Using funhouse mirrors to evaluate your speechwriting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ada Community library branch closest to me is a couple miles away on Lake Hazel Road. But another branch is a couple miles north of it on Victory Road. Recently I visited that branch to look for new books and movie DVDs. I also looked on the shelves for books about public speaking, whose call number is 808.51. Just to the left under 808.02 I found an interesting 1999 paperback book by Eric Maisel titled Deep Writing: 7 Principles that bring ideas to life. There is a brief article by Heather Grove at Errant Dreams on June 20, 2006 about it titled “Deep Writing: 7 Principles that bring ideas to life,” Eric Maisel. I skimmed through the book, and was intrigued by the following section on pages 124 to 128:

 

“FUNNY MIRRORS

 

I recommend the following special way of evaluating your work. It can feel strange at first, because it involves a process that is intuitive and impressionistic, but once you master it you can learn what you need to know about your writing in almost an instant. I call this process funny mirrors.

 

Imagine that you’ve taken your work to a surrealist amusement park, and you discover a funhouse there. You go inside and encounter a long corridor lined with mirrors on both sides. On one side are mirrors with names: the mirror of the adjective, the mirror of the original idea, the mirror of the living thing, and so on. On the other side are mirrors that have a place on them for you to inscribe your own names: the mirror of Editor Jane, the mirror of the German-American reader, the mirror of the subplot, and so on.

 

When you hold up your work to one of these mirrors, you see only and exactly what that mirror reflects. In the first mirror you might encounter a talking head, in the second an image or a scene, in the third a phrase written out in script. Sometimes nothing will appear, a nothing full of information, as when you hold up your work to the marketplace mirror and the mirror can find nothing in your work with commercial appeal. Sometimes there are question marks, exclamation points, or strange squiggles in need of deciphering. This is a surrealistic funhouse, after all, and sometimes what you see will need interpreting.

 

The following are the named mirrors:

 

The Mirror of the Adjective

When you hold your work up to this mirror, you get back a single word: dark, confused, rushed, sentimental, stiff, clever, simplistic, elegant, unflinching, detached, depressing, deep, commercial. This is the mirror’s understanding – that is, your intuitive understanding – of your work’s current state, summed up in a single word.

 

The Mirror of the Original Idea

Your piece of writing started somewhere, with a feeling, an image, an idea. This mirror will reflect back to you insights about whether and to what extent the work is still harboring that original idea and is still guided by it. You might see a tiny dot: all that remains of your original idea. You might see an abstract painting: the idea gone wild, fragmented and mutated in the writing.

 

The Mirror of the Living Thing

In this mirror you get a sense of your work’s organic growth: whether it is growing tall and spidery, short and squat, spare and anemic. It may have nothing of the original idea left in it, but may still be a healthy, thriving organism, growing with its own fine logic.

 

The Mirror of Alternatives

In this mirror you get a snapshot of how your work might look if written differently. This mirror is invaluable: you get to see powerful alternatives that might have eluded your vision because of

 your focus on the work-as-it-is. Each time you hold up the work you see another alternative: how the book might look if narrated omnisciently, or if Sally told the story instead of Harry, or if Sally’s best friend did the telling.

 

The Mirror of Shape and Form

Every piece of writing has its own shape, its own architecture. In this mirror you might see reflected a skyscraper with the top fifty stories separated from the bottom fifty by a jarring gap of open air. Your book may be missing the middle chapter that connects the first half with the second. You might see a Calder mobile, which reminds you that the twittering bird chapter early on needs balancing with a meditation on the lightness of being.

    

The Mirror of the Ideal Reader

In this mirror a face appears and chats with you. He or she is serious, respectful, intimate, and understands your intentions but also has his or her own ideas about what is or isn’t working. If you hold your work up a second time, a different ideal reader may appear, one with a different history and different tastes but one still absolutely on your side and interested in seeing your work succeed.

 

Here are ten more mirrors:

 

The Mirror of the Typical Reader

The Mirror of Narrative Flow

The Mirror of Rhetorical Power

The Mirror of Intention

The Mirror of Voice

The Marketplace Mirror

The Mirror of Mystery

The Mirror of Grandeur

The Mirror of Truth

The Mirror of Goodness

 

Can you imagine how each of these mirrors works? What do you see reflected in each of them?

