1 - Feedback on your speaking habits
As a starting point, it is a good idea to get feedback on your speaking habits.
- Prepare a three-minute talk that aims to sum up what you do in your research.
- Choose whatever structure you’d like to do it in, and don’t worry too much about content at this stage. You can refer back to your inverted pyramid from a previous module.
- Do not use any props or slides.
- Find someone (or several people if possible) who you would feel comfortable presenting to who will give you feedback. Ask them to feedback on the following:
Feature
|
Notes/feedback
|
Voice volume
|
How audible are you?
|
Physical ‘ticks’
|
Are you doing anything distracting? E.g. moving hands a lot, pointing, or rotating body too much.
|
Verbal ‘ticks’
|
Are you using certain ‘fillers’ repeatedly? E.g. ‘...and like’, ‘Look, I mean’, ‘Uhmmm’
|
Eye contact
|
Where are your eyes going? Are you making eye contact? With just one person or the whole room?
|
Tone of voice
|
Are you changing the pitch of your voice depending on the content?
|
Waving/reading off notes
|
If you are holding notes, what are you doing with them? What are you doing with your hands?
|
Body posture/legs
|
How are you standing? Where are your arms? What are you doing with your legs?
|
Breathing
|
Are you taking natural pauses to breathe?
|
Speed of talking
|
Is it easy to follow the speed at which you are talking?
|
Passion, purpose, positivity
|
What is your general demeanour like when talking?
|
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pdf