Norman Vincent Peale, minister and author of “The Power of Positive Thinking”, once declared: “the trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism”. The majority of people do not take pleasure in receiving criticism; this is especially the case in the world of public speaking. Criticism in public speaking assists with refining skills and supports personal growth, but it is not without challenges. There are ways to overcome the challenges which accompany receiving and giving criticism. The ability to bounce back from criticism is a key skill amongst accomplished public speakers; they did not start out being the best public speakers. Being able to accept criticism is a difficult skill to learn, but it is imperative to the growth of a speaker. Criticism comes from the Latin word “criticus”, which means “to judge”. According to Joseph A. DeVito, author of “Essential Elements of Public Speaking”, speech criticism is “the process of evaluating a speech, of …show more content…
Through criticism, speakers learn what specific areas they need to improve on. These benefits stand twofold because the critic also learns from the experience. Devito points out, “when you give criticism….you’re telling the speaker that you’ve listened carefully and that you care enough about the speech and the speaker to offer suggestions for improvement” (39). By offering constructive suggestions, the critique is helping the speaker by providing a fresh perspective. Constructive criticism has rewards but it does not come without challenges, both for the critic and the speaker. As a speaker, it is grueling to work hard on a speech and be met with criticisms. It can be a challenging task to separate the criticism from self-worth. As a critic, it may feel embarrassing to offer criticism or the critic may feel awkward since they themselves are not an
“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”- Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill achieved success from failures, and he also achieved success through his speeches. His speeches are what contributed to his success during World War 2. His speeches follow the criteria of an effective speech. The criteria to critique a speech are to find the speech objectives, the audience and context of the speech, the speech content and structure, and analyzing the delivery skills and techniques. The speech objectives are to “educate, to motivate, to persuade, or to entertain” (Dlugan 1). The audience and context of a speech show “where and when the speech is being delivered” (Dlugan 1), and the features of the
Firstly , Tannen introduces the term “culture of critique” by beginning three successive paragraphs with the term so that the reader will not forget it. Tannen then identifies the problem presented by the “culture of critique”, that is, a tendency to attack the person making an argument, or misrepresenting the issue, rather than arguing against their position itself. She points out that instead of listening to reason, people who are caught up in the culture of critique debate as i...
Stosny states that “criticism fails because it embodies two of the things that human beings hate the most: it calls for submission, and we hate to submit and it devalues, and we hate to feel devalued” (Stosny). Furthermore, he argues that criticism is used as a form of “ego defense” when we feel devaluated by behavior or attitude as opposed to disagreeing with their behavior or attitude (Stosny). Tony Schwartz, author of the article “There’s No Such Thing as Constructive Criticism” for HarvardBusinessReview.com, says that criticism “challenges our sense of value” and “implies judgement and we all recoil feeling judged” (Schwartz). Schwartz reiterates the point that constructive criticism is a useful tool that isn’t working or doesn’t exist simply because people don’t know how to properly give or receive constructive criticism. To prove this, he lists three reasons why we assume constructive criticism doesn’t work while in reality it actually does. “The first mistake we often make is giving feedback when we are feeling that our own value is at risk. That’s a recipe for disaster, and it happens far more commonly than we think, or are aware” (Schwartz). To summarize this reason he listed, Schwartz states that when we feel like we’re being
In part two, Petersen talks about the description of a healthy style of communication. He suggests that those learning to improve his or ...
Feedback is a positive way to decide if your communication is effective and potentially useful. To get feedback, you could ask a colleague to watch over your discussions and ask them what you need to improve on and what your qualities are. You can also record your discussions and get multiple feedback by sharing your video among staff.
When many people write, including myself, they get attached to their writing. Although writing can be a personal thing, I’ve learned that it is important to step away from your paper, and take the feedback on an objective level. The first time I got feedback, I had an overwhelming urge to defend myself. I remember reading that my introduction wasn’t complete, and that my evidence wasn’t properly introduced. I wanted to walk up to those who critiqued my paper, and spit right in their faces. ‘How dare they say bad things about my paper?’ I thought to myself. From here, I went back into my essay, and looked at what they had told me were errors. It was then that I realized that they were right. My introduction needed more background information, and my evidence should have had more of an introduction. They weren’t trying to be mean; they were just helping me receive a better grade, by looking at my essay through an objective view. Now, I go out of my way to ask people for feedback, and tell them to be honest. I want my paper to be the very best it can be, so it isn 't helpful when people hold back. I now understand that those giving feedback aren’t insulting me, or the paper; they are just suggesting ways to improve, or enhance my ideas. Giving and receiving feedback is a hard, yet important skill to learn, and hope to continue improving in this
Eidenmuller, Michael E. Great Speeches for Better Speaking: Listen and Learn From America’s Most Memorable Speeches. New York: Mcgraw Hill, 2008. Google Books. Web. 4 September 2010.
Criticism could be either use in a positive way to improve or a negative way that can lower your self-esteem and cause stress anger or even aggression. When I was growing up I had to deal with criticism through school. People would say I was tall and skinny or my hair wasn’t real. My legs were so long that it was so hard to buy me any pants, once I made it to middle school. As a child my mother didn’t believe in adding chemicals to our hair, so I grew up with very natural and thick hair. Some people would ask me “Is that all you hair?” “Is that weave?” or some people would just run their fingers through my hair. I hated this criticism so bad that I would only want to wear my hair in a ponytail with a ball. I would beg and plead my mom to just let me cut my hair because I was sick of the
I tend to be quite critical of other speakers. Much of what I write is about what he or she
In life, we rarely have the chance for a do-over, but I feel like returning to college is mine. Throughout high school, my grades were never above average and until about a couple of years ago I considered myself to be unintelligent. What I failed to see was my level of commitment. Once I began applying myself, the grades earned reflected that. This concept coincides to my public speaking ability. Many students, including myself, walk into a speech class thinking that it will be the Easy A of the semester and quite frankly I devoted a good amount of time and hard work to earn my A’s and B’s for this course. Overall, my public speaking growth in terms of listenability were influenced by the following: the strategy keys in correctly engaging the audience; the structure keys appropriate for a speech versus a paper; the support keys by continually engaging the audience; and finally the style keys by practicing the use of body language and reducing the verbal junk.
Definitely a self-defeating behavior! What can you replace it with? The next time you are criticized, you decide to listen carefully, and if the criticism is valid, you ask the person what you can do to improve your performance.
I have also learned about different types of audiences and speeches including persuasive, informative, entertaining and delivering special occasion speeches. It came to my attention that whenever I was making these presentations or speeches, I needed to do so with confidence, consistence and practice before the actual presentation and completely eliminate the element of panic. It was also clear that capturing the attention of the audience and engaging them in the whole process, it was necessary to have a very strong introduction and also try and use visuals to deliver the message. It was therefore vital to respect each person’s diversity and cultural values (Lucas, 2011).
In public speaking I learned many types of concepts, theories and terms of communication. In concepts of publicly speaking there’s, relaxation, practice, credibility, attention getters, attire, organization, volume, emotion, audience relation, and movement. In my first speech, “The any old bag speech” I quickly learned the do’s, don’ts and concepts of my speech performance.
Some people experience feedback as pure criticism and don't want to hear it. Others see it as spiritually crushing; a confirmation of their worthlessness. Still others only
According to a 2001 Gallup poll, “more than 40% of Americans fear public speaking than death”, I was shocked to learn this statistics that I was not the only one. As I was pondering about what to write on my essay for my favorite school, I thought about my own childhood experience.