As a speech evaluator, you have the chance to give the speaker three different evaluations. Each has its place but trying tomake do with just one evaluation can be a recipie for disaster.
The most common evaluation is the 2 to 3 minute verbal evaluation. Verbal evaluations may be the most signifcant of the three because you can'tbe sure the speaker will pay attention to the other two. Other members and guests also hear this. Although you may have many things to comment on, I suggest you focus your verbal evaluation on the single most mportant thing you can share with the speaker. This provides a clea message to the speaker while avoiding two traps an evaluator might stumble into.
Some evaluators try to offer two or more points to grow on. While I understand the desire to shre as much as possible with both the speaker and the audience, there isn't enough time in the verbal evaluation to cover more than one point. If a fully prepared seven minute speech can effectively address only one point, why do you think a hastily pepared evaluation can do better? Put as many points as you want in the written evaluation or a followup discssion.
Another common error is to verbalize the notes you took during the speech. My main complaing with this plan is that the speaker will get the written notes anyway. I saw one evaluator literally walk down the evaluation list. "I gave you a 3 for this, a two for that ..., etc." Neiher the speaker nor the audience learns anything useful with this kind of evaluation.
While your verbal evaluation needs to clearly focus on a single poin togrow on, the written evalation can and should give as mych deail as possible. Unless the verbal evaluaion is recorded, he written version is the only one the speaker can look back on hee days later. Be encouraging, but specific. We tell speakers to write their speeches but not read them. The same holds true for evaluations.
Finally, you can offer more thoughts verbally after the meeting. The advantage of these evaluations is the combination of depth and clarity. Unfortunately, these evaluations are rarely done because schedules are so packed. At its best, this becomes a conversation between speaker and evaluator where the speech can be analyzed in detail.
I think the General Evaluator should use this as part of the general evaluation. Did the evaluator pick a point to grow on (good) , offer too many points to grow on (bad) or none at all (worse)? Help the evaluator give the information in the best context available.
Showing posts with label Toastmasters Evaluation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toastmasters Evaluation. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Evaluating for Extras
The COPE model of evaluation focuses on four areas – content, organization, presentation, and extras. It encourages you to think about the evaluation the same way the speaker thinks about his speech. This article focuses on the fourth of those four areas – extras.
Some people have commented to me that “extras” is basically “miscellaneous” – a place to store everything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. This, they suggest, is bad because things should be categorized. I feel that when you get done cataloging, there’s almost always something left. Make your own decision, but that’s not what I have in mind here.
What are Extras?
It is easy to understand speech content and organization as components of a speech. It’s easy to understand that presentation skills are what the speaker uses to give the speech. You may be asking, what’s left? What are “extras”.
Every speech is unique, which means every speech has features which make it unique. There’s no way of predicting what that feature may be, especially when defining an analytic model like COPE. I use extras to look for those features – those items brought to a particular speech at a specific moment by one and only one presenter. When considering this, keep in mind that “unique” does not necessarily mean “good” – there can be points to grow on here too.
I also use extras as a crutch. There are times when it may be difficult to decide which category to put a comment in – and with a few minutes to prepare there’s no time to spare! In that sense, I do use “extras” to mean “other”. For example, is a memorable quote part of a speech’s content or language? Do you really want to figure this out while assembling an evaluation? I don’t. Here are some places to look.
Ideas
Not many of us are fortunate enough to have a truly unique idea, but it does happen. Even if an idea isn’t unique, it may be particularly useful, applicable, or interesting. If a speaker is offering up someone else’s idea, that’s content. If it’s his or her own idea, that’s an extra.
History
Somewhere, at some point in history, Einstein formulated relativity. Somewhere, at some point in history, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. Somewhere founders framed our constitution, Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, and Roosevelt talked about a day that shall live in infamy. At one point, someone decided to plant a pair of apple trees in front of the house I later bought. Big or small, anything that makes history is an extra.
Senses
Speeches are mostly about what we hear, though gestures and props come through what we see. Even so, we don’t turn off touch, taste, or smell when we attend a speech. If someone gives a speech on preparing a meal that you smell or taste, that’s an extra. Perhaps you picked up the odor of a perfume, the smell of a candle lit as a prop.
Interaction and Audience Response
Were you attracted by the way an audience reacted to a prop or action? Audience interaction is a presentation skill, but the way the audience reacts is the unique extra of the speech. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address left the audience in stunned silence – well worth comment in an evaluation but not a presentation skill.
Goals
Some elements of goals from the basic manual are also extras. Pulling all the elements together (project seven) and inspiration (project ten) call for an integration of content, organization, and presentation skills, but the integration itself is the extra memorable point of the speech.
Praise Based on Extras
Since an evaluation is largely a report on your reaction to a speech, almost anything the speaker tried to give then audience something extra is worthy of praise. If the idea dodn’t work, include a suggestion for how to improve it with the praise. Subjects for praise include:
Frankly, suggestions in the category of extras may be dangerous. You’re trying to address a problem in something that isn’t an identifiable speech element. If you choose to do it, your goal is presenttion improvement or problem solutions, not problem identification. For the daring, here are some areas to consider:
The single most important “extra” you should discuss in your evaluation is the one thing you will take away from the speech. Extras can be very important to a competitive situation – that little bit extra might win the contest or close the sale.
Some people have commented to me that “extras” is basically “miscellaneous” – a place to store everything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. This, they suggest, is bad because things should be categorized. I feel that when you get done cataloging, there’s almost always something left. Make your own decision, but that’s not what I have in mind here.