 

When you want to know something in addition to the information available in the named mirrors, walk down the other side of the corridor. There stand the mirrors waiting to be named by you. You might hold your work up to a mirror you call Mary and get a short, important answer about whether Mary is an effective character or a distraction. You might hold your work up to a mirror you call Dialogue and learn that your character John is making boring speeches and that Howard is barely grunting. You might hold the work up to a mirror you call Ending and learn whether your whisper of an ending is necessary, a problem, or both.

 

When you’re working with an editor, then naturally you will want to add an Editor mirror to your funhouse array. When you hold your work up to this mirror you get to hear your editor’s thoughts about the book. Editor Jane appears and says, ‘Darn it boy, didn’t we discuss this? I wanted much more action and much less philosophizing!’ With this mirror you foretell editorial objections and nip problems in the bud by engaging in dialogue with your intuition. This mirror alone is worth the price of admission.

 

Visit this funhouse when you want to evaluate your work. Use exactly as many mirrors as you need. Invent the ones that will help you the most, creating custom-tailored mirrors that answer your most pressing questions. Have you written several short stories and wonder if they amount to a collection? Invent a mirror. Is your self-help book helpful enough? Invent a mirror. See what there is to be seen.”

 

The mirrors at Science City in Calcutta came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

More about active listening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Carpenter was Toastmaster for the October 16, 2024 of the Pioneer Toastmasters Club in Boise. His theme was active listening. I was Table Topics Master, so I had to come up with a half-dozen questions about that topic. I emailed Matt that I had blogged about active listening in a post on August 8, 2021 titled Learning to listen actively. In that post I had linked to a two-page pdf article from the Office of the Ombuds at Boston University from October 2016 titled Active Listening. I suggested that Matt might use it as a handout, and he shrunk both pages and put it on the back of the meeting agenda. The first page lists four categories:

 

Paraphrasing

Clarifying

Reflecting

Summarizing

 

Each is discussed succinctly in a table listing What It’s Called, How to Do It, Why Do It, and Examples of Active Listening Responses. Toastmasters International has a level 3 project on Active Listening in their current Pathways educational program, but it is more vague than the Boston University article.

 

Then I decided to search for more recent information about active listening. There is a 2023 book by Heather R. Younger titled The Art of Active Listening: How people at work feel heard, valued, and understood. She has a 9 page pdf article titled The Cycle of Active Listening: Action planning guide with bonus quiz. She describes a loop with five steps (as shown below):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recognize the Unsaid

Seek to Understand

Decode

Act

Close the Loop

 

Her approach also is discussed at a Carnegie Mellon University article under Civility Initiatives titled What is active listening?

 

There is yet another article by Mary at InPowerCoaching on May 10, 2023 titled Effective listening skills for working on a technical project and to build a collaborative culture. She discusses a method by Julian Treasure called RASA, which stands for:

 

Receive

Appreciate

Summarize

Ask Questions.

 

RASA also is discussed in a five-page pdf article from Julian Treasure. And there is a 29 minute Think Fast Talk Smart podcast by Matt Abrahams at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on November 7, 2023 titled Communication Means Paying attention: The Four Pillars of Active Listening.

 

There is an exhaustively detailed 43-page article by Lindsey P. Gustafson, Aric Short, and Neil W. Hamilton at the Santa Clara Law Review for 2022 titled Teaching and Assessing Active Listening as a Foundational Skill for Lawyers as Leaders, Counselors, Negotiators, and Advocates. They describe how to evaluate understanding of listening via a rubric (evaluation guide) with four sub-competencies as follows:

 

First sub-competency: Active listeners assess and accurately allocate resources necessary to the conversation

 

Second sub-competency: Active listeners work to create a shared understanding with the speaker by considering both the speaker’s and the listener’s lenses and how they may differ

 

Third sub-competency: Active listeners work to increase shared understanding with verbal and nonverbal cues

 

Fourth sub-competency: Active listeners move to a response only after fully exploring and understanding the speaker’s meaning

 

Finally, in 2020 there is an entire book by Debra L Worthington and Graham D. Bodie titled The Handbook of Listening.

 

My cartoon combined two on listening and an ears frame from Openclipart.

 

You can’t please everyone – Saturday Night Live’s Jebidiah Atkinson critiques great speeches

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On September 17, 2024 at his Writing Boots blog David Murray posted on Next! My reactions to political punditry – professional, and amateur – that somehow *always* makes things even worse. He embedded a smarmy decade-old five-minute YouTube video: Saturday Night Live Weekend Update: Jebidiah Atkinson on Great Speeches.

