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In either your informative or your persuasive speech, you'll need to use a visual aid. Your
book talks about the different types of visual aids you can use and I will be paying attention
to what type of aid you use vs. what the best options for your particular speech would be,
so you definitely should be familiar with the different types of visual aids and strategies
for using them that your book discusses. In this presentation, I'm going to talk to you
about some of the common mistakes I see students make with their visual aids in hopes that
you won't repeat these mistakes in your speech.
You need to make sure that you practice handing your visual aid. You need to make sure that
you practice with it because most folks don't realize that the nerves associated with giving
speeches will impact their ability to hold onto things while speaking, but nerves do
have an impact. You don't want to drop something valuable or do anything else that takes your
audience's attention away from your speech. For example, when I was a graduate student
a student in a basic public speaking course taught by a friend was giving a speech on
fire safety. He didn't think about practicing with his visual aid and ended up spraying
the first few rows of his audience with a fire extinguisher! Be smarter than that student
and learn from his mistake. Practice with your visual aid, don't spray your audience
with dangerous chemicals!
Remember that the point of a visual aid is that folks need to be able to SEE it. So,
make sure you think about where you're going to stand when using your visual aid, especially
if it's some three dimensional object that you want people to see. You don't want to
turn and point to something on your visual aid so that your back is to your audience
and blocking one side of the room from seeing the visual aid. Think about where you need
to stand ahead of time so that you don't make this mistake.
If you need assistance from someone, plan for it ahead of time. I had a student once
who wanted to do a speech on hair weaving. She didn't get a volunteer ahead of time and
as a result, in the middle of her speech we waited for an uncomfortable minute or so for
someone to volunteer. The whole audience was uncomfortable and that minute seemed like
10 minutes. Finally, a nice person with long hair gave in and volunteered. But we were
all very uncomfortable, she was very embarrassed, and that minute or so counted against her
speech time, putting her over the time limit for the speech.
This is a very simple rule. If your visual aid isn't in use, we shouldn't see it. If
you're doing a Powerpoint presentation and talking in between 2 slides for 5 minutes,
don't leave slide #1 up the whole time, which will distract your audience. Put a blank slide
in between your two slides so that we seeing nothing until you're ready for us to see something.
If you're showing us a three dimensional object you need to make sure that the object is covered
by a towel or hidden in some other way until you're ready to talk about it. And once you've
talked about it, cover it back up.
People tend to use hand-outs when they want to give people extra information or when they
want to show people something like a small image that must be on paper. If you need to
use hand-outs, here's the best way to do it. Hand out the aid FACE DOWN at the beginning
of your speech, it won't count against your speech time. As you're handing it out, ask
the audience not to turn it over until you ask them to. Once you're ready for them to
see the aid, ask them to turn it over, talk through it, and then ask them to turn it back
over. Can you think of why you'd want to make sure people look at your hand-outs only when
you want them too? If you're thinking that you don't want them to ignore your speech
to read your hand-out, you'd be right! You want to minimize the chance that people will
ignore you in favor of looking at your hand-out and so using hand-outs in the manner I've
just explained will make it more likely that they'll listen to you while you're speaking
instead of paying attention to your hand-outs.
Unless it's an image that is originally in black and white, all visual aids should be
in color. It's too easy no, especially with products like Powerpoint and Prezi, to create
aids using colors. Even hand-outs should be run through color printers if there are colors
on the hand-out. Audiences expect color and you should deliver it when it's possible.
Also make sure that the colors contrast. Orange lettering on a yellow slide or sign isn't
going to be something that folks can read. So remember that the whole VISUAL part of
visual aids is the whole point, so you need to use colors that contrast so that people
can see your great information!
Have you heard of Murphy's law? It's the saying that if something can go wrong, it probably
WILL go wrong. Murphy's law goes double for media products. You can't control a power
loss, a projector bulb going out, or any other possible media problem outside your realm
of control. So make sure that you do two things if you're using media. First, if there's a
way to cover your bases should something go wrong, do it. For example, if you're giving
a speech with a powerpoint presentation, make hand-puts with your slides on them just in
case something goes wrong. Second, don't ever rely so much on some media element that you
can't do your speech without it. If you rely too heavily on some form of media and that
media doesn't come through for you, you're in deep trouble. So make sure that you don't
put yourself in that position. In our class, you don't have to make copies of powerpoint
presentations in case something goes wrong, but remember that when you're outside of class
and speaking professionally, you need to have a back-up plan.
As with concerns about contrasting colors, you also need to make sure that your visual
aids are large enough to be seen. Don't use images on a Powerpoint slide that are grainy
because you've used too small an image for the slide. If you have to use small images,
think about making them hand-outs instead. Again, a visual aid does you no good, and
can possibly even do you harm, if no one can see it.
Make sure that if you use any information or images from someone else, that you not
only cite that in your speech, but also on the visual aid. It helps people remember your
great sources choices, but also protects you from claims of academic dishonesty such as
plagiarism if you happen to forget to cite that source because have the source also written
on your visual aid.
Anything that is illegal generally is doubly illegal on state property. And at our college
no alcohol is allowed, so please don't even bring in empty bottles or cans. You will not
be able to continue your speech and will be sent from the classroom and reported if you
bring something like this into class.
Stunts are not visual aids. I once had a student build a pyramid of soda cans only to knock
them on the hard flooring for effect. He thought that was a good idea for getting attention
and a good idea for a visual aid. It DOES get attention, but it's not positive attention
you'll be getting. And visual aids should have something to do with your speech. In
other words, they should be RELEVANT to what you're discussing. In addition, visual aids
should add something to your speech. I once had a student doing an informative speech
on the history of McDonald's. That's a fine topic, but his posterboard was a picture of
the golden arches. Who doesn't know that this is the symbol for McDonald's? The visual aid
added nothing to his speech. I also had a student do a speech on the University of Georgia
mascot, UGA the bulldog. Great topic! But her visual aid was a stuffed UGA dog. Really?
Did she think that her classmates at the University of Georgia didn't already know what their
mascot looked like? It was a completely wasted opportunity. So remember, no stunts and make
sure that your visual aids are relevant and ADD something to your speech.
You also cannot bring any animals into the classroom. I'm sure your pet snake has never
gotten out of its cage before, but remember Murphy's law? Yep. It'll get out in our classroom.
People have fears and allergies associated with animals as well, so no animals, please.
You can use videos to show us animals if you need to do so for a speech.
Finally, no weapons of any kind are allowed. Again, let's go back to Murphy's law. Enough
said, right? No weapons at all.
That's it for visual aids. If you have questions about an aid you want to use or need help
in any way creating a visual aid, don't hesitate to let me know and we'll work on it together.
Please err on the side of asking me about your visual aid if you think that there might
be any problem at all with it.