What are Extras?
It is easy to understand speech content and organization as components of a speech. It’s easy to understand that presentation skills are what the speaker uses to give the speech. You may be asking, what’s left? What are “extras”.
Every speech is unique, which means every speech has features which make it unique. There’s no way of predicting what that feature may be, especially when defining an analytic model like COPE. I use extras to look for those features – those items brought to a particular speech at a specific moment by one and only one presenter. When considering this, keep in mind that “unique” does not necessarily mean “good” – there can be points to grow on here too.
I also use extras as a crutch. There are times when it may be difficult to decide which category to put a comment in – and with a few minutes to prepare there’s no time to spare! In that sense, I do use “extras” to mean “other”. For example, is a memorable quote part of a speech’s content or language? Do you really want to figure this out while assembling an evaluation? I don’t. Here are some places to look.
Ideas
Not many of us are fortunate enough to have a truly unique idea, but it does happen. Even if an idea isn’t unique, it may be particularly useful, applicable, or interesting. If a speaker is offering up someone else’s idea, that’s content. If it’s his or her own idea, that’s an extra.
History
Somewhere, at some point in history, Einstein formulated relativity. Somewhere, at some point in history, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. Somewhere founders framed our constitution, Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation, and Roosevelt talked about a day that shall live in infamy. At one point, someone decided to plant a pair of apple trees in front of the house I later bought. Big or small, anything that makes history is an extra.
Senses
Speeches are mostly about what we hear, though gestures and props come through what we see. Even so, we don’t turn off touch, taste, or smell when we attend a speech. If someone gives a speech on preparing a meal that you smell or taste, that’s an extra. Perhaps you picked up the odor of a perfume, the smell of a candle lit as a prop.
Interaction and Audience Response
Were you attracted by the way an audience reacted to a prop or action? Audience interaction is a presentation skill, but the way the audience reacts is the unique extra of the speech. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address left the audience in stunned silence – well worth comment in an evaluation but not a presentation skill.
Goals
Some elements of goals from the basic manual are also extras. Pulling all the elements together (project seven) and inspiration (project ten) call for an integration of content, organization, and presentation skills, but the integration itself is the extra memorable point of the speech.
Praise Based on Extras
Since an evaluation is largely a report on your reaction to a speech, almost anything the speaker tried to give then audience something extra is worthy of praise. If the idea dodn’t work, include a suggestion for how to improve it with the praise. Subjects for praise include:
- What did you learn?
- How were goals effectively met?
- What was the strongest reaction you had to the speech?
- What was the biggest improvement in this speech over predecessors?
Frankly, suggestions in the category of extras may be dangerous. You’re trying to address a problem in something that isn’t an identifiable speech element. If you choose to do it, your goal is presenttion improvement or problem solutions, not problem identification. For the daring, here are some areas to consider:
- Opportunities to better meet the goals of the speech.
- Ideas for getting a more favorable audience response.
- Your personal experience that the speaker might be able to use as an example.
The single most important “extra” you should discuss in your evaluation is the one thing you will take away from the speech. Extras can be very important to a competitive situation – that little bit extra might win the contest or close the sale.
Evaluating for Presentation
The COPE model of evaluation focuses on four areas – content, organization, presentation, and extras. It encourages you to think about the evaluation the same way the speaker thinks about his speech. This article focuses on the third of those four areas – speech presentation skills.
What are Presentation Skills
Half the projects in the basic manual address presentation skills. Project four addresses gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact. Project five works on vocal variety. Project six focuses on language, eight on props, and nine on persuasion. While content and organization apply almost as well to a document as to a speech, presentation focuses on one speech given one time to one audience.
This is familiar ground for evaluation. We recognize nervousness by its impact on presentation skills. When we suggest more vocal variety, focusing on eye contact, or the use of a prop, we are making a suggestion based on the presentation. When we praise the use of language or the persuasiveness of an argument, we are describing presentation skills.
Overview
Presentation skills are important tools, fundamentals a speaker needs to learn so well that most will come on demand. History has many examples of people with brilliant ideas who lacked the presentation skills to meet their goals. In school, your best teachers knew their subject matter, knew their students, and knew how to present what they were teaching.
Highly proficient speakers evolve away from the “how” of presentation skills to “what”. Their concern is not whether a gesture would be appropriate at a particular point and how to do it, it is which of many gestures would best serve at any given point. This is very subjective, and therefore fair ground for your opinion as an evaluator.
An evaluation of presentation skills needs to take the speaker and situation into account. It’s important to ask what this particular speaker needs from this particular evaluation. Should your primary goal be praise and support? Should it be hints on overcoming a specific presentation flaw? Should it be ideas on how to improve the presentation? All are possible, and it’s up to the evaluator to make that call.
Praise Based on Presentation Skills
Praise is received best when it is most deserved. Look for specific things to comment on – avoid general statements. Which specific thing did you like? Why is it your favorite? How did you react to it? Did something specific surprise you or delight you?
Vocal variety and language are a middle ground between the written speech and the in-person presentation. They work even across a radio, or across a room where the audience isn’t paying attention. Did the speaker introduce different characters? Did each character have his or her own distinctive voice? Was that voice appropriate to the character and the context?
Gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact are all direct attempts to interact with the audience, or in some cases an attempt to not interact with the audience. To be really effective, they should be consistent with each other and the context of the speech. A speaker trying to express revulsion, for example, should have both gestures and facial expressions consistent with that emotion.