  

The Saturday Night Live Wiki page on Jebidiah Atkinson explains he is an 1860s newspaper critic who didn’t like Lincoln’s Gettysburg address or several other well-known speeches. And an article by Doug Stewart at Historynet on July 6, 2017 titled Unimpressed with The Address has more details.

 

Another 5-min video from Saturday Night Live titled Weekend Update Rewind: Jebidiah Atkinson Reviews Television Shows has him lamenting that all TV is excrement.

 

There is still another 6-min video titled Weekend Update: Jebidiah Atkinson on Holiday Movies where he attacks classic holiday TV specials: Charlie Brown Christmas Special, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, etc.

 

The thumb down cartoon was adapted from one at Openclipart.  

 

Rubrics for evaluating informative and persuasive speeches from the National Communication Association

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In education jargon a rubric is a set of criteria for assessing a type of work. Back on May 8, 2010 I blogged about Rubrics and figuring out where you are. In that post I discussed a general Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form available from the National Communication Association (NCA). NCA also has two other more specific rubrics which you can download, covering informative and persuasive speeches.

 

Their two-page Informative Speech Rubric has six sections (totaling 100 points) covering the following topics:

 

Outline: (10 points) Outline format, references

 

Introduction (20 points) Attention getter, Background and audience relevance, Speaker credibility, Thesis, Preview

 

Body (30 points) Main points, Evidence and Support, Organization, Language, Transitions, Sources

 

Conclusion (10 points) Signals conclusion, Reviews purpose/thesis and main points

 

Delivery (15 points) Eye contact, Verbal delivery, Nonverbal delivery

 

Overall Impression (15 points) Topic, Adapted to Audience, Preparation and Practice

 

And their two-page Persuasive Speech Rubric also has six sections (totaling 100 points) covering the following topics:

 

Outline: (10 points) Outline format, references

 

Introduction (20 points) Attention getter, Background and audience relevance, Speaker credibility, Thesis, Preview

 

Body (30 points) Main points, Evidence and Support, Organization, Language, Transitions, Sources, Toulmin, Persuasive Appeals

 

Conclusion (10 points) Signals conclusion, Reviews purpose/thesis and main points, Call to action, Memorable close

 

Delivery (15 points) Eye contact, Verbal delivery, Nonverbal delivery

 

Overall Impression (15 points) Topic, Adapted to Audience, Preparation and Practice, Time Limits, Quality and relevance of aids, Was persuasive

 

These rubrics are referenced in their web pages under Basic Course & General Education under a tab for Academic & Professional Resources, then Teaching and Learning, and finally Assessing the basic course.

 

Toastmasters doing informative or persuasive speeches may find these rubrics useful, since they are more detailed than those in Pathways, like one for Persuasive Speaking.

 

My You Are Here image was adapted from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Four Fresh Approaches for Providing Effective Evaluation Rather Than a Sandwich

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One common method for providing feedback (evaluations) is the “sandwich method.” For example, a brief article at the bottom of page 13 in the July 2023 issue of Toastmaster magazine titled Expert Advice for Evaluations says:  

 

“Many Toastmasters use the ‘sandwich method,’ which layers the evaluation into three parts: what the speaker did well, suggestions on areas for improvement, and an upbeat conclusion that encourages the speaker to continue growing in their chosen path.”

 

An article by Melinda McGuire in Faculty Focus on April 24, 2024 titled Is the Sandwich Method Getting Stale? Fresh Approaches to Providing Effective Student Feedback discusses four other approaches:

 

SBI Model: Situation, Behavior and Impact

COIN Model: Context, Observation, Impact, Next Steps

GROW Model: Goal, Reality. Options, Way Forward

CEDAR Model: Context, Example, Diagnosis, Actions, Review

 

An image of a peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich came from Evan-Amos at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Michael Knowles didn’t like Beyoncé's revised version of the Dolly Parton song Jolene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Knowles didn’t like Beyoncé's version of the Dolly Parton song, Jolene. He tweeted:

 

“Beyoncé's ‘Jolene’ cover is BAD.”

 

But it wasn’t just a cover - it was a revision. At YouTube you can watch lyric videos of both Dolly’s version, and Beyoncé's version. And at NME on April 1, 2024 there is an article by Hollie Geraghty titled Beyonce gives Dolly Parton sole songwriting credit on ‘Jolene’ that is subtitled The country icon previously gave Beyoncé's new version her seal of approval.

