at the moment, I know that I should have been thinking about the presentation has a whole, rather than just thinking about the exact time and exact words that I needed to present. I know that before any presentation I need to present, I will need to calm my nerves down by taking the nervous energy out of the system in order to build confidence and professionalism. I also realize that we were presenting more to just impress the evaluators, rather than actually sell the product that would give interest to all the consumers. Being over analytical about presenting a perfect and structure presentation kind of deflects the purpose of having an audience. You are there to engage the audience with their “needs” in order to fulfill your “needs.”
So as for tips of giving a good presentation, I learned a lot from this article.

One of the most important pieces I learned from the readings was to capture the audiences attention within the first few moments of your speech. This makes me think back to the way I would always go about giving presentations. I would always be as professional (and boring) when I would start and then half-way through I would try and save it by being energetic.
This happened in one of my freshman management courses at UCI. I was very nervous when I had to give my first presentation of my college career. I walked up slowly looking like a boring person and I just started my presentation blandly. My posture was terrible my voice was quiet and monotone and pretty much everyone put there heads down into their laptops and ignored me. Then to salvage the presentation I randomly thought of a question to ask the audience and of course no one cared to listen or even answer my question. In the end I failed miserably.

As I was doing the readings, I couldn’t help but remember my high school graduation speech. As valedictorian, I wanted to put something together that would not only engage and motivate my graduating class, but also something that would be memorable. I wanted to share my experience but also get a couple laughs. After much brainstorming I had put together my first draft. I continuously worked on it, revised it and rehearsed it. Yes, I had spoken in front of a group of people before, but never an entire stadium. It was difficult enough to know I would be watched by so many people, but I wanted to make sure they were listening to what I had to say. So, I did this by including quite a couple “perfect moments” in my speech. I took a long shot with the following one. Towards the middle of my speech I acknowledged and apologized to our senior advisor, Ms. Jackson, for all the stress and headaches we put her through. As soon as I said “I’m sorry Ms. Jackson,” I paused for a minute hoping my plan worked. Sure enough the entire graduating class continued singing the Outkast lyrics. It was a bittersweet moment for everyone, but my plan was successful. To this day, whenever graduation day is mentioned, so is that moment. I truly believe such “memorable moments” not only engage your audience, but definitely make it easier to stand up there.

It’s a selfish feeling, but I must admit that after reading how everyone else gets nervous in their presentations and how it really is natural makes me happy. What I wished I could have known before was the idea that the audience needs you. hehe.

In high school presentations, I remember I used to get nervous but once I started to actually get into my topic, it was much more easier. It even sometimes felt fun, the feeling of adrenaline and then having a sense of accomplishment. Haha. YES! However, when I was placed in groups, I don’t know remember what it was exactly but my presentations started to become worse and worse. It felt like I was only a shadow behind the framework of what I had created while everyone else took the spotlight. Eventually, I just gave up and since then, I’m afraid of presentations. But the idea that the audience needs you and it’s not about my needs but theirs…that idea seems great so I can try again?