When offering praise for presentation skills, keep it specific and personal. Areas to consider include:
What are Presentation Skills
Half the projects in the basic manual address presentation skills. Project four addresses gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact. Project five works on vocal variety. Project six focuses on language, eight on props, and nine on persuasion. While content and organization apply almost as well to a document as to a speech, presentation focuses on one speech given one time to one audience.
This is familiar ground for evaluation. We recognize nervousness by its impact on presentation skills. When we suggest more vocal variety, focusing on eye contact, or the use of a prop, we are making a suggestion based on the presentation. When we praise the use of language or the persuasiveness of an argument, we are describing presentation skills.
Overview
Presentation skills are important tools, fundamentals a speaker needs to learn so well that most will come on demand. History has many examples of people with brilliant ideas who lacked the presentation skills to meet their goals. In school, your best teachers knew their subject matter, knew their students, and knew how to present what they were teaching.
Highly proficient speakers evolve away from the “how” of presentation skills to “what”. Their concern is not whether a gesture would be appropriate at a particular point and how to do it, it is which of many gestures would best serve at any given point. This is very subjective, and therefore fair ground for your opinion as an evaluator.
An evaluation of presentation skills needs to take the speaker and situation into account. It’s important to ask what this particular speaker needs from this particular evaluation. Should your primary goal be praise and support? Should it be hints on overcoming a specific presentation flaw? Should it be ideas on how to improve the presentation? All are possible, and it’s up to the evaluator to make that call.
Praise Based on Presentation Skills
Praise is received best when it is most deserved. Look for specific things to comment on – avoid general statements. Which specific thing did you like? Why is it your favorite? How did you react to it? Did something specific surprise you or delight you?
Vocal variety and language are a middle ground between the written speech and the in-person presentation. They work even across a radio, or across a room where the audience isn’t paying attention. Did the speaker introduce different characters? Did each character have his or her own distinctive voice? Was that voice appropriate to the character and the context?
Gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact are all direct attempts to interact with the audience, or in some cases an attempt to not interact with the audience. To be really effective, they should be consistent with each other and the context of the speech. A speaker trying to express revulsion, for example, should have both gestures and facial expressions consistent with that emotion.
When offering praise for presentation skills, keep it specific and personal. Areas to consider include:
- You could identify individual characters the speaker was portraying by their voice or gestures.
- A specific piece of the speech used particularly effective language or was poetic as presented.
- Eye contact was effective and natural.
Suggestions Based on Presentation Skills
Generally, suggestions on presentation should focus on how to improve it. For beginners, this may be no more than trying to apply a specific skill in a specific context.
- You could have gotten my attention at that point with a whisper.
- A bigger prop would be easier for the audience to see.
- This specific word didn’t convey your message well, try that one.
More advanced speakers can also get specific suggestions.
- Was there a point where gestures and facial expressions weren’t consistent with the speech?
- If the voice was clear, was the pacing and emphasis of the phrasing optimal?
- Did a prop detract from the presentation? Would a prop add to it?
Remember that suggestions should focus on things a person could do something about. Saying that you couldn’t see a short speaker behind the lectern is a criticism and doesn’t help. Recommending that she gets out in front of the lectern or arranges for a stool behind it would be a constructive suggestion.
Conclusion
Presentation skills are a speaker’s tools of the trade. Content, organization and extras are like the broad picture in a painting. Presentation skills are the individual brush strokes and need to be consistent with each other, If a speaker gave a great speech, saying that isn’t going to help him or give you recognition as a good evaluator. Even if a speaker gave a flawless speech, you can suggest presentation skill alternatives.
Evaluating for Organization
The COPE model of evaluation focuses on four areas – content, organization, presentation, and extras. It encourages you to think about the evaluation the same way the speaker thinks about his speech. This article focuses on the second of those four areas – speech organization.
What is Organization?
Project three of the basic manual is an exercise on organizing your speech. In it, we learn that a speech has an opening, a body, and a conclusion. A speech that has all three elements, in the correct order, meets a minimal test for organization. A good speech can do better than that – a great speech must. When considering the organization of a speech, a speaker selects a strategy, a sequence of presentation, and looks for opportunities to make internal connections. As evaluators, we should do the same.
Strategy
Beyond the basics of an opening, a body, and a conclusion, organizing a speech requires a strategy. For the most part, this affects the body of a speech. A speech generally has a number of points to make, and organization strategy drives the order they are presented in. Here are some common strategies:
Some presentations require that one piece of information be presented before another. You can teach multiplication as a series of repeated additions, but only if the people you’re teaching understand addition. Negotiators focus on goals and principles before they address details. This strategy – logical order – is appropriate when one element must be established before the next has meaning.
A special case of logical order is chronological order. In some cases, this is vital. If you’re describing how to prepare a food, the sequence of steps and timing are vital – more a matter of content than organization. Although a flashback may be useful at times, most stories follow at lest a rough chronological order.
Another way to connect parts of a speech together is the use of an acronym. I used one – COPE – as the overarching organization for this model. The strength of this method is that it can be widely used. Its weakness is that it can be artificial and not contribute to understanding. I used it in this case because it defines the order of importance in the elements of a speech – content, organization, presentation, and extras.
Finally, a speech can be organized on the basis of a recurring theme or themes. By picking up on a theme at various points in a speech, the speaker ties parts of the speech together and builds interest in his presentation. This may be nothing more than connecting an opening line to a closing line, or it may be far more intricate.
