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:

• 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?
  

Suggestions Based on Extras

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.
  

Conclusion

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.