 

I don’t think we should we pay much attention to a negative evaluation by a political commentator like Mr. Knowles. He’s not an expert on music or songwriting. His review reminded me of my December 28, 2012 blog post titled Soapbox Guru is a web site for posting videos of speeches or presentations and receiving evaluations. In it I mentioned that back on January 23, 2010 consulting expert Alan Weiss had panned Taylor Swift’s live performance on the Help for Haiti telethon. A week later Taylor won four Grammy Awards – Album of the Year and Best Country Album for Fearless, and Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance for White Horse.

 

The thumbs down was adapted from this image at Wikimedia Commons.

 

One way to classify and deal with your critics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I saw an article by Bill Abbate at Newsbreak on August 6, 2022 titled Dealing with critics. He illustrated it with his version of a 2x2 table originated by Ann Freidman in an undated article about online criticism on April 29, 2013 as The Disapproval Matrix. My PowerPoint color version is shown above. The vertical axis has IRRATIONAL and RATIONAL, the horizontal axis has people who DON’T KNOW YOU and KNOW YOU. (Freidman’s original has KNOW YOU at the left, and DON’T KNOW YOU at the right. Another article by Forrest Wickman at Slate on April 30, 2013 is titled “The Disapproval Matrix,” a handy chart for understanding your haters).

 

Don’t waste time paying much attention to your irrational critics – HATERS and FRENEMIES. Pay some attention to your rational CRITCS, and a lot of attention to to your LOVERS.

 

Back on December 20, 2016 I blogged about Bursting the overblown claim that 95% of Americans fear public speaking at some level. I got a HATER comment falsely accusing me of just writing ‘word salad’ (nonsense).

 

The University of Arkansas has a free ebook by Lynn Meade titled Advanced Public Speaking. Chapter 7 in it is all about Giving and receiving feedback: It is harder than you think.

 

Are there really 110 public speaking skills? Probably not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the April 2022 issue of Toastmaster magazine there is an article on pages 18 and 19 by David J. P. Phillips titled Harness 110 Speaking Skills. Page 19 begins with a large matrix titled 110 Steps of Communication that has 9 rows and 13 columns. (If that matrix had all items there would be 117 steps). Groups of columns are divided into six categories: Nervousness, Voice, Body Language, Facial Expressions, Language, and Ultimate Level. At the beginning of the article there also is a link to Toastmasters podcast #202, titled The ‘Periodic Table’ of Communication Skills – David J P Phillips.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a quick glance at that matrix (shown above), under Voice, reveals a big difference between a Step and a Skill. Control of Pace is a Skill, as is Control of Volume. But there instead are three Steps for Pace – Slow Pace (8), Fast Pace (9), and Base Pace (10). There also are at least four Steps for Volume – Base Volume (14), Varied Volume (15), Volume Increase (17), and Volume Decrease (18). For Pausing there are another four Steps: Unfunctional Pauses (19), Relaxation Pause (20), Strategic Pause (21), and Effect Pause (22). For Head Angle there are three Steps: Empowering Head Angle(61), Unfunctional Head Angle (62), and Standard Head Angle (63).     

 

The seventh paragraph in the article has link (highlighted in blue as 110 core skills) to Mr. Phillips 2018 TEDxZagreb talk titled The 110 Techniques of Communication and Public Speaking, which also can be found on YouTube. But when you look closely at 3:17, you will find that he has a different set of 110 items in that matrix. Let’s take a look at them in detail, with information from the 2022 article shown first, followed by that from the 2018 TEDx Talk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entries for Nervousness are substantially the same. The words go with the icons.

 

Nervousness

Swaying 1; Swaying 1

Squirming 2; Squirming 2

Irrational movement 3; Irrational movement 3

Stroke/Figdet (sic) 4; Patting/Stroking 4

Flight/Freeze 5; Flight stance 5

Unbalanced Feet 6; Unbalanced Foot 6

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entries for Voice have differences. Prosody and Voice Climax aren’t in the TEDx Talk matrix.