Sequence of Presentation
In some cases, a speech will have a few points to make, and there is no overarching strategy to address the order of presentation. The speaker may decide a relative importance of the points to be made, but not have a reason to put one before the other in the body of the speech.
Given three points to make and no reason to put one before the other, a speech should:
· Make the most importance point first
· Put the third point in the middle
· Save the second most important point for last.
When evaluating, pay attention to the sequence of presentation – can you suggest something better?
Opportunity
As a speech approaches its final form, the strategy and sequence of presentation get pretty well defined. A good speaker will take time to look at the speech for an opportunity to improve its organizational structure. This is fine tuning – does moving an idea help the listener understand something? Can an idea be introduced earlier so it can be reinforced later? Have circumstances in the rest of a speech made part of it irrelevant?
This kind of analysis is almost always a matter of opinion. As such, it’s appropriate material for an evaluator. If you don’t understand why a story was included, say so. If you thought it contributed, say why. Present these as opinions and suggestions.
Praise Based on Organization
It may be difficult to build praise based on organization. A speech that lacks organization is flawed and needs suggestions. A speech that is well organized doesn’t create obvious opportunity for praise. It’s hard to be sincere saying “putting those points in alphabetic order was a great idea!” Even so, here are some possible areas to address.
Generally, suggestions on organization should focus on how to improve it. Here are some possibilities:
What is Organization?
Project three of the basic manual is an exercise on organizing your speech. In it, we learn that a speech has an opening, a body, and a conclusion. A speech that has all three elements, in the correct order, meets a minimal test for organization. A good speech can do better than that – a great speech must. When considering the organization of a speech, a speaker selects a strategy, a sequence of presentation, and looks for opportunities to make internal connections. As evaluators, we should do the same.
Strategy
Beyond the basics of an opening, a body, and a conclusion, organizing a speech requires a strategy. For the most part, this affects the body of a speech. A speech generally has a number of points to make, and organization strategy drives the order they are presented in. Here are some common strategies:
Some presentations require that one piece of information be presented before another. You can teach multiplication as a series of repeated additions, but only if the people you’re teaching understand addition. Negotiators focus on goals and principles before they address details. This strategy – logical order – is appropriate when one element must be established before the next has meaning.
A special case of logical order is chronological order. In some cases, this is vital. If you’re describing how to prepare a food, the sequence of steps and timing are vital – more a matter of content than organization. Although a flashback may be useful at times, most stories follow at lest a rough chronological order.
Another way to connect parts of a speech together is the use of an acronym. I used one – COPE – as the overarching organization for this model. The strength of this method is that it can be widely used. Its weakness is that it can be artificial and not contribute to understanding. I used it in this case because it defines the order of importance in the elements of a speech – content, organization, presentation, and extras.
Finally, a speech can be organized on the basis of a recurring theme or themes. By picking up on a theme at various points in a speech, the speaker ties parts of the speech together and builds interest in his presentation. This may be nothing more than connecting an opening line to a closing line, or it may be far more intricate.
Sequence of Presentation
In some cases, a speech will have a few points to make, and there is no overarching strategy to address the order of presentation. The speaker may decide a relative importance of the points to be made, but not have a reason to put one before the other in the body of the speech.
Given three points to make and no reason to put one before the other, a speech should:
· Make the most importance point first
· Put the third point in the middle
· Save the second most important point for last.
When evaluating, pay attention to the sequence of presentation – can you suggest something better?
Opportunity
As a speech approaches its final form, the strategy and sequence of presentation get pretty well defined. A good speaker will take time to look at the speech for an opportunity to improve its organizational structure. This is fine tuning – does moving an idea help the listener understand something? Can an idea be introduced earlier so it can be reinforced later? Have circumstances in the rest of a speech made part of it irrelevant?
This kind of analysis is almost always a matter of opinion. As such, it’s appropriate material for an evaluator. If you don’t understand why a story was included, say so. If you thought it contributed, say why. Present these as opinions and suggestions.
Praise Based on Organization
It may be difficult to build praise based on organization. A speech that lacks organization is flawed and needs suggestions. A speech that is well organized doesn’t create obvious opportunity for praise. It’s hard to be sincere saying “putting those points in alphabetic order was a great idea!” Even so, here are some possible areas to address.
- The organization was used to set up a surprise that worked well.
- The speaker did something noteworthy in organization.
- There was some feature of organization that you want to reinforce as a teaching point for other listeners.
- Use good organization as evidence of preparation.
Generally, suggestions on organization should focus on how to improve it. Here are some possibilities:
- Would an alternate strategy serve the speech better?
- If the strategy is appropriate, can the order of presentation be improved?
- Are there opportunities to build on the organization of a speech that the speaker didn’t take advantage of?
Conclusion
Organization can be nothing more than an opening, a body, and a conclusion. It can be an outline in any level of detail. It can make a speech the analog of a simple song or a polished symphony. In general, the organization of a speech reflects the preparation of the speaker. You can use a good organization to prase preparation, or poor organization to make a specific suggestion for improvement.Evaluating for Content
The COPE model of evaluation focuses on four areas – content, organization, presentation, and extras. It encourages you to think about the evaluation the same way the speaker thinks about his speech. This article focuses on the first of those four areas – content.
What Is Content?
Every speech has a purpose. An informative speech has facts. A persuasive speech has arguments. An entertaining speech has stories. Once you know what the purpose of the speech is, you can evaluate for content based on quality or value.
Content Quality
Evaluate quality of content based on the content itself. Try to determine if the content is accurate, consistent, and suits the speaker’s purpose. If the speaker is addressing a subject you aren’t familiar with, focus on whether the content appears to meet these criteria.
Accuracy is the critical measure of a speaker’s research. It generally applies to the informative aspects of a speech, but it can apply in other contexts as well. For example, a reading of “Casey at the Bat” which gives the “Wrong” score would still fail a test for accuracy. “Accurate” can be a relative term so you may want to give a speaker benefit of the doubt. A three-minute evaluation is not the place to argue the accuracy of information, but it would be fair to comment that a fact check might be in order.
Consistency measures the various facts and arguments against each other. If the points of a speech don’t feel related to you, they have failed your test for consistency. A special case of this would be where the presenter is trying to give both sides of a story – the facts are consistent because they address a single subject, but if a speaker is trying to persuade or sell this may not be in his own best interest and deserves a comment.
Just because something is true doesn’t make it in the speaker’s best interest to present it. A speaker may accurately quote the height of the Statue of Liberty and (consistently) mention its weight, but this information would not suit his purpose if the purpose of the speech was to convey the emotional impact of the first time he saw it. Persuasive speeches in particular need to address whether the information selected suits the speaker’s purpose.
Content Value
Value is a matter of personal interpretation, making it an important part of personalizing an evaluation. We aren’t usually examining value in financial terms – we’re trying to determine if the content is appropriate to the audience, serves some useful purpose, and if it is presented in an interesting way.
A speech needs to be appropriate to an audience. It’s easy to see that an R rated movie would not be appropriate for a young child, but there is more to it. A wonderful talk on geology might not be appropriate to an audience of physicians present to learn about diagnosis of disease. Since one purpose of a Toastmasters meeting is to help members prepare speeches for other events, this needs to be taken into account. If this is a speech intended for use elsewhere, you need to know the intended audience to evaluate appropriateness.
A useful speech depends on both the speaker and the listener. In broad terms, an informative speech should inform, an entertaining speech should entertain, and a persuasive speech should persuade. As always, life can get complicated. In giving a speech on three good reasons to vote for a school levy, a speaker may present a fact that convinces you to vote against it. This is useful in that it helped you to make a decision. Quoting facts everyone has heard, and packaging them in a way that changes no opinions, might not be useful.
An interesting speech is one that makes the audience glad it was present. If the goal is pure entertainment, interesting might mean enjoyable, fun, scary, or dramatic, If the goal is informing, interesting might mean educational or thought-provoking. Once more, you need to know the target audience – a speech intended to teach tax basics would be interesting to certain adult audiences but would be boring to a classroom of seventh graders.
Use Your Experience
As an evaluator, your job is to talk about your reactions. If the content of a persuasive speech doesn’t persuade you, you should acknowledge that. If the facts don’t make the speaker’s case, say so. If the speech brought to mind a personal experience that the speaker might use when giving the speech again, mention it. The very best evaluations I’ve ever heard used the evaluator’s experience to make strong suggestions to the speaker.
Praise Based on Content
Here is a partial list of items that might be used to praise a speech for its content:
Here are a few areas where helpful suggestions might be based on content.
Conclusion
The content of a speech depends on its purpose. A speech must have content, and it is the content a speaker wants you to get from hearing the speech. That means there should always be something to say regarding content. Focus on your interpretation of it or how it affected you. Reciting the speech back isn’t an evaluation.
What Is Content?
Every speech has a purpose. An informative speech has facts. A persuasive speech has arguments. An entertaining speech has stories. Once you know what the purpose of the speech is, you can evaluate for content based on quality or value.
Content Quality
Evaluate quality of content based on the content itself. Try to determine if the content is accurate, consistent, and suits the speaker’s purpose. If the speaker is addressing a subject you aren’t familiar with, focus on whether the content appears to meet these criteria.
Accuracy is the critical measure of a speaker’s research. It generally applies to the informative aspects of a speech, but it can apply in other contexts as well. For example, a reading of “Casey at the Bat” which gives the “Wrong” score would still fail a test for accuracy. “Accurate” can be a relative term so you may want to give a speaker benefit of the doubt. A three-minute evaluation is not the place to argue the accuracy of information, but it would be fair to comment that a fact check might be in order.
Consistency measures the various facts and arguments against each other. If the points of a speech don’t feel related to you, they have failed your test for consistency. A special case of this would be where the presenter is trying to give both sides of a story – the facts are consistent because they address a single subject, but if a speaker is trying to persuade or sell this may not be in his own best interest and deserves a comment.
Just because something is true doesn’t make it in the speaker’s best interest to present it. A speaker may accurately quote the height of the Statue of Liberty and (consistently) mention its weight, but this information would not suit his purpose if the purpose of the speech was to convey the emotional impact of the first time he saw it. Persuasive speeches in particular need to address whether the information selected suits the speaker’s purpose.
Content Value
Value is a matter of personal interpretation, making it an important part of personalizing an evaluation. We aren’t usually examining value in financial terms – we’re trying to determine if the content is appropriate to the audience, serves some useful purpose, and if it is presented in an interesting way.
A speech needs to be appropriate to an audience. It’s easy to see that an R rated movie would not be appropriate for a young child, but there is more to it. A wonderful talk on geology might not be appropriate to an audience of physicians present to learn about diagnosis of disease. Since one purpose of a Toastmasters meeting is to help members prepare speeches for other events, this needs to be taken into account. If this is a speech intended for use elsewhere, you need to know the intended audience to evaluate appropriateness.