 

Voice

Register/Pitch 7; Pitch range 27

Slow pace 8; Tempo 7 to 11

Fast pace 9; Tempo 7 to 11

Base pace 10; Tempo 7 to 11

Timbre 11;

Emhpasis (sic) 12; Correct emphasis 12

Playful emphasis 13; Playful emphasis 13

Base volume 14; Base volume 14

Varied volume 15; Varied volume 15

Up-Down talk 16; Volume decline 19

                   ; Normal volume 16

Volume increase 17; Volume increase 17

Volume decrease 18; Volume decrease 18

Unfunctional pauses 19; Unfunctional pauses 20

Relaxation pause 20; Relaxation pause 23

Strategic pause 21; Thought pause 21

Effect pause 22; Effect pause 22

Vocal fry 23; Cord vibration 24

Elongated vouls (sic) 24; Elongated vouls 26

Filler sounds 25; Filler sounds 25

Prosody 26;

Melody 27; Melody 28

                   ; Pitch range 27

Articulation 28; Articulation 29

Voice climax 29;

Dramatising 30; Dramatising 31

               ; Staccato rhythm 30

Language change 31; Language change 32

Sound effects 32; Sound effects 33

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entries for Body Language also have differences. The section about Synchronicity in the article mentions five levels (or layers): voice, body language, gestures, facial expressions, and words (aka language), but the graphic does not bother to separate Gestures from Body Language.

 

Body Language

Confident posture 33; Confident posture 35

Neutral posture 34; Neutral position 34

Base pace 35;

Affect 36; Ticks 37

          ; Amplifying posture 36

Feet 37; Feet planted 38

Hips 38; Hip position 39

Angle 39; Angle 40

Relaxed 40; Relaxed movement 41

Dramatising 41; Dramatising 42

Shrugging shoulders 42; Shrugging shoulders 43

Intensity variation 43; Intensity variation 44

Functional (gestures?) 44; Functional 45

Smooth 45; Smooth 46

Distinct 46; Distinct 47

Adapted size 47; Adapted size 48

Standard pace 48; Standard pace 49

Adapted pace 49; Adapted pace 50

Full out 50;

              ; Dysfunctional gestures 51

Pointing 51; Pointing 52

Volume/size 52; Volume/size 53

Regulators 53; Regulators 54

Rhythm of speech 54; Rhythm of speech 55

Signs 55; Signs 56

Imaginary props 56;

                ; Ideaograph 57

Drawings 57; Drawings 58

Affect display 58; Emotional expressions 59

Sounds 59; Sounds 60

Progression 60; Progression 61

Empowering head angle 61; Empowering head angle 62

Unfunctional head angle 62; Dysfunctional head angle 63

Standard head angle 63; Standard head angle 64

Amplifying head movement 64; Amplifying head movement 65

Stage presence 65; Owns the stage 66

Anchoring 66; Step forward 69

Vertical movement 67; Vertical movement 67

Power areas 68;

Horizontal movement 69; Horizontal movement 68

Bent knees 70; Bent knees 71

          ; Strategic positions 70

Amplification 71; Amplification 72

General eye contact 72; General eye contact 73

Sweeping 73; Swipe 74

Focus 74; Focus 75

Attire 75; Functional 76

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entries for Facial Expressions are substantially the same.

 

Facial Expressions

Neutral 76; Neutral 77

Matching 77; Matching 78

Dramatising 78; Dramatising 79

Mouth 79; Mouth 80

Eyebrows 80; Eyebrows 81

Forehead 81; Forehead 82

Eyes 82; Eyes 83

Self laugh 83; Self laugh 84

Straight face 84; Serious Face 85

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entries for Language are very similar.

 

Language

Adapted 85; Adapted 86

Flow 86; Flow 87

Strong rhetorics 87; Strong rhetorics 88

Filler words 88; Filler words 89

Negations 89; Negations 90

Repetitive words 90; Repetitive words 91

Absolute words 91; Impossible words 92

Strategic 92; Visual language 93

Valued 93; Evaluative 94

Hexacolon 94; Hexacolon 95

Tricolon 95; Tricolon 96

Repetition 96; Repetition 97

Anaphora 97; Anaphor 98

Epiphora 98; Epiphor 99

Alliteration 99; Alliteration 100

Correctio 100; Correctio 100

Climax 101; Climax 102

Anadiplosis 102; Anadiplosis 103

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entries for Ultimate Level are the same, except for the last two.