A useful speech depends on both the speaker and the listener. In broad terms, an informative speech should inform, an entertaining speech should entertain, and a persuasive speech should persuade. As always, life can get complicated. In giving a speech on three good reasons to vote for a school levy, a speaker may present a fact that convinces you to vote against it. This is useful in that it helped you to make a decision. Quoting facts everyone has heard, and packaging them in a way that changes no opinions, might not be useful.
An interesting speech is one that makes the audience glad it was present. If the goal is pure entertainment, interesting might mean enjoyable, fun, scary, or dramatic, If the goal is informing, interesting might mean educational or thought-provoking. Once more, you need to know the target audience – a speech intended to teach tax basics would be interesting to certain adult audiences but would be boring to a classroom of seventh graders.
Use Your Experience
As an evaluator, your job is to talk about your reactions. If the content of a persuasive speech doesn’t persuade you, you should acknowledge that. If the facts don’t make the speaker’s case, say so. If the speech brought to mind a personal experience that the speaker might use when giving the speech again, mention it. The very best evaluations I’ve ever heard used the evaluator’s experience to make strong suggestions to the speaker.
Praise Based on Content
Here is a partial list of items that might be used to praise a speech for its content:
- You found the content helpful, informative, entertaining or inspirational.
- The information presented was of value to you – explain how.
- The speaker correctly cited sources of information in quotes or resources.
Suggestions Based on Content
Here are a few areas where helpful suggestions might be based on content.
- The facts don’t make the speaker’s case – can you suggest other facts that would? Can you suggest arguments against a case that someone might bring up so the speaker can prepare for them?
- The speaker is trying to make a logical argument, but leaves a hole in the logic. When I’ve seen this happen, the speaker says he was running out of time and skipped a part. He may also say that he forgot a piece. Either way, a logic hole should be high on your list of suggestions to fix.
- Can you suggest a way to simplify what the speaker is presenting so it would work for a broader audience?
- Can you suggest specific reference materials where the speaker might get more information?
- The speaker should identify a quote or source of information and neglected to do so.
Conclusion
The content of a speech depends on its purpose. A speech must have content, and it is the content a speaker wants you to get from hearing the speech. That means there should always be something to say regarding content. Focus on your interpretation of it or how it affected you. Reciting the speech back isn’t an evaluation.
The COPE Evaluation Model
Imagine that you’ve arrived at a meeting a few minutes late. The first speaker is about to finish, and a peek at the agenda shows you are assigned to evaluate the second speaker. A C&L manual gets shoved your way with a paperclip identifying the speaker’s project. He gets up and delivers a wonderful speech. Your immediate reaction is “what can I say about this speech?” and you start to feel like a deer caught in headlights. What do you do now?
Nothing. If matters have gone this far, it’s too0 late – you’re venison. The correct answer, the only answer, is to not get in that situation to begin with. Arrive earl, talk with the speaker, and – failing all else – have a model ready to apply to a speech.
A model is a tool for taking something complicated and reducing it to something you can work with. We have a model of the way cars operate that lets us start, drive, and refuel a car we’ve never seen with relative confidence. We may not know how to open the hood, or what to do once it is opened, but we can use our model of the way cars are built to get what we need to do done.
For evaluations, I use a model I call COPE , an acronym for Content, Organization, Presentation, and Extras. I like it because it focuses on the same elements a speaker uses to build a speech in the first place. This gives me a common frame of reference with the speaker that I can count on being there even if I’m not fully prepared. Beyond that, I can use it to evaluate my own speeches.
The Origin of COPE
Take a look at a judge’s ballot for a speech contest. You can use either the International Speech Contest ballot or the Humorous Speech Contest ballot – they are similar enough to one another for this purpose. They have several criteria, but the criteria can be grouped into four broad categories – content, organization, presentation skills, and other criteria.
I realized early on that if I was going to compete, I should look at each criterion a judge would use and do what I could to maximize the score (or minimize deductions) he would give me. If I was going to take a risk on how a judge might interpret something, I wanted to do it deliberately. Why would anyone do anything else?
It may occur to you that an evaluation should be based on the evaluation contest ballot. This is certainly true for the evaluation contest, but in my opinion it doesn’t help me build a model. That is, it can guide what I’m expected to do but doesn’t suggest things I should talk about. The speech contest ballots direct attention to the elements of a good speech, but there’s still a problem.
In a contest, you get five minutes to prepare your notes for an evaluation. At a club meeting, you may get a bit more, but time is limited and you get exactly one chance to do it. Judges can complete a ballot in a minute or so because they are interested only in scoring. Preparing an evaluation takes longer, and the judge’s ballot has too many categories. I decided to simplify the model.
Instead of listing all the criteria, I chose to identify four categories.
· Content – what does the speech have to say?
· Organization – how to the parts of the speech fit together?
· Presentation Skills – what did he speaker do?
· Extras – everything else, including features that made the speech unique.
Just as I can count on a car to have a steering wheel, an ignition key, an accelerator and a brake, I can count on a speech to have these elements. If I can say something useful about those elements, I can give a useful, if not inspired, evaluation. Let’ take a brief look at each of the four categories in turn.
Content
Every speech should have something to say. An informative speech has facts, a persuasive speech has arguments, an entertaining speech has stories, a humorous speech has anecdotes. A great speech probably has them all. If a speech has a message, that message is its content. The content is a speech’s primary deliverable – the reason a listener should give time to the speaker.