 

Ultimate Level

Loves presenting 103; Loves presenting 104

Role playing 104; Roleplaying 105

Total Intensity transition 105; Total Intensity transition 106

Acts out the obvious 106; Acts out the obvious 107

Present and authentic 107; Present and authentic 108

Synchronicity 108; Synchronicity 109

Contrast 109;

                      ;Divergent 110

Visualization 110;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is missing from his classification? Visual Aids such as Blackboards, Flip Charts, PowerPoint, Props, and Whiteboards. Under Body Language he only includes Imaginary Props 56 (like the finger phone handset shown above). In the podcast he mentions also having 136 Spices, which is where he puts Visual Aids. His total then is 246 Steps and Spices - a very long list to navigate.

 

 

UPDATE: June 26, 2022

 

On June 25 at The Official Toastmasters International Members Group on LinkedIn there was a comment by Yamilet Ramierez:

 

Richard Garber: one heck of a list, very long list. Which would you say are the most important: Stage presence, posture, volume, cadence, story line, flow and closing. Would you agree?

 

I don’t agree those seven necessarily are the most important. I think both the opening and closing are about equally important (primacy and recency), but neither is explicitly on Mr. Phillips list of 110 Steps. He does mention a peak: Voice climax 29, Progression 60, and Climax 101. And he mentions Flow 86.   

 

Rather than starting from scratch (reinventing the wheel) Mr. Phillips could better have begun from the 2007 second edition of the NCA Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form. It has four items each for Preparation and Content and Presentation and Delivery. On the Holistic Form all eight are:  

 

Chooses and narrows topic appropriately. Communicates thesis/specific purpose. Provides appropriate supporting material (including presentational aids). Uses an effective organizational pattern. Uses language appropriately. Uses vocal variety in rate, pitch, and intensity. Uses appropriate pronunciation, grammar, and articulation. Uses physical (nonverbal) behaviors that support the verbal message. 

 

Then he could have expanded each item into a series of skills.

 

 

 

Does your speech have ‘legs’? Erik Palmer’s PVLEGS is a checklist for evaluating speaking by public school students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the May 22 issue of Educational Leadership there is an excellent article by Erik Palmer titled Speaking Out on pages 62 to 66. He discusses teaching public speaking in schools, and his very useful PVLEGS acronym for a checklist (a rubric) where P is poise, V is voice, L is life, E is eye contact, G is gestures, and S is speed. Figure 1 has it listed as follows (and also can be downloaded as a .pdf file):

 

PVLEGS Checklist for Presentation Delivery

 

Poise

I appear calm and confident.

There are no distracting behaviors.

I recorded myself and watched for fidgeting, shuffling, and odd tics.

 

Voice

My voice is just right for the space – not too loud or too soft.

Every word can be heard.

I don’t mumble or blur words together.

 

Life

I have feeling/emotion/passion in my voice during the entire talk.

Listeners can hear that I care about my topic.

I have appropriate life in my voice.

(Enthusiasm for things I’m excited about;

sadness for sad topics, anger for upsetting things; etc).

 

Eye Contact

I look at every listener at some point during my talk.

My eye contact is natural and fluid.

If I use notes, I only glance at them quickly to remind myself of key points.

I talk to my audience, rather than read at them.

 

Gestures

My hand gestures add to my words.

Emphatic hand gestures make key points stand out.

Descriptive hand gestures make it easy to visualize my talk.

My face is full of expression. Facial gestures add to my words.

I lean in, shrug, and use other body motions to engage the audience.

 

Speed

I speed up, slow down, and pause where appropriate to add to my message.

I change pace for effect.

 

PVLEGS appeared back in 2010 in his book Well Spoken: teaching speaking to all students. There is a two-and-a-half minute YouTube video introduction. PVLEGS might be used in a rubric for multiple evaluations by advanced Toastmasters clubs, a topic I blogged about on May 2, 2022.

 

The legs cartoon was adapted from this cartoon at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Advantages of receiving multiple speech evaluations in Advanced Toastmasters Clubs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Advanced Toastmasters club provides a speaker with more challenging speech evaluations than a regular club. As shown above, the Advanced evaluations often include a round-robin that provides multiple viewpoints. There also may be two or four evaluations, with each evaluator told ahead of time to focus his attention on a specific area or areas. An article by Bill Brown in Toastmaster Magazine on August 2018 titled Are You Ready for an Advanced Club? discusses some other formats for evaluations.

 

Treasure Valley Advanced Toastmasters Club was chartered in June 2012. From August in 2019 to March of 2022 I was a club member. It met once a month on the evening of the third Monday. I served as their last Sergeant at Arms for their meetings from July 2021 to March 2022, when they disbanded.

 

 

SPEECH EVALUATION AT A REGULAR CLUB

 

The standard oral evaluation for a speech at a Toastmasters club takes two to three minutes. It is based on a form from the Pathways educational program, similar to this one for the Ice Breaker. There are three general comments: You excelled at, You may want to work on, and To challenge yourself. There also usually are seven (or more) specific items to be evaluated in writing on a scale from 1 to 5:

 

Clarity: Spoken language is clear and easily understood

Vocal Variety: Uses tone, speed, and volume as tools

Eye Contact: Effectively uses eye contact to engage audience

Gestures: Uses physical gestures effectively

Audience Awareness: Demonstrates awareness of audience engagement and needs

Comfort Level: Appears comfortable with the audience

Interest: Engages audience with interesting, well-constructed content

 

Some of those seven items typically wind up in the oral evaluation. They are all the audience learns about.  Of course, the speaker could email the evaluator and tell him which other items he could concentrate on. And if he has a mentor, then he also could ask his mentor to evaluate the speech using a second copy of that Pathways form. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Members of the audience also have a Ballots and Brief Evaluations form (Item 163) with perforated slips for casting their votes for Best Speaker, etc. As shown above, that form also has a little 1-1/ 4’ by 4 1/ 4” slip for giving brief comments to a speaker. A speaker might get six to ten of them.

 

 

SPEECH EVALUATION AT AN ADVANCED CLUB

 

 

Advanced Toastmasters clubs provide a more detailed evaluation. As previously mentioned, there may be a normal evaluation followed by a round-robin evaluation. But there also may be two or four detailed and focused evaluations (followed by a round-robin).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Communication Association (NCA) has a 2007 document titled The Competent Speaker Speech Evaluation Form which can be used as the basis for conducting those detailed evaluations. As shown above, it includes eight competencies (topics). (There also is a holistic form, which I will describe later).  

 

 

 

 

 

Two Detailed Evaluations – like a Tag Team

 

One possible division is a pair of evaluations, like tag-team wrestling. A web page from The Northern Stars Advanced Club describes some possibilities:

 

Two evaluators per speech

Two evaluators per speech, one focusing on content and one on delivery

Two evaluators per speech, one focusing on visual and one on auditory

One evaluator and group verbal comments

One evaluator and group written comments

One evaluator, and an evaluator for that evaluator

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For dividing the evaluations into two, one focused on content and one on delivery, we could start with the NCA Holistic Evaluation Form, as is shown above.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four Detailed Evaluations – like a Relay Race Team

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another possibility is four evaluations. One is the Manual evaluation, like at a regular club. The other three can be called visual, auditory (audio or verbal), and content. An article at District 32 on November 4, 2020 titled Give Yourself the Gift of an Advanced or Specialty Club about the Professionally Speaking club described four divisions. Another article by Judy Young at District 32 on October 30, 2021 titled Ready for an Advanced Club? discussed those four divisions being used a decade ago at PhD Speakers (now Beyond Excellence).  

 

Treasure Valley Advanced Club did four evaluations followed by a round-robin. They had used the following detailed description for how to conduct those four evaluations:

 

Verbal Evaluation: Imagine you were listening to this person’s speech on the radio. Focus on the auditory presentation of the speech. This may include things such as: Use of voice as a tool: pitch and range, vocal variety, pacing, voice modulation, etc. Language: verbal crutches, descriptive language, rhetorical devices, grammatical correctness, pronunciation, etc.

 

Visual Evaluation: Imagine watching the speaker while the volume was on mute. Focus on the physical presentation of the speech. This may include such things as: Stage presence, use of available space, eye contact, use of props, descriptive body language and gestures, purposeful movement, etc. Since you actually will be able to hear the speech, note if the visual message complements (rather than contradicts) the verbal message.

 

Content Evaluation: Imagine you were reading the script on paper (if there is one), or the outline, mind map or other structure. Focus on the material used in the speech. This may include such things as organization of information, opening, body and close, segues between portions of speech, use of anecdotal and supporting material, humor, citing source, etc. Was the material adequately edited for the allotted speech time?

 

Manual Evaluation:  Comments should focus on the objectives set forth in the manual or project description. 

 

The tag team wrestling graphic was assembled from images of Theobaud Bauer and Edwin Bibby, and the relay race adapted from this image of a vase, all at Wikimedia Commons.