Even if you aren’t an expert on the subject matter, you can evaluate content. Do the facts appear to support the speaker’s point of view? Do they appear to contradict each other? If a logical deduction is being attempted, was everything you needed there? Did the speaker talk over your head? What did you learn? An evaluation can attempt to address any of these questions about content, and more.
When selecting items to present in your evaluation, make a conscious decision about content. A new speaker focusing on organization or presentation at a speech for the club may have no use for a Venn diagram showing a hole in his logic. If he’s planning to give that same speech in a context where lives and fortunes are at stake, content flaws may be the most important advice you can give. This problem shows up most frequently when a speaker cuts out pieces to stay within time. That’s his choice, but he should know the omission was detected.
Organization
The third speech in the basic manual is an exercise in organizing a speech, but every speech needs it. At its simplest, a speech has an opening, a body and a closing. The obvious way to build organization into a speech is to start with an outline. The goal in organizing a speech is to get the listener to follow the presentation.
Evaluate a speech’s organization for its effectiveness. Can you identify the speech’s outline? Were you surprised by something in the middle because the opening failed to prepare you? Did the ending tie up the loose ends created in the body? Was there a way you’d reorganize the outline to make a key point more effective? The best possible speech for a situation starts with the best possible outline. This applies equally well to your speeches and can be analyzed from a pap[r draft. Have you got the best outline possible?
Presentation Skills
Content and organization can be examined from the printed transcript of a speech. You can only evaluate the presentation skills of a speech by looking at the speech itself. The C&L manual has a number of parts dedicated to improving presentation skills:
· Gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact (project 4).
· Vocal variety (project 5)
· Word selection (project 6)
· Props (project 8)
· Persuasion (project 9)
This is the area where the COPE Model wants you to think about those things you’d usually discuss during an evaluation. The other parts get you to look into issues you might not otherwise consider – presentation skill evaluation is what most members need the most help with. Remember that whether your intent is praise or suggestions, the points you make should be specific and helpful.
Extras
What’s the one thing that made this speech unique? What’s the one thing y0u want to make sure you cover in the evaluation? What did the speaker do that really brought the audience into the speech? What opportunity did the speaker miss to accomplish this? For things like this, and everything not yet covered, I use the extras category.
In the few minutes you have to prepare an evaluation, you won’t be able to fit everything you want to say into one of the first three categories. The categories are there to help you think of things to say—if you know what you want to say, categorizing it isn’t important.
Using the Model
Create and label six boxes on a page – see the example on the next page. This gives you space to put notes on content, organization, presentation, and extras in the appropriate boxes during the speech. You can fill notes on praise and suggestions either during the speech or as you prepare notes.
Experiment with the way you use the boxes. You might list points to praise down from the top and suggestions up from the bottom. The organization section might work best simply by scratching the outline as the speech is presented. You might want to subdivide presentation skills into individual skills so you remember to think about each. Different ideas work for different people. Your goal is to have everything you might want to say about a speech on one piece of paper.
Finally, it’s important to remember that COPE is a model for analysis of a speech. It doesn’t lead directly to what you do when you present your evaluation. With practice, you should have several points worth making as the speaker finishes his speech. How do you turn that into an evaluation?
Keep in mind that three minutes will give you enough time to share one idea with the speaker. It will not allow more. If there was only one thing you coulod bring to the speaker's attention, what would it be? That's yourmessage. Stick to it.
Conclusion
The past few pages have described what the COPE model is trying to do and why it might help you avoid becoming that deer in the headlights. Whether you use the model or not, your goal is the same: give encouraging, helpful specific evaluations that help speakers and inspire others.
Please look in other files for specific recommendations on how to evaluate speeches for each of the categories in the model.
Nothing. If matters have gone this far, it’s too0 late – you’re venison. The correct answer, the only answer, is to not get in that situation to begin with. Arrive earl, talk with the speaker, and – failing all else – have a model ready to apply to a speech.
A model is a tool for taking something complicated and reducing it to something you can work with. We have a model of the way cars operate that lets us start, drive, and refuel a car we’ve never seen with relative confidence. We may not know how to open the hood, or what to do once it is opened, but we can use our model of the way cars are built to get what we need to do done.
For evaluations, I use a model I call COPE , an acronym for Content, Organization, Presentation, and Extras. I like it because it focuses on the same elements a speaker uses to build a speech in the first place. This gives me a common frame of reference with the speaker that I can count on being there even if I’m not fully prepared. Beyond that, I can use it to evaluate my own speeches.
The Origin of COPE
Take a look at a judge’s ballot for a speech contest. You can use either the International Speech Contest ballot or the Humorous Speech Contest ballot – they are similar enough to one another for this purpose. They have several criteria, but the criteria can be grouped into four broad categories – content, organization, presentation skills, and other criteria.
I realized early on that if I was going to compete, I should look at each criterion a judge would use and do what I could to maximize the score (or minimize deductions) he would give me. If I was going to take a risk on how a judge might interpret something, I wanted to do it deliberately. Why would anyone do anything else?
It may occur to you that an evaluation should be based on the evaluation contest ballot. This is certainly true for the evaluation contest, but in my opinion it doesn’t help me build a model. That is, it can guide what I’m expected to do but doesn’t suggest things I should talk about. The speech contest ballots direct attention to the elements of a good speech, but there’s still a problem.
In a contest, you get five minutes to prepare your notes for an evaluation. At a club meeting, you may get a bit more, but time is limited and you get exactly one chance to do it. Judges can complete a ballot in a minute or so because they are interested only in scoring. Preparing an evaluation takes longer, and the judge’s ballot has too many categories. I decided to simplify the model.
Instead of listing all the criteria, I chose to identify four categories.
· Content – what does the speech have to say?
· Organization – how to the parts of the speech fit together?
· Presentation Skills – what did he speaker do?
· Extras – everything else, including features that made the speech unique.
Just as I can count on a car to have a steering wheel, an ignition key, an accelerator and a brake, I can count on a speech to have these elements. If I can say something useful about those elements, I can give a useful, if not inspired, evaluation. Let’ take a brief look at each of the four categories in turn.
Content
Every speech should have something to say. An informative speech has facts, a persuasive speech has arguments, an entertaining speech has stories, a humorous speech has anecdotes. A great speech probably has them all. If a speech has a message, that message is its content. The content is a speech’s primary deliverable – the reason a listener should give time to the speaker.
Even if you aren’t an expert on the subject matter, you can evaluate content. Do the facts appear to support the speaker’s point of view? Do they appear to contradict each other? If a logical deduction is being attempted, was everything you needed there? Did the speaker talk over your head? What did you learn? An evaluation can attempt to address any of these questions about content, and more.
When selecting items to present in your evaluation, make a conscious decision about content. A new speaker focusing on organization or presentation at a speech for the club may have no use for a Venn diagram showing a hole in his logic. If he’s planning to give that same speech in a context where lives and fortunes are at stake, content flaws may be the most important advice you can give. This problem shows up most frequently when a speaker cuts out pieces to stay within time. That’s his choice, but he should know the omission was detected.
Organization
The third speech in the basic manual is an exercise in organizing a speech, but every speech needs it. At its simplest, a speech has an opening, a body and a closing. The obvious way to build organization into a speech is to start with an outline. The goal in organizing a speech is to get the listener to follow the presentation.
Evaluate a speech’s organization for its effectiveness. Can you identify the speech’s outline? Were you surprised by something in the middle because the opening failed to prepare you? Did the ending tie up the loose ends created in the body? Was there a way you’d reorganize the outline to make a key point more effective? The best possible speech for a situation starts with the best possible outline. This applies equally well to your speeches and can be analyzed from a pap[r draft. Have you got the best outline possible?
Presentation Skills
Content and organization can be examined from the printed transcript of a speech. You can only evaluate the presentation skills of a speech by looking at the speech itself. The C&L manual has a number of parts dedicated to improving presentation skills:
· Gestures, facial expressions, and eye contact (project 4).
· Vocal variety (project 5)
· Word selection (project 6)
· Props (project 8)
· Persuasion (project 9)
This is the area where the COPE Model wants you to think about those things you’d usually discuss during an evaluation. The other parts get you to look into issues you might not otherwise consider – presentation skill evaluation is what most members need the most help with. Remember that whether your intent is praise or suggestions, the points you make should be specific and helpful.
Extras
What’s the one thing that made this speech unique? What’s the one thing y0u want to make sure you cover in the evaluation? What did the speaker do that really brought the audience into the speech? What opportunity did the speaker miss to accomplish this? For things like this, and everything not yet covered, I use the extras category.
In the few minutes you have to prepare an evaluation, you won’t be able to fit everything you want to say into one of the first three categories. The categories are there to help you think of things to say—if you know what you want to say, categorizing it isn’t important.
Using the Model
Create and label six boxes on a page – see the example on the next page. This gives you space to put notes on content, organization, presentation, and extras in the appropriate boxes during the speech. You can fill notes on praise and suggestions either during the speech or as you prepare notes.
Experiment with the way you use the boxes. You might list points to praise down from the top and suggestions up from the bottom. The organization section might work best simply by scratching the outline as the speech is presented. You might want to subdivide presentation skills into individual skills so you remember to think about each. Different ideas work for different people. Your goal is to have everything you might want to say about a speech on one piece of paper.
Finally, it’s important to remember that COPE is a model for analysis of a speech. It doesn’t lead directly to what you do when you present your evaluation. With practice, you should have several points worth making as the speaker finishes his speech. How do you turn that into an evaluation?
- Your notes provide the content of your evaluation. What are the points you want to make? Pick the vital one, save the others for discussion later.
- What order do you want to present the points in? Number the items on your sheet or copy them onto a blank page. If something comes to mind as an opening or closing, use it. In the worst case, you still have a minimal organization to your evaluation.
- Pick an attitude to use during your evaluation. If you sopund upbeat, the speaker will feel it. This may be the safest for most evaluations, but there are times when a conversational or tutorial tone might be appropriate.
- Was there some point in the speech that reminded you of something worth a mention? Some personal experience you want to share with the speaker and audience? In short, in the precious second you have left, is there any way to favorably distinguish your evaluation from the one someone else would make?
- In terms of the presentation itself, many people like to use the sandwich model – encouragement, followed by suggestions and finishing with praise. It can and does work well in many circumstances. The key is that if the speaker doesn’t like the meat he won’t like the sandwich – suggestions need to be positive, helpful, and specific.
Conclusion
The past few pages have described what the COPE model is trying to do and why it might help you avoid becoming that deer in the headlights. Whether you use the model or not, your goal is the same: give encouraging, helpful specific evaluations that help speakers and inspire others.
Please look in other files for specific recommendations on how to evaluate speeches for each of the categories in the